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

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francesco Martinelli" <francesco.martinelli at gmail.com>
> My questions remains unanswered, or rather you subtly change categories
> between jazz  styles and other genres:
>> "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."
> (my emphasis). In other words, the great unwashed turned to rock'n'roll
> because of Charlie Parker.
>
No...the "great unwashed" turned to rock'n'roll (after apparently enjoying
some of the most vapid, enjoyment-free ever foisted off on the public in
the late forties/early fifties...?!) because you could DANCE to it!
> I rephrase my question: what killed the big bands and swing music? What
> prevented the masses to keep listening to the previous musical styles,
> offered commonly and copiously both live and on record? Why the advent of 
> a
> new style of music in small circles drove the public away from, say,
> Hampton
> and other big bands (who kept a dwindling following)? More to the point,
> why
> the "new swing" of the 80's for example is not nearly as good as the
> originals of 40 or 50 years before? Or you listen to the Cherry Popping
> Daddies and you enjoy it like Basie?
> Or you think that the critics and the avantgarde musicians could prevent
> them to play as well, and also prevent latest composers to compose another
> Cavalleria? (why should they other than for being evilish, is another
> matter - as far as I can remember Schoenberg did not achieve fame or 
> power,
> nor Parker did)?
>
(1) You could dance to artists like Hampton, Louis Jordan, usw (and that is
one of the most important social functions of popular music...especially 
among
the younger listeners...!!)...!
(2) Artists who are trying to REcreate styles inevitablly wind up missing 
minor
but important details! The original creators were essentially "making it up 
as
they went along" (even if they DID use "charts"...?!), while modern 
imitators
simply try to duplicate original performances...but lack the feeling and
enthusiasm that was in the originals! In fact, the same is true of 
rock'n'roll...
of rock...of "new country"...and, indeed, of "Tribute Bands!!"

> Besides, tonality and harmony are most emphatically NOT universal
> mathematical concepts (the mathematics are, not the sounds) but an
> historical product of a specific development in music, relative to a tiny
> (even if dominant) fraction of the globe, its history and its population,
> and depend on a specific convention (equal temperament). Being both a
> confessed dodecaphonist and a confirmed free-jazzer, not to mention a
> dedicated listener to non-European musics, I have to tell you that there
> are
> multitudes on the planet that listen with pleasure to seconds or 
> microtonal
> intervals, finding european polyphonic music unbearably tuneless, raw,
> unmelodic an monotonous (read any testimony of Chinese or Arabic traveler
> to
> Europe). Your conception of "singable melodies and danceable rhythms" is
> widely different from "folks" in other areas of the planet, unless you can
> tell me that you can sing along pygmies' music (seconds) and korean opera
> (microtonal) respectively more popular there than Andrews Sisters and
> Verdi.
> I do not speak Chinese, and for me they only make funny sounds, but I know
> that for them is the same. Ignorance prevents enjoyment, and vice
> versa.....
>
I have seen internet data...as well as reading/studying books of music; they 
all
seem to indicate that Homo Sapiens is capable of perceiving only a limited
number of different "notes," and that certain physical results of mixing 
sonic
frequencies are "pleasurable" to listeners, while others aren't. Thus, 
playing
B and Bb simultaneously will be...MUST be...perceived by human hearers
as a dischord. Note that I can't vouch for the accuracy of the claims
made, however...?!

Steven C. Barr