[78-L] 1950s big bands

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cary Ginell" <soundthink at live.com>
> That's precisely my point. The orchestras were no longer the attraction. 
> Popular mainstream music became personality-driven rather than 
> song-driven. Most of the top singers from the '50s - Sinatra, Doris Day, 
> Como, got their start as big band vocalists. Big bands became background 
> musicians. All the examples you cite below are what I classify as 
> instrumental groups, not big bands. None of those hits had vocals either. 
> You are confusing "big bands" with "studio orchestras." There's a major 
> difference between Benny Goodman in the '40s and Ray Conniff in the '60s. 
> The difference is string sections, which is what drove most orchestral 
> backing in the '50s and '60s. Only a few big bands of the '30s and '40s 
> used strings (Artie Shaw tried it, but it didn't always work). Nelson 
> Riddle, Percy Faith, Andre Kostelanetz, Hugo Winterhalter, Billy Vaughn - 
> that was the new MOR. But those weren't big bands. The big bands of the 
> '30s and '40s, which were diluted from the smaller, hotter band
> s of the late '20s and early '30s, were now diluted even further into what 
> became known as "easy listening."
>
In fact, there is a local (Toronto) deejay who has hosted a "big band" radio 
show for at
least 30 years. He used to play swing-era "big band" recordings...however, 
these days
he plays mostly much later MOR material...?!

They bands ARE inarguably "big"...but their music is (1) hopelessly boring," 
and
(2) has NOTHING to do with the swing-era "big band" music! The music is
just a sort of "dumbed down" music...with NO audible reason to appeal to
anyone who enjoys music as more than "filler"...?!

Steven C. Barr