[Dixielandjazz] tv series

[Gary Lawrence Murphy]

if you watch that series, he goes into all that in good detail, and
yes, your music hall of the 17th and 18th centuries overflowed with
farce, which the French called Burlesque, perhaps not in your
neighbourhood, but certainly elsewhere on the islands.

On 9/14/14, Patrick Ladd <patrickjladd at hotmail.com> wrote:
> <<The original *meaning* of 'burlesque' was not strippers but farce, having
> the poor and uneducated (and unskilled) dolting about up on stage while
> being hooted and laughed at as they did their utmost most absurdist
> rendition of how they perceived the rich and educated classes.>>
>
> We had no such thing as Burlesque in the UK. We had Music Hall.  Is there a
>
> difference?  Certainly none of the Music Hall which I saw as a youngster
> fits the description of `poor and uneducated and unskilled`.
> They may not have been `sophisticated` but they were very skilled indeed.
> The sort of skills which we now only see on Cirque de Soleil. Balancing,
> acrobatics, trapeze work. Certainly there were different acts. Seals
> balancing balls or playing God Save the King on the trumpet. Dogs performing
>
> tricks,  Brilliant conjurors. Yes there were chorus girls with what would
> now be considered very simple dance routines. There were strippers. I
> remember seeing `Jane of the Daily Mirror`. Jane was a daily newspaper
> comic strip which ran all through the war, and this was her `in the flesh`
> but all the acts were the result of talent and years of practice. Would you
>
> call Burns and Allen untalented. Yet their roots were in vaudeville.
> As for a straight line between the vaudeville performers to the stars of
> today. I saw Ted and Barbara Andrews who were a popular and established
> music hall act. (He played piano and they both sang) They introduced their
> daughter aged about 13 and I remember this little girl in button up shoes
> and a plain schoolgirlish frock  singing on what must have been one of her
> very early appearances on the boards . You may have heard of her now. Julie
>
> Andrews.
>
> As for jazz and `pop`. We tend to forget that `pop` is merely a shortened
> form of `popular`. It is not a `genre` on its own, The Big Bands were the
> `pop` bands of their day. The bands which recorded the Music Hall hits of
> the day, `There was I waiting at the Church,` ` K K K Katy`, `My little
> Octoroon`  `I wouldn`t leave my little wooden hut for you`and so on were the
>
> pop bands. Jazz was obviously popular in the South and spread throughout the
>
> States and finally worldwide. By definition that is `pop` music. The fact
> that it changed or that there were other types of music running alongside
> does not invalidate that.
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Lawrence Murphy
> Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2014 2:52 AM
> To: Pat Ladd
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] tv series
>
> the important lesson I learned watching this series really helped me get
> over the popular conception that jazz is not "pop" -- and I'm thankful for
> that now.  In the documentary they draw a clear line from bawdy music-hall
> burlesque traditions of Victorian stage directly to today's big stars, and
> it's no great jump, it is a smooth progression, same halls, same promoters,
> same performers, step by step.
>
> The original *meaning* of 'burlesque' was not strippers but farce, having
> the poor and uneducated (and unskilled) dolting about up on stage while
> being hooted and laughed at as they did their utmost most absurdist
> rendition of how they perceived the rich and educated classes. It has
> nothing to do with art, it has everything to do with humour, a sort of
> celebration of the ignorance in which the poor are largely left to
> flounder, done by lampooning those priviledged to be artists.
>
> Think about that. Then think, "Rolling Stones" vs Muddy Waters, or Led
> Zepplin vs their bassist's father's Ambrose Orchestra: Pop is *meant* to be
> a parody, a spectacular, gaudy, bawdy peacock strut for an audience
> zealously imbibing of mind-altering substances, it is an escapist theatre,
> it has *nothing* *whatsoever* to do with music, although, admittedly, many
> musicians were drawn into the pop burlesque world simply because it was, or
> rather it *appeared* to be, highly lucrative.
>
> On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:
>
>> Below is the Wikipedia entry for the 17-part TV series on the evolution
>> of
>> popular music, of which "All You Need is Love" was a part. Wiki's entry
>> for
>> Tony Palmer describes him as a major bio filmmaker. I haven't seen any of
>> the popular music series, but some of the script writers include Leonard
>> Feather (who was no friend of trad jazz) and super-traditionalist Rudi
>> Blesh. Just looking at some the juxtapositions of names included in the
>> right hand columns (and some of the omissions) made me wince, but I
>> wonder
>> how they were used in the actual narrative. Odd: Bop and modern jazz get
>> no
>> mention--because they weren't "popular" music?
>>
>> It was a longterm project  released in 1976, so today's perspectives
>> would
>> of course differ. And remember, when Ken Burns did his recent jazz
>> history
>> series, almost nobody gave him better than a gentleman's C.
>>
>> Charlie Suhor
>>
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_You_Need_Is_Love:_The_Story_of_Popular_Music
>> On Sep 9, 2014, at 4:29 AM, Jim Kashishian wrote:
>>
>> > I watched a program called "All You Need Is Love" which was advertised
>> > as
>> > being "Tony Palmer's epic series" on Jazz.  The fact that he used a
>> Beatles
>> > song title for a Jazz show tells it all.
>> >
>> > There were comments by prominent jazzers such as Dizzy, Hoagie, etc.,
>> > but
>> > many of the comments were strange & didn't fit into any of the things
>> > we
>> all
>> > assumed about the beginnings of Jazz.  The notes on the series actually
>> said
>> > that it "reveals that New Orleans may have stolen the limelight when it
>> > comes to the origin of Jazz".
>> >
>> > The comments made follow along the lines recently discussed here on
>> > djml
>> > about where the word Jazz came from.  The fact that the weirdly put
>> together
>> > hour long show was "from a script by Leonard Feather" raised my
>> > eyebrows
>> > evern further.  They were already practically up to my hairline!
>> >
>> > Has anyone else seen this show?
>> >
>> > Jim
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>
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>
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