This is a really interesting discussion. Is moving music *forward* the right question though? It seems like it goes back to an old-fashioned idea of progress. Isn't there a conception of music as experimental and exploratory? Where ideas are celebrated for their own merits, whatever they be? I remember reading an excellent essay by the Czech novelist Milan Kundera talking about paths one novelist or another took (I think it was Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy"), but were never picked up by others - is an avenue proposed but never followed up unimportant? I think the opposite, I love these offshoots and tangents sometimes more than the mass culture for their singularity. I like this model better than an idea of progress.
But it sounds like we've been discussing some sense of 'best', or 'important' or 'inspirational' or something. I personally tried (but still fail) to rid myself of this a long time ago. I just got sick around college age of the need to tear down others' music. I mean, I don't think it's 'all relative', and I do think that Mozart is really, objectively better than say, Boyz II Men, and even that say, the Smiths are better and more important than Lady Gaga, but, who cares? Music serves so many purposes, fulfills so many needs, there are days when I want to listen to Kesha instead of Arcade Fire, so what? Frankly, most of the time people assume their own biases and prejudices are somehow in tune with what's objectively good and right (again, I'm not immune to this either).
On jazz and 'classical' (really now should be called academic music), it seems to me they are like poetry kind of - a formerly hugely important force which is now a small eddy of the river of our culture. Important, even essential, and groundbreaking often, and sometimes filtering into the mass culture, but an offshoot.
I agree with many of the people posited here as moving things forward but a few comments. First, to me the Parliament Funkadelic machine was so important and pathbreaking, the sonic adventurousness of the opening of "Flashlight" still takes my breath away, and "Cosmic Slop" undercut the argument that funk was just comedy and light. And...Bootsy?!? How much more important can a bass player be? Central to James Brown's band, PFunk and beyond. For me as a bassist, learning "Countracula" from his "The One Giveth..." record in the early 80's was completely eye- and ear-opening as to what could be achieved on the bass. Or this? Or try the bassline on "What so never the dance"???
P-Funk was also instrumental in Hip-hop, which to me is the most sonically groundbreaking music of the last 30 years. From Run-DMC, to Dr. Dre & co, to Jurassic 5, even DJ Shadow, hip hop has reveled in a the exploration of a different idea of sound, turning on two points: 1. The loop/sample - the idea of repetition seems limiting until you actually go out and listen to all that has been done with this, and same for 2. the voice/the rap, proving again that the human voice is the most expressive, inventive and limitless instrument there is.
I think, for lack of a better term, electronic music has shown itself to be hugely important and influential. I think there is a thread from minimalist composers through Eno, to Stereolab to Aphex Twin which has now pervaded the musical landscape.
What about country? Yes, its by nature a backwards looking genre, but sometimes looking back brings our back to forgotten roots (so says Jack White, no less). I nominate Willie Nelson - someone who moved country, and music, forwards in a backwards direction - if you know what I mean. Great zen bass (Bee Spears, i think) on "Willie Nelson & Family Live", a tremendous album.
Got more ta say, but run outta time!!
--Eric
