[Dixielandjazz] just a question, help greatly appreciated

[Donald Mopsick]

Rob writes:

<<I am studdying music at university, and for my write up I would like to do
an essay on the effect that either duke ellington or paul whiteman had on
20th century popular music, ellington in the way he brought structure to
jazz or whiteman in how everything was very tightly arranged etc. What do
you guys think,? which would be better, and do you know any good books on
either of these figures I could read?>>

The best book about Whiteman I have read is "Paul Whiteman: Pioneer in
American Music, Volume I: 1890-1930 (Studies in Jazz Series)" by Don
Rayno. Here is the retail link on amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810845792?ie=UTF8&tag=riverwlivefromth&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0810845792

The author explains how Whitman is completely misunderstood by
contemporary critics. He was dubbed the "King of Jazz" by the press,
but he himself understood very well that he was nothing of the sort
unless he had real jazz players in his orchestra, so he hired Bix,
Trumbauer, Venuti, Lang, Steve Brown, etc. away from Goldkette. The
"tightly arranged" music you refer to included a number of immortal
hot arrangements inspired by Bix Beiderbecke's improvised cornet
playing as transcribed and voiced by arranger Bill Challis.

Whiteman was one of those "hinge" figures of jazz history in that
things were never quite the same after him. He was the first to bring
elements of hot rhythm and blue tonality to the mass attention of the
heretofore "square" white audience. I highly recommend listening
online to Rich Conaty's "The Big Broadcast" on WFUV (wfuv.org) to
compare other very popular white and black bands of the period to
Whiteman's "hot" charts (which pretty much continued on were the
Goldkette material left off). The square bands sound very stilted,
European, operatic, and sometimes march-like with the rhythmic
emphasis on beats 1 and 3. After Whiteman, white and black audiences
were more accepting of music that swung, but the ensuing Swing Era
still had a lot of hopelessly square "sweet" bands too. Squareness in
pop music didn't really die out until the Beatles, but Whiteman was
the first great leap forward back in 1928.

It's all in the book.

mopo