They used to do this on television. Cavett and the Great Oscar Peterson...

[Worf]

Oscar Peterson gives a primer on Jazz Piano on the Dick Cavett show... Sigh what potential T.V. had to educate. Now we get Snooki....

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/11839.html

Worf

 

[dhermann1]

Amazing. Cavett is the best. And Oscar Peterson . . . amazing. Thanks for posting.

 

[Tomasso]

Thanks for the vid.. YouTube has a bunch of great Cavett interviews.

 

[The Good]

I think it goes without saying that television in general was more sophisticated and tasteful then. When was the last time jazz was even considered mainstream, did that end after the 1970s?

The modern equivalent of this show would probably be a performance of hip hop or pop music.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cavett was one of the last desperate gasps of what American culture was before the smirking-irony crowd took over. The only way he'd get into a TV studio today is with a ticket.

 

[dhermann1]

Back in the early 50s, when only fairly affluent people had TVs, there was amazingly creative and artistic stuff done. Every week, and on the major networks. Alastair Cook's Omnibus was wonderful. And of course Jack Paar (who I believe Cavett worked for as a writer) was America's favorite neurotic for 5 years.

 

[Fletch]

Of course Neil Simon, who wrote for Sid Caesar at the time, made the case that it wasn't affluence, but the audience being mostly confined to big eastern cities. Once sets started selling in Pittsburgh and Dayton and Davenport, Simon says, it was bye bye sophistication, and Caesar could no longer spoof on plays or opera, which was the beginning of the end.

But that's dramatic license, as shown by the plays and opera, and talk and even high quality comedy, that continued to air. What must Simon, the "favorite neurotic" of a future day, have thought about that title going to a one-time quiz show announcer from Jackson, Michigan? Perhaps just another sign of the creeping middle-Americanism that did in Your Show of Shows.

 

[dhermann1]

Good point.

 

[Rathdown]

I think it goes without saying that television in general was more sophisticated and tasteful then [prior to 1970].

Right. Let's see... in 1967 I was working on "The Dating Game", Let's Make A Deal", "Dream Girl '67" (cancelled after two seasons for obvious reasons), "The Lawrence Welk Show", and a host of other "sophisticated" programs.

As Fletch has pointed out, audiences weren't interested in the, at times, "smarmy" sophistication of New York program executives who often saw programs as a string of "inside" jokes and looked at audiences as the butt of those jokes-- a vast misreading of the television buying middle class. As audiences grew, network television executives discovered two things: first, that television sets came with a dial that allowed viewers to select what they wanted to see, and second, that the networks had to compete by providing programming that was more than "in jokes" and barbs traded by the likes of Bennett Cerf and Henry Morgan. In other words it became illustrated radio, with programming aimed at the average family who, after a long day a work, or keeping house, or going to school, wanted to sit back and relax with Burns and Allen, Highway Patrol, the 64 Thousand Dollar Question, and I Love Lucy.

When was the last time jazz was even considered mainstream, did that end after the 1970s?

Well, based on record sales jazz has never been mainstream. Doesn't mean that is isn't good music (I think it is) but it's not your average viewer/listener's cup of coffee.

The modern equivalent of this show would probably be a performance of hip hop or pop music.

That's why MTV was born. Basically the audience for hip-hop doesn't spend squat (except for music) and running a television network is an expensive business. For those not in the industry, to a broadcaster the content of a program has zero value (that's right: "Pawn Stars" has the same value as "Masterpiece Theatre"); the value is in the space around the program-- the commercials. And this value is based on two things: how big is the audience, and how apt they are to buy "product".

 

[The Good]

Right. Let's see... in 1967 I was working on "The Dating Game", Let's Make A Deal", "Dream Girl '67" (cancelled after two seasons for obvious reasons), "The Lawrence Welk Show", and a host of other "sophisticated" programs.

As Fletch has pointed out, audiences weren't interested in the, at times, "smarmy" sophistication of New York program executives who often saw programs as a string of "inside" jokes and looked at audiences as the butt of those jokes-- a vast misreading of the television buying middle class. As audiences grew, network television executives discovered two things: first, that television sets came with a dial that allowed viewers to select what they wanted to see, and second, that the networks had to compete by providing programming that was more than "in jokes" and barbs traded by the likes of Bennett Cerf and Henry Morgan. In other words it became illustrated radio, with programming aimed at the average family who, after a long day a work, or keeping house, or going to school, wanted to sit back and relax with Burns and Allen, Highway Patrol, the 64 Thousand Dollar Question, and I Love Lucy.


Well, based on record sales jazz has never been mainstream. Doesn't mean that is isn't good music (I think it is) but it's not your average viewer/listener's cup of coffee.


That's why MTV was born. Basically the audience for hip-hop doesn't spend squat (except for music) and running a television network is an expensive business. For those not in the industry, to a broadcaster the content of a program has zero value (that's right: "Pawn Stars" has the same value as "Masterpiece Theatre"); the value is in the space around the program-- the commercials. And this value is based on two things: how big is the audience, and how apt they are to buy "product".

Thank you for the informative post, Rathdown.

Well, based on record sales jazz has never been mainstream. Doesn't mean that is isn't good music (I think it is) but it's not your average viewer/listener's cup of coffee.

I think what I meant by jazz being a part of mainstream music is if the popular music had any jazz sound infused into it at all. '70s funk in general sounds like it has jazz influences, and more so the jazz-funk genre. After that, I doubt any sort of pop music of any time took influence from jazz that much anymore. To me, the real heyday of jazz's popularity must have been from between the 1920s to the 1950s, because after that rock and roll took over as the popular music of the time.

 

[Paul Roerich]

Cavett was one of the last desperate gasps of what American culture was before the smirking-irony crowd took over. The only way he'd get into a TV studio today is with a ticket.

Cavett recently called in and played "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR. The man is as witty and erudite now as he's ever been.