1930's Music

[skyvue]

For another, the rights to the source material have consolidated into hands more given to censorship than stewardship. Going too far above ground with it, drawing one person too many's attention, could conceivably cause all of it to be taken away. We are dealing, finally, with a kind of samizdat.

However, I will tip my hand in a small way by pointing to a very valuable - and, crucially, overseas - online resource: http://jazz-on-line.com

Fletch, my hunch is that your post just happened to follow Gingerella's, that you weren't responding directly to it, but in case I'm wrong, I just wanted to let you know that my station is operated via Live365. One of the services they provide for my monthly fees is paying the appropriate professional organizations for the music we play on Cladrite Radio.

I mention this just in case you (or anyone) thought we were something of a pirate operation. We're not; all the appropriate royalties and fees get paid (or so I'm led to understand by Live365 -- and if they weren't fulfilling their end of the bargain, I think they'd have been in big trouble before now, given they're a well-known operation).

 

[gdc]

Fletch,
I don't believe the music of the 1930's is dead, but I'm a musician so whadoiknow??
Although this thread pertains to finding the music (recordings) that listeners in the 1930's would have been familiar with I approached the question from the angle of all the great music written then that is still being played today.

New: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBSwR2S83Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pyz76KlHqk&feature=related

Old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sul_9BcgOOI&feature=related

Coleman Hawkins was possibly the greatest sax player of his generation and is still an icon today. However, I doubt a majority of listeners would buy his record over either of the newer versions. I'm talking about the average, non-jazz listener here. If the music is to survive it must stay current.

Although I can appreciate the past I personally have no interest in living in a museum. Learn from the past, preserve the best of it but adapt and move forward. We live in the present. I love the music of the 1930's and enjoy playing it TODAY.

 

[gdc]

Here's the 1930 Paul Whiteman recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJAd5tEm2pU

Nice from a historical perspective.

 

[vitanola]

Whilst I probably like Whiteman as much as anyone yet alive, and play his records almost daily, his recording of Body and Soul is a pallid and insubs-tantial thing when compared to Hawk's 1939 Bluebird waxing, which can creditably be called one of the ten most important jazz discs of all time. The Whinehouse/Bennet performance is nice, but will untimately prove to be as ephemeral as the Whiteman performance, I think.

 

[gdc]

The Winehouse/Bennett version is a commercial joke but it does serve to introduce a beautiful tune to people who may dig deeper. It is the baby formula to Hawk's porterhouse steak.

 

[Gingerella72]

Everything old becomes new again in some form. And, there will always be niches of society who seek out the obscure and forgotten music of yesteryear.

Take us, for example. We see a value in seeking out and preserving this old "dead" music and we discuss it and share it on threads like this. How many people visit and lurk on this site? How many unknown numbers are being influenced by our thoughts on the subject, and how many new fans of 30's music will be born from it? To them it will be new music because it is unknown, unfamiliar.

The same can be said of anything we discuss here besides music....how many people are being "converted" to loving the Golden Era's clothes, movies, styles, manners....? It's all new, an adventure of discovery and revelations that will only enhance and broaden their modern day existence. And as long as there are people like us around, all of these things will stay alive and present, and relevant.

 

[Fletch]

Fletch, my hunch is that your post just happened to follow Gingerella's, that you weren't responding directly to it, but in case I'm wrong, I just wanted to let you know that my station is operated via Live365. One of the services they provide for my monthly fees is paying the appropriate professional organizations for the music we play on Cladrite Radio.

I mention this just in case you (or anyone) thought we were something of a pirate operation. We're not; all the appropriate royalties and fees get paid (or so I'm led to understand by Live365 -- and if they weren't fulfilling their end of the bargain, I think they'd have been in big trouble before now, given they're a well-known operation).

No such inference intended on my end, but thanks for making it clear.

I applaud you for doing things within the system, but my take on the system is that it can change the rules of the game at any time to favor traditional media and/or deep-pocket players in the new media. It's my hunch that the best way to monetize dead music is not licenses, but lawsuits, and if what we love gets too much play, they are probably coming.

Fletch,
I don't believe the music of the 1930's is dead, but I'm a musician so whadoiknow??

I'm one, too, actually. I have to say, tho, I can't tell the difference between "dead" music and "museum" music as you explain it.

I'm also convinced, from all my listening (and playing and singing), that not all the music that's worth listening to has stood the test of time. The test is kind of rigged. There are reasons - societal, artistic, even political.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I listen to what I enjoy, what makes me happy. I don't care two licks if the self-appointed cognoscenti consider it "art" or not. If I enjoy it, that's all that matters to me. And that's all the justification I need -- if "society" doesn't like it, thinks commercial = crap, thinks it's "dead," "society" can go hang.

Own your music. Don't let blowhards own you.

And as far as "Body and Soul" goes, the definitive recording was made in 1930 by Libby Holman, who introduced it on Broadway. A searing rendition of one of the great songs of the decade. The only flaw on the recording is that it doesn't capture the dance Clifton Webb did in accompaniment to Holman's vocal in the original staging.

 

[gdc]

I listen to what I enjoy, what makes me happy. I don't care two licks if the self-appointed cognoscenti consider it "art" or not. If I enjoy it, that's all that matters to me. And that's all the justification I need -- if "society" doesn't like it, thinks commercial = crap, thinks it's "dead," "society" can go hang.

Own your music. Don't let blowhards own you................

+1

 

[Fletch]

[ big sloppy hug, knowing fullwell how Lizzie hates such things ] lol

 

[rue]

Can I get a hug too? I agree with her as well

 

[Bingles]

Well said, Lizzie... hear, hear!