[Dixielandjazz] Was Jazz ever popular music?

[Charles Suhor]

I'm not sure if we're disagreeing, either, Rocky. I just don't know 
what Ken Burns' researchers were counting as "jazz" in their report on 
record sales. In those days, as I noted earlier, innumerable 
ragtimey/pre-Mickey bands were working and recording and would almost 
surely be catalogued as jazz. The CD "JAzz the World Forgot: Jzz 
Classics of the 20s" (vol. 2, Yazoo 2025), is an interesting case in 
point. Some of it is jazz that's truly OKOM  (Clarence Williams with 
Bechet, Sam Morgan, Oliver) but there are lots of territory bands (and 
Johnny DeDroit out of N.O.) that have most if not all pre-jazz 
phrasing, whiney reeds, chunky rhythm--occasionally, a soloist who has 
a sense of the flow of jazz. I'm narrow enough to say that these are 
zippy, peppy, and hot-cha hot, but well over the line into genres other 
than the jazz that was coming from Oliver, Louis, Jelly, Bix, the NORK, 
etc. What was called jazz then embraced the good, the bad, and the 
corny, and the early jazz critics were the ones who elevated the good 
stuff.  Finally, Burns was himself a popularizer, and far from being 
right on many points. (Cheap shot. Sorry.)

Charlie


On Jan 11, 2007, at 4:14 PM, Rocky Ball wrote:

>
> Maybe I'm disagreeing with you, maybe not...
>
> BUT
>
> ...the PBS Ken Burns' JAZZ series clearly notes that before the 1929 
> Stock Market crash JAZZ accounted for 70% of the profits of all 
> American Record Companies! I remember reading in one of the Louis 
> Armstrong biographies that Louis' record sales (actual platters, not 
> money!) were over a million and that was primarily sold through 
> grocery stores at a nickel a disk... all in the 20s and 30s. Burns 
> makes it clear in his research (and I have read it independently in 
> many places before and since JAZZ) that early Jazz (ESPECIALLY before 
> the Depression) WAS THE POP MUSIC (most popular music) of the day. The 
> country was in the infancy of disposable income in the 1920s (at least 
> until the Depression sidetracked that for 20 years) and American YOUTH 
> were leading the way in an unprecedented surge of self-indulgence. Of 
> course it would take another cycle of that in the 1950s for youth and 
> their disposable income to usher in the popularity of Rock n' Roll.
>
> To me the evidence is clear that early JAZZ hit the country in 1926 
> the same way that early ROCK N ROLL did in 1956 and habits, social 
> mores and the music business were forever changed by it. Was Jazz ever 
> POPULAR MUSIC? YES! It was THE popular music of its day and the 
> repercussions of its innovations continued through the more commercial 
> swing era, Rock N Roll era and into popular music today. The foreword 
> to the Rolling Stone History of Rock N Roll cites Louis Armstrong as 
> the most influential musician that made Rock N Roll possible! Ken 
> Burns (and his celebrity contributors) affirm this throughout the 10 
> part JAZZ series.
>
> ~Rocky Ball
> Atlanta
>
>> On Jan 11, 2007, at 5:49 AM, pat ladd wrote:
>>
>>> After WWII the public didn't want the fast pace of
>>> the swing bands that had dominated for a decade but something to 
>>> relax
>>> by, romantic stuff.>>
>>>
>>> Not sure about the `fast pace` Charlie.  A lot of the WW2 swing Bands
>>> tunes were sentimental ballads. Thousands of people weere away from
>>> loved ones. There was a focus on a `great day` when the war would end
>>> and everyone could return home. Sure there were bands producing
>>> fireworks but Moonlight Serenade was the top tune. Blue birds over 
>>> the
>>> White cliffs, Silver Wings in the Moonlight and so on made up a major
>>> proportion of a bands  pad.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Past
>>>
>>
>> You're totally right of course, Pat. And it was the dreamy sweet stuff
>> of the swing bands that people wanted to continue after the war, not
>> the hot swing, so the vocalists held sway.
>>
>> Which raises another point. It's been said that the Swing Era of about
>> 1935-45 was the main one in which jazz was THE popular music. Very 
>> true
>> when we think only of the hot big band stuff by Basie, Goodman, Shaw,
>> Duke, Woody, etc.. But sooo much of  the sweet material bears so 
>> little
>> resemblance to jazz that you can almost call it anti-jazz. A stretch,
>> but not by much when you listen to some of the innumerable icky 
>> ballads
>> in the books of lesser and even better swing bands. It served a social
>> function both during and after the war, but it's ever farther from 
>> jazz
>> than the post-ragtime/pre-Mickey dance bands of the 20's and before. 
>> At
>> least, the latter had a kick to them.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>>
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>