[Dixielandjazz] Was Jazz Ever Popular? Will It Be Again? Oh Yeah!

[Bigbuttbnd at aol.com]

Sorry if this arrived twice but I kept sending it and it never showed up on 
the list...

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 influences 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 he does 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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