[78-L] Great Singers "Era" (would be all eras)

[Joe Scott]

Well, as far as instrumentalists go, once Woody Herman's clarinet playing was no longer modern enough to impress other jazz musicians (about 1947), you couldn't hold your head up in jazz and make anything the general public wanted to hear (successfully marketed anomalies such as Dave "I Have To Do With College" Brubeck aside). So if you were Frank Beecher, formerly with Goodman, you ended up playing with Bill Haley. If you were Lee Allen, who'd dreamed of soloing in Lunceford's band, you ended up playing with Little Richard.

The public didn't want to hear Benny Goodman just improvise through a whole record any more -- but never really had, either, had wanted him with Helen Forrest or Peggy Lee or the like, mostly. The public knew Jimmy Rushing as "Mr. Five By Five" much better than they knew Lester Young as "Pres." The Big Band or Swing Era was a singers' era.

Joseph Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: Malcolm Rockwell
Sent: 04/29/14 10:37 AM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] the end of the Great Singers Era

Could it be that people began trying too hard to be Great Singers, instead of actually being great singers? There is a certain level of phoniness to be dealt with here. For example it's possible Judy Garland was a person who ended up believing her own press releases. And Billie Holiday was not. Also I feel the public got lost in the (melodic and harmonic) complexity that jazz became and that is why it dwindled. Same happened with Hawaiian steel guitar playing. Taking a simple, grinnable concept and turning it into a no-grin situation. The inverse happened with the ukulele. It was born simple and stayed that way. And it's still popular. Malcolm ******* On 4/29/2014 5:24 AM, Joe Scott wrote: > "I think that from about 1945, there were fewer and fewer tunes that lent themselves to jazz interpretation. I'm not saying that was a good or a bad thing, just a statement of fact." > I don't think it's really more difficult for a person to make jazz out of "Raindrops Are Falling On My Head" than out of "Ol' Man River," I think the general public lost interest in jazz interpretations of the latest hits because they'd lost interest in jazz. > Joseph Scott > _______________________________________________ > 78-L mailing list > 78-L at klickitat.78online.com > http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l > _______________________________________________ 78-L mailing list 78-L at klickitat.78online.com http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l