[Dixielandjazz] Was Jazz Ever Popular? Yeah. Will it be again? Oh yeah!
Rocky Ball
bigbuttbnd at aol.com
Thu Jan 11 20:50:15 PST 2007
Great points, Larry and Charlie.
I, too, believe that Rock and Roll went country! In my way of
thinking Buddy Holly was driving early Rock toward a country sound
(along with Elvis, Bill Haley, Pat Boone to a degree, and others) but
his early demise left a leadership hole and then the British invasion
(which was fueled by the influence of American R&B in England) sent
us squarely back to R&B and Soul as the path for Rock N Roll. Only 2
things could compete with the British at the time: The Beach Boys and
Motown. Motown was obviously from the R&B school but the Beach Boys,
curiously enough, were a blend of Chuck Berry guitar and
sophisticated, JAZZ-INFLUENCED, vocal harmonies. Brian Wilson has
readily admitted that his 2 favorite groups growing up were Chuck
Berry and the Four Freshmen with their modern jazz influenced vocal
harmonies. The Beach Boys generated a little stir on the West Coast
but I don't think of them as generating a "new school" of music like
Motown did. (I'm not saying they weren't amongst the most popular
groups of all time... I'm saying there are not a lot of current
groups that you can trace directly back to the Beach Boys as major
influences.)
It wasn't until the 70s when Southern Rock burst on the scene with
groups like The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Atlanta Rhythm
Section, Wet Willie (and more) that a new branch of Rock headed back
toward Country and kind of linked up to the traditions that Buddy
Holly had started. Today you would categorize a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune
(if it were coming out now) as a Country genre! Even the Eagles and
the Doobie Brothers sound more like today's country. Things have
changed.
I'm one that is completely unperplexed about Dixieland being
something other than the "Popular" music of today. To me music is
music and I hear the influences of Dixieland, Louis Armstrong and
more in all sorts of examples in today's music. I'm from the school
that says all of it, as far back as 1860 in America and maybe
further, is DANCE music! Most music in the last 150 years that is
rendered with a discernible beat, is DANCE music. Written to be
danced to. I'm not talking about classical music or church music or
Marches or moonlight and magnolia slow ballads (although there is
some argument for that) or music written for a movie expressly
created to render a MOOD for the story on the screen... but Popular
music by its very nature exists to be DANCED to. And Traditional Jazz
is no exception. Armstrong, as a boy, stood at the door of the Funky
Butt Club and watched and heard and learned from the musicians
playing for the dancers who were "grinding away" to this new
improvised music. He soaked that up and took it with him (obviously
adding a heck of a lot along the way)!
But Americans have always had that ADHD tendency that you adroitly
point out... the biggest difference between then and now is the SPEED
at which new ideas are communicated throughout the country. Word of
mouth in the 1830s, Minstrel shows in the late 1800s, sheet music at
the turn of the century, Vaudeville in the early 1900s, radio and
records and movies in the 20s, television in the 50s, the Internet
today... each mode adds a new and faster component and American's
have had and continue to have the capacity to learn and use these
"new" technologies at an ever increasing pace. And with the new
technologies comes more choice... and less patience for the same
thing in more than a few minute increments before moving on.
I think good music of any style today, played well and energetically,
will find an audience that appreciates it. One advantage we have
today as OKOM musicians is that most people younger than us have
never heard the music we play and often their discovery of it is just
as exciting for them as it was for their great-grandparents in 1925.
However, there are more choices available for today's listener than
for those in 1925 so they quickly move on. One constant, though, that
doesn't change and hasn't changed since way before Jazz was born is
the ENTERTAINMENT factor. If it is not entertaining then it will be
tossed aside quickly. That was true in 1825, 1925 and will be true in
2025. Musicians relate to Louis Armstrong for his high caliber of
creativeness and technical skills.... we call it musicianship. But
for non-musicians the draw was his ability to ENTERTAIN. Perhaps his
60+ year career is more attributable to the public being constantly
entertained by him than by his sheer musicianship alone.
Eddie Davis, the great NY banjo player once gave a lecture that I
attended in which he theorized and demonstrated that each time a new
musical genre was introduced in America it always started as a very
SIMPLE structure, especially harmonically. And then, as great
musicians picked up the banner and began to fiddle with it, it
naturally became more and more complex until it reached a point where
the general public could no longer UNDERSTAND it. At that point a new
genre, once again very SIMPLE, got introduced and the cycle slowly
repeated itself. Over and Over. You can trace that through church
music, Country and Western and, more obviously to us... Jazz (popular
music). Early Jazz was simple and recognizable from a harmonic
standpoint. As more advanced musicians either took up the music or
grew up in the music it became more and more complex until the Birth
of the Cool and perhaps FREE JAZZ became unintelligible to most of
the public and many of the musicians. Bang! 3 chord Rock N Roll comes
in. Even over rock's history we find complexity creeping in and
suddenly a new SIMPLE genre bursts forth: Punk, Grunge, Alternate,
and more. Always back to 3 chords and something simple and new. Even
rap in many ways is a return to super simplicity in answer to an
incredibly high level of harmonic complexity of R&B artists like Al
Green and Lionel Ritchie.
We are dance musicians. Our forefathers, who created it, were dance
musicians. Put our music in a museum and it dies. Play it like it is
in a museum and it dies. But that's true of any music. Play it in an
entertaining way so that people can move and groove to it and it
soars. We often, as musicians, confuse what the music means to US as
being the same thing as what the music means to non-musicians... and,
in my opinion, that is our greatest source of confusion and angst.
Joe Public will never have the passion for any music for long that
compares to the passion of the musician who plays it. We should not
expect them to do so. We will always be disappointed in the outcome
if we do. We can pass SOME of our passion along to them through our
energy on stage and through our sincere desire to ENTERTAIN them.
Once we master that component the type of music we play matters
little to them. They will follow us.
Another source of confusion and angst for us is the record business.
Once we finally realize that the MUSIC BUSINESS, as we know it today
and for the past 100 years is a MANUFACTURING business. The record
company makes records (now CDs) just like Ford makes cars. The only
difference is that they need musicians to play and perform as an
enticement for the public to buy their product. Somewhere somebody
thought it might be useful to make the musician feel important by
calling what we do ART. Tain't so. It may BE art.. to us and a few
other folks... but it's not ART to them any more than the latest Ford
Fusion is ART to Ford. It is a product that needs a workforce to
design it and a separate work force to manufacture it and a separate
work force to distribute it. It is a numbers driven, bottom-line
business like most. There's nothing wrong with that. If you want to
be in the product manufacturing business then get into it in a big
way and let the numbers drive the business as it should be. Produce
only what sells big and take pride in that. If, however, you want to
be in the ENTERTAINMENT business then find a niche and service that
niche market better than anyone else. OKOM is not the product
manufacturing business to be in. Maybe in 1930 it was the ULTIMATE
product manufacturing business to be in but not today. However, OKOM
may be the quintessential niche ENTERTAINMENT business to be in
today! After all there is far less competition in the local market
(the cities in which we live) than ever before. But we must observe
the rules of business if we want to succeed... identify our
customers, market to them (let them know we exist), provide what they
want (which will always be ENTERTAINMENT first, music second), and be
unique... bring something to the market that sets us off from the
rest of the pack (if there is a pack!) These are the same things we
must do well in ANY business we endeavor to grow. Forget records
(CDs) as a big thing to our business... at best it is a source of
additional income not a revenue stream for riches. Forget what the
RECORD companies call POPULARITY or RADIO PLAY. It's not going to
happen to the average OKOM band. Forget the public CLAMORING for
Dixieland... not going to happen. But you could very likely get the
local public to CLAMOR for your individual group if you are
ENTERTAINING, even if you happen to play Dixieland!
One last thing in this TREATISE! For 100 years the Music Business in
America has been about creating, manufacturing and distributing a
product (records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, etc.) and they have held sway
because the process of manufacturing and distributing this product
has been too massive and expensive an undertaking for the average
musician to accomplish at home. It just was too much trouble to press
vinyl in your basement and then ship the product to every record
store and radio station in the country. Today, however, the
manufacturing and distribution chain has changed and the record
companies are way, way, way behind in protecting their product
(probably too far to ever catch up... the horse is already long gone
from the barn!). Not just protecting it from piracy.... but
preventing you and me from creating, manufacturing, distributing and
SELLING the same product in our basement. Since everything in the
Music Business revolves around selling THE PRODUCT the whole business
plan is now up for grabs. Survival for them means finding something
new that they can get out ahead of and PROTECT. I believe that the
next great product will be PEOPLE. Live performances (maybe showing
on your HDTV in your living room but still the real live thing!).
We're not far from being able to order a LIVE concert on a massive
scale as a pay per view item (in fact, it's been done several times
already). The protection comes from the provider being able to
prevent you from seeing it without paying for it. The technology will
prevent you from copying it as well. The exclusivity of the live
performance beamed to any computer in the world is the ultimate
product... you can't get it anywhere else but from the artist that
performs it. The Music Business will be looking for (and paying for)
ENTERTAINERS at that time. The worm will have turned! I hope we live
long enough to see it!
My 4 cents worth, anyway!
Take Care.
Rocky Ball - banjo
The Ruby Reds Band - Atlanta
www.rubyredsband.com
On Jan 11, 2007, at 5:53 PM, Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis
wrote:
> Rocky - As far as I can see nothing completely killed jazz because
> obviously we still have it around in all it's forms but the
> listening public has developed an ever changing and at a faster and
> faster paced taste for more and different things. In the 20's
> things went fairly slow and by ww2, radio and more availability of
> recordings sped things up a bunch. Enter a more affluent teen age
> group. The changes took place even faster.
>
> While some things are not necessarily moving faster today the
> splinters of each style are proliferating so fast that most people
> can't even keep up with the names of them. I think maybe the line
> was drawn when people stopped naming dances in the 60's and 70's.
>
> A case in point. Early rock and roll such as Buddy Holly, Elvis
> and Bill Haley bears almost no resemblance to today's rock except
> we still call it rock. I think early rock is alive and well we
> just call it Country and Western.
>
> Getting people out of their homes and away from TV is the hope of a
> large segment of the entertainment industry today. Did TV kill the
> movies? Absolutely not but there aren't many theaters either. Why
> go to the show when you can see it on TV for free (??) Why should
> you go to a venue to hear a band when you can have them at their
> very best for the price of a CD. You can also turn them off too if
> you only want to hear one track then listen to another. I can
> change tracks with just a touch on my IPOD so I can channel surf
> even there. It's a far cry to when you sat and listened to a band
> for several hours. I hate to say it but I don't want to listen to
> anything for more than an hour or so.
>
> TV stations and some cable channels are in trouble because someone
> invented the clicker. The American public has a collective case of
> ADHD. They demand ever faster, funnier, bloodier, newer, cheaper
> and I might add more potty mouthed and vulgar entertainment.
> Sounds a lot like the new music too.
> Larry
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rocky Ball" <bigbuttbnd at aol.com>
> To: "Charles Suhor" <csuhor at zebra.net>
> Cc: "jazz" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Was Jazz ever popular music?
>
>
>>
>> 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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>>
>>
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