Unpopular music opinions

[Fletch]

Well, as said before, the term "Jazz" in the 1920s didn't have the narrow, rigid meaning that it does today. [...] Sudhalter's "Lost Chords" goes into this issue in great and exhaustive depth, but I think a strong case can be made that jazz is true "American Melting Pot" music as much as it is "African-American" music.

You might be interested in Randy Sandke's new book Where the Dark and Light Folks Meet, in which he argues (apparently somewhat reactionarily) for the melting-pot thesis.

You might know of Randy - he's a trumpeter prominent among "neo-traditionalist" jazz players. They're basically a loose scene of baby-boom generation players - I've actually worked with some of them - but there are tacit boundaries to who's part of the scene. You need to come out of New York, because of industry issues. And you need to stay more or less with players of your own color, I think because of intellectual issues over artistic ones.

All that race stuff is the elephant in the jazz room, and whatever kind of jazzer or color of person you are, you need to avoid pointing out the eephant, because musicians just want to play, get along and not fight city hall. If that means tolerating de facto segregation, or giving foolish academic criticism its due, you deal.

Anyway, Randy, who's an old pro and has surely been "dealing" for a long time, is getting attention as a bit of a drink-stirrer because of the book, which might be seen as pointing a finger at lefty academics for hijacking the jazz esthetic. There is some genteel cultural conservatism on the White trad jazz scene - Terry Teachout and Dick Sudhalter were very close, fwtw - but that might be inevitable given the climate of the times.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Interesting -- I shall look it up. I'm as much against intellectual segregation as I am the other kind, and I think it's a real blight on modern culture.

(BTW, as an aside -- I own Dick Sudhalter's copy of "The American Dance Band Discography." Never met the guy, but I did indirectly meet a used-book dealer who pillaged his files post-mortem.)

 

[Fletch]

Artie Shaw had great bands - I like a lot his orch in beggining of 40s. And, of course, he was a great player.

But his interviews are just irritating. The world would be better if he used to talk less and play more... His habit to talk against Miller always made me to play Miller's records again and again.

Shaw was, in a way, part of the critical problem. He would inveigh against anything that didn't try to be top-drawer creative art, and against a lot of what did. And this was a guy who had a lot of valid things to say about music and culture - you really had to sort out the intellect from the ire.

His number one victim wasn't Glenn Miller. It was Artie Shaw. He let the obsessive and the perfectionist in him gang up and kill off the musician in him. Even though he had a lot of wisdom to impart, we were all the poorer the day he laid down that clarinet and turned to running his yap full time.

 

[Fletch]

Interesting -- I shall look it up. I'm as much against intellectual segregation as I am the other kind, and I think it's a real blight on modern culture.

We'd be edified by your thoughts. I need to check it out, too.

(BTW, as an aside -- I own Dick Sudhalter's copy of "The American Dance Band Discography." Never met the guy, but I did indirectly meet a used-book dealer who pillaged his files post-mortem.)

I'll bet there's a LOT of fine, semi-intelligible scrawling in there.

 

[martinsantos]

Certainly he was great on ballads! My preferred are his records of "Alone Together" and "Stardust".

It was (and is) a big sucess those by Gramercy Five, but I really prefer the whole orchestra records.

Helen Forrest... A shame that few people remember hers. But I always remember her singing to Harry James than any other orchestra.

I agree with this a hundred percent. However talented he was - and he was -- Artie was also a sanctimonious blowhard, and I have always felt very sorry for all of his many wives.

As far as his music goes, I've always thought his band was terribly underrated when it came to ballads. Everybody always talks about their hot stuff, which I can take or leave, but they were really a wonderful band for ballads, especially when Helen Forrest was the vocalist. Their record of "Day In, Day Out," from 1939, is one of my favorites, and their version of "All The Things You Are" is the definitive recording of one of the greatest American songs of the 20th Century.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Helen Forrest... A shame that few people remember hers. But I always remember her singing to Harry James than any other orchestra.

She was also with Goodman for a brief spell around 1941, and they made a 12-inch record of "More Than You Know" that's absolutely breathtaking.

 

[martinsantos]

His number one victim wasn't Glenn Miller. It was Artie Shaw. He let the obsessive and the perfectionist in him gang up and kill off the musician in him. Even though he had a lot of wisdom to impart, we were all the poorer the day he laid down that clarinet and turned to running his yap full time.

That's true. But in all interviews I readed he used to show himself as a genius looking for the perfection (ao so did things not so good in his own opinion) and Miller as a man "who never made mistakes" - because just stayed with the public wanted to make more money. OK, Miller looked a lot for sucess - but he was too a perfectionist. Shaw could talk about sammy Kaye in this way - but not Glenn Miller.

Once I readed that Shaw stopped to play because he would become deaf from left ear, in 1953. Is it true?

 

[martinsantos]

With that orchestra with arranger Eddie Sauter?

She was also with Goodman for a brief spell around 1941, and they made a 12-inch record of "More Than You Know" that's absolutely breathtaking.

 

[Harp]

Once I readed that Shaw stopped to play because he would become deaf from left ear, in 1953. Is it true?

Shaw claimed lost hearing from enemy shellling during his South Pacific service.
Why he put down the clarinet.....?

 

[Fletch]

I never heard that.

 

[Harp]

I never heard that.

Artie Shaw's Quest for Perfection; a British documentary available on YouTube.
Shaw interview, discusses the effect of close shelling, which affected his left eardrum.
Episode 4.
However, he didn't seem to consider this an impediment.

 

[scottyrocks]

I always thought Elvis Costello was pretty bad and hyped.

I was a big Elvis Costello fan from the minute I saw him on SNL in ’77.

His voice and mannerism took me in completely. This happens to me only occasionally. Another time I remember it happening was when I saw a five-piece Black band step out onto the stage, the lead singer in ribboned dreds.

Much to my surprise, the band, called Living Color, launched into a rock song called Cult of Personality. I was hooked.

But I digress. Costello’s first seven or eight albums (1977-1983), except perhaps Almost Blue, were pure genius, imho. They way he would turn a phrase, and twist words, and common phrases around to cleverly alter their meanings was amazing.

After 1983’s Punch the Clock, I lost interest, mainly because the overall tempo of his compositions had slowed so drastically. Most of his earlier work had an intensity of energy, combined with his lyrical style, and of course, his voice, that I was hard pressed to find elsewhere.

 

[Blackjack]

Meanwhile, here's the Most Unpopular Opinion Of All. I don't believe in racial essentialism in music, which is so unpopular an idea in these days of jazz is true "American Melting Pot" music as much as it is "African-American" music.[/QUOTE]

Unpopular yes, but I agree 100% !! Thats what bothered me most about the Ken Burns series Jazz. It seemed that if it wasn't Ellington, Armstrong or Holiday, it wasn't worth a lot of mention, at least thats the feeling I got from watching it.

 

[martinsantos]

Long time ago I readed (part of) a book from 71 or 72... I tought the author's ideas just too crazy. All jazz was African-American - any white (or influence of white musician) means against the jazz. And I became really surprised about the true hate he had about Scott Joplin because "european influences".

This was enough to make me to close the book...

A few years ago here in Brazil we had a few guys trying to say the same about the 1900 - 1940 music. The ideas didn't make much sucess, I think.

Ragtime is a "cousin" of brazilian's music of the time, "choro" (also called brazilian tango). The same period, the same origins. Polkas, minuettes, etc, from Europe, mixed with elements afro-brazilians. And had its own vogue with the piano. And, as ragtime, had great players and composers from all ethnicities. So, what's the matter? What really counts is the music.

(A music of this kind, for who doens't know, is sang by Carmen Miranda: "Tico-tico no fubá". Les Brown made a record, too! But was originally made for piano solo in around 1915).

 

[LizzieMaine]

Unpopular yes, but I agree 100% !! Thats what bothered me most about the Ken Burns series Jazz. It seemed that if it wasn't Ellington, Armstrong or Holiday, it wasn't worth a lot of mention, at least thats the feeling I got from watching it.

Burns tends to see *all* topics thru the lens of race, which is a double-edged sword in his documentaries -- they give exposure to voices that have been overlooked in mainstream history, but they do so at the expense of eliminating all possible context. I don't recall him mentioning, for example, Ellington's favorable comments about Whiteman, Armstrong's admiration of Lombardo and Rudy Vallee, or Ella Fitzgerald being influenced by (of all people) Dolly Dawn.

I think "social historians" today make much more of racial essentialism than the musicians themselves did -- in the end, they were all breathing the same air.

 

[rue]

Bless your heart! Thanks for listening and for liking!

You're welcome

I love the old commercials you mix in too. It makes it seem so authentic.

 

[Blackjack]

I think "social historians" today make much more of racial essentialism than the musicians themselves did -- in the end, they were all breathing the same air.

Did and DO! I've played with many many black jazz musicians over the years and none of them, not one, has ever racialized music the way that the so called music historians do. Musicians ( at least the good ones) are generally color blind when it comes to talent. It's all about the music. Now if you want to talk about how musicians feel about other musicians, that a whole different bag of cats...

 

[John in Covina]

Now if you want to talk about how musicians feel about other musicians, that a whole different bag of cats...

What is a common remark from guitarist Ritchie Blackmore regarding other musicians? "You're fired!"

 

[Widebrim]

Meanwhile, here's the Most Unpopular Opinion Of All. I don't believe in racial essentialism in music, which is so unpopular an idea in these days of jazz is true "American Melting Pot" music as much as it is "African-American" music.

Unpopular yes, but I agree 100% !! Thats what bothered me most about the Ken Burns series Jazz. It seemed that if it wasn't Ellington, Armstrong or Holiday, it wasn't worth a lot of mention, at least thats the feeling I got from watching it.

That "popular" opinion is endemic when it comes to discussions of jazz, and often leaves out or undervalues South Italian/Sicilian contributions in the devlopment of the genre.

As regards early Rock 'n' Roll, essentialism regularly crops its head up, but some historians do point out that it was often "give and take" in those initial years (i.e., rhythm and blues, country, jazz, even hillbilly and western swing artists learning/adopting from each other). In my opinion, it is the "synthesizers,"--those who added a little of this riff, a bit of that singing style, a lot of that beat, and then came up with a new sound--who are really the pioneers of Rock 'n' Roll, whatever their ethnic backgrounds...

 

[Rundquist]

Originally Posted by Blackjack
Wow! Or I should say Yikes... as a person who's made his living making music for the last 30 years I'd like to say something. Personal opinion excluded most of the entertainers being smashed to bits here had a common bond, they defined a decade like it or not. Glenn Miller wasn't horrible, he played the most danceable swing music made in the 40's, and dancing was what people wanted to do. Elvis brought R&B to the white audiences like no one else and gave a voice to the white kids of America. The Beatles were beyond anything we'll ever see in music again, they changed everything (like it or not) about the 60's. All the top bands and writers in the mid sixties used the Beatles as a yardstick to what music was going to do. I have my personal favorites, and some that I really don't care for at all, but do any of them "suck" or deserve to be burned at the stake? I think not...

Well said.

I'll second that. The real value in this place is being exposed to things that you might not have been exposed to otherwise. Talking about music gods doesn't really serve much purpose. There's not too much that can be said of these people that hasn't been said already. If you already have an opinion on an artist based on actual listening of their music, nobody's words are going to affect that opinion either way.