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

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francesco Martinelli" <francesco.martinelli at gmail.com>
>> 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. My answer is that for a recording to be 
> as
> influential as KoKo or West End Blues it needs to interpret, or 
> anticipate,
> the spirit of the times. Jazz had to change - for better or worse, in a
> positive or a negative way it is a matter of opinions, but the change is
> there - and these recordings were a poetic expression of major changes in
> society and culture. While the outer shape changes, in its nature I feel a
> deep unity in jazz from Armstrong and Morton to Coltrane and Threadgill 
> and
> points beyond - the music changed with the world, before and after Charlie
> Parker. A plot theory - a group of nefarious individuals (Parker, 
> Gillespie,
> Monk, Davis) armed by the powerful Dial and Savoy labels hijacking the 
> music
> at gun point and silencing the "popular" voices forcing the audience out 
> of
> Armstrong and Basie concerts - may provide a scapegoat, but not an
> understanding. Trying to recapture (recapture, not analyse and understand) 
> a
> bygone era can be nostalgically tender and comfortingly protect us form
> change, but will not appeal to further generations.
> And this not deter to the validity of Morton, Armstrong and Bechet in 
> their
> own time and style - to the contrary, it enhances it.
>
The one thing, however, that DID change was the whole concert of "jazz" as
"dance music!" The "jazz" of the teens/twenties/thirties, and even into the 
forties,
had functioned to a great extent as "dance music" (this applies to both 
actual
"jazz" and the so-named pop music of the young white fans...?!" When bop
and later "jazz" forms took over, this was, instead, music that one listened
attentively to...in fact, "meditated on"...often with the aid of various
recreational substances...! Because the latter approach doesn't provide
comparable "fun" in comparison to the former..."jazz" changed from a
physical experience to a more introspective mental one...!

Note that using this point of view, the musical "doldrums" which lasted
(in the white forum, at any rate...?!) from c.1946 to c.1954-55 become
even MORE of an oddity...?!

Steven C. Barr