[78-L] The 5 most influential 78s ever/ Charlie Parker

[Chris Zwarg]

At 13:28 04.11.2008, you wrote:
>Amen!
>
>On 11/4/08, Francesco Martinelli <francesco.martinelli at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > OK, agreed. But by this explanation, I find it difficult to call Parker's
>> > record "influential" in the same way Caruso, Elvis or the ODJB were -
>> > unless you are also talking of "negative" influence in terms of popularity
>> > and record sales. After be-bop, jazz never again was a mass-compatible
>> > music (unless you are talking about dixie and swing revival bands). In
>> > this way, the comparison to Schoenberg is perfect - he did the same for
>> > "classical" music in the widest sense of the term. The non-specialist part
>> > of the public will usually think of pre-bop music when they hear the word
>> > "jazz", just as they think of (conceptually) pre-Schoenberg compositions
>> > when they talk about "symphonic" or "operatic" music, and the latter fell
>> > out of fashion as a *contemporary* and popular art form, becoming a
>> > "highbrow" and/or nostalgic niche product, around the time Schoenberg
>> > published most of his works, just like jazz fell similarly out of fashion
>> > in Parker's heydays and never recovered against  the myriad of rock- and
>> > r&b-related forms that followed.
>>
>> I thought a lot about this message. Where do you think that Charlie Parker
>> and the other musicians of his school got the power to sway the course of
>> the music, especially supported by agents, labels, radios etc. like the
>> previous popular jazz styles? How come such an unpopular music put an end to
>> the era of jazz as dance music, especially since it had such tiny
>> circulation on small label, compared to contemporary sales of other
>> musicians while being under attack from the press? Why people did not listen
>> to big bands anymore - was it the actions of an individual leading a small
>> coterie stopping the masses from crowding the dance halls where they were
>> playing? How could "Ko Ko" divert customers from buying "the jazz they
>> liked" anyway, since it was amply available both live and on record?
>> Was this individual never born, or had he played like Earl Bostic all his
>> life, jazz would be a popular art form now and Wembley stadium would be
>> filled with the sound of Dixieland bands and Swing?
>> Same with opera - how come the very existence of, say, Berio and his small
>> group of listeners prevented composers to write hugely successful operas
>> like Rigoletto and Tosca but at best pale imitations of them?
>> The fact is that after KoKo was played all previous jazz sounded dated and
>> unhip to musicians and listeners all over the world, and no-one was forcing
>> them - if anything, the contrary. 

Sorry I have no time at the moment to think or write more in-depth about this, but I think there might be another explanation: Certainly the radical break with the musical tradition made a lot of waves among musicians and music critics who, in their eternal strife to be "up-to-date" and "progressive", always like to praise anything "new" regardless of its intrinsic merits, and to deride anything that was before as "old-fashioned" and "stale". The general public, being less sophisticated but probably very honest in their more conservative taste, wouldn't follow beyond the point at which *tonality* was left as THE base of musical activity, and turned their minds and ears to more accessible and listenable genres. (Tonality and harmony after all are universal mathematical concepts and not mere arbitrary rules of "outmoded" composers, as the dodecaphonists and free-jazzers would like to have it! Both mathematical theory and psychoacoustics give good explanations why there was very little, if any, polyphonic music anywhere on this planet that did not prefer thirds, fourths, fifths and sixths over seconds, sevenths, or microtonal intervals, before Schoenberg and his followers had the megalomaniacal idea that all that is only a figment of imagination and a new, wider musical world was to be achieved by ignoring these natural rules). This is how the symphony, the concerto, the opera, and - last not least - jazz all successively "died" (pace Frank Zappa!) as popular music forms. This has very little to do with the intellecual concept of "artistic value", which has never influenced audiences much (beyond a few specialists and a few more would-be specialist snobs), but a lot with the general accessibility of the works - to state it bluntly, pre-Parker jazz and pre-Schoenberg concert music have a lot more singable melodies and danceable rhythms, two ingredients noticeable in all types of folk and popular music since records (written or gramophone, as you prefer) began, and up to this day THE way of inducing others to listen to the noise you make!

Chris Zwarg