Double Bass Why isn't Jazz that popular? (DB forum thread)

[philip sirois]

That's the thing isn't it - in 1959, Jazz was the popular music of the day in the way that rock and pop became it, in the 60s.


No way Bruce . There may have been a "take five" or the like stuck in there, but look at the pop charts for 1959, 1955, 1949,...not many jazz records on the list. A few jazz artists playing pop music, maybe, but jazz like we seem to be talking about was not in the popular consciousness in any real way. Its all Bing, Perry, Dinah Shore, Vic Damone, The Mills Brothers, Rosemary Clooney.. If you were in your teens/ early twenties buying records in that era, chances are those are the artists you're buying, not Dexter Gordon/Wardell Gray. That's not to say there wasn't people interested in that stuff, but it was by no means the popular music of the day.

 

[gerry grable]

That's the thing isn't it - in 1959, Jazz was the popular music of the day in the way that rock and pop became it, in the 60s.


No way Bruce . There may have been a "take five" or the like stuck in there, but look at the pop charts for 1959, 1955, 1949,...not many jazz records on the list. A few jazz artists playing pop music, maybe, but jazz like we seem to be talking about was not in the popular consciousness in any real way. Its all Bing, Perry, Dinah Shore, Vic Damone, The Mills Brothers, Rosemary Clooney.. If you were in your teens/ early twenties buying records in that era, chances are those are the artists you're buying, not Dexter Gordon/Wardell Gray. That's not to say there wasn't people interested in that stuff, but it was by no means the popular music of the day.

+1 I agree (see post #669 above), but what intrigues me is how did Bruce arrive at this misperception?
Either he is too young to have lived (or played) through those times, or maybe jazz was much more popular in England than it was here. Case in point: many frustrated jazz players moved to Europe during those years.
Or, he may have simply misstated his thoughts.
For me the mid '50s through the '60s --1900s that is was the greatest and most exciting period in jazz history, but compared to pop, rock and country&western it still was far from being the popular music of the day.

 

[MLysh]

To borrow an expression from Bill Hicks: This thread's a hoot.

I suggest that as lovers of this thing we call jazz (whatever one deems it to be), we start to use the tried and true Fox News propaganda technique of repeating statements of jazz's popularity again and again and again and again, until people believe it's true.

I remember the night my brother and I sat transfixed before our family T.V. set as Ed Sullivan announced those famous words: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Miles Davis Quintet." From the very first notes of "Milestones," I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life...

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

That's the thing isn't it - in 1959, Jazz was the popular music of the day in the way that rock and pop became it, in the 60s.

Bruce,
I don't know how it was across the pond, but jazz never was the popular music of the day over here. Unless you consider Sinatra, Como and Steve and Edie, Ella and all the other great pop singers and the bands that introduced them to be jazz. And even they were rapidly becoming less popular than rock and roll.

I have just caught up with this and I think what I was trying to say has been taken out of context of the conversation I was having - so my first sentence, was really leading up to this :

"So - if you were into music and buying albums of the best modern music, then in 1959 it was Jazz that was "hip" and selling to young people interested in music."

I don't imagine that Jazz sold more than anything else, but I was agreeing with Damon when he said :

"But a lot of 70's stoner record collections would have a few jazz albums, and chances were very, very good you'd see either "Kind of Blue" or "Take Five" in there. "

So - there are people who are interested in what is the "hippest" thing around at the time - in the 60s, it became pop music and this moved to rock in the 70s.

I was just using "popular music" as a term to describe "not classical" - but still with some musical worth, substance - whatever you want to call it.

I was just saying that the most interesting and hippest music around in 1959 (that was not classical) - was undoubtedly Jazz.

And that was the last time that would happen - so by 1967 it was hipper to be into Hendrix and Psychedelic music.

I was not talking about what was the most popular or what sold most (that doesn't interest me) - but rather what the record buying public considered to be the most interesting and "hippest" (for want of a better term) type of "popular" (not classical) music.

 

[Don Higdon]

I believe thats backwords, jazz musicians would take pop tunes and show tunes and cover them. Fyi take a look at The Bad Plus as a modern day example of what went on back in the day. Best older example would be Stella by Starlight.

The original meaning of "cover" was imitation, copying someone else's approach, arrangement, delivery.
Jazz musicians did not cover pop and show tunes. They played them whatever way they wanted. Sometimes, an original performancewould set a standard which everyone would follow, but out of respect, e.g. the bass figure on All Blues.
The Bad Plus are not an example of what went on back in the day. I was there.
Stella would be the best older example of what?

 

[Rockford]

Speaking as a trumpet player who plays and appreciates good jazz I'd say that bebop put the final nail in the jazz coffin with the general public. While I like the music of Miles and Coltrane and Bird, they also come off as elitist a$$holes. They just aren't very inviting figures and the endless busyness of saxophone licks gets old after a few tunes. Sorry.

 

[Don Higdon]

As I've said before, jazz was not THE popular music of the 50's, but it was the music of rebellion, i.e. young people gravitated to it as an antidote for mom and dad's music. Jazzbo Collins had a nightly prime time 3 hour radio program on WNEW that was hugely popular and covered a broad spectrum from swing to bop. I remember him laying down the law that he was going to play 'Stardust', from a Jazz at The Philharmonic LP (a 12 minute performance, unheard of in radio at the time) two times each night. That's popularity. Ahmad Jamal's Poinciana was a huge hit. In the early 60's, I heard Mongo Santamaria for the first time on the Andy Williams show, a family variety show.

 

[NicholasF]

The original meaning of "cover" was imitation, copying someone else's approach, arrangement, delivery.
Jazz musicians did not cover pop and show tunes. They played
whatever way they wanted. Sometimes, an original performancewould set a standard which everyone would follow, but out of respect, e.g. the bass figure on All Blues.
The Bad Plus are not an example of what went on back in the day. I was there.
Stella would be the best older example of what?

I really think that your idea of what a cover is, is very narrow minded, sure you take the original purpose of the song, but even if you tried not to you put your own spin on it.
Stella was a show tune/ pop tune that was "covered" by many jazz musicians, off the top fo my head another would be Summer Time, which was a song in Porgy and Bes, also all the songs based off of I Got Rhythm(Oleo) And yes, i honestly dont know how old you are, but i know that my grandparents who were kids in the 20's and 30's, know this stuff, and they werent musicians.
Also your logic for All Blues is contradicting, if they were only original performances and neither pop or show tunes, how come the songs mentioned, and others are in the Real Book, which is a book of these standards. Did they just say hey this is a cool song lets throw it in there, or did Miles cover it and put it on a record?

 

[Eric Hochberg]

I really think that your idea of what a cover is, is very narrow minded,

I share Don's definition of what a "cover" is. In my experience, "cover bands" attempt to perform a song as the original recording, or copy someone else's version. The fact that jazz music features improvisation as a major component makes direct copying impossible, although an arrangement may be the same.

Nick, I have trouble understanding much of the rest of the points you are trying to make above. The Real Books were put together as fake books for jazz musicians and include many of the tunes performed and recorded by popular jazz groups and artists.

 

[Don Higdon]

I really think that your idea of what a cover is, is very narrow minded, sure you take the original purpose of the song, but even if you tried not to you put your own spin on it.
Stella was a show tune/ pop tune that was "covered" by many jazz musicians, off the top fo my head another would be Summer Time, which was a song in Porgy and Bes, also all the songs based off of I Got Rhythm(Oleo) And yes, i honestly dont know how old you are, but i know that my grandparents who were kids in the 20's and 30's, know this stuff, and they werent musicians.
Also your logic for All Blues is contradicting, if they were only original performances and neither pop or show tunes, how come the songs mentioned, and others are in the Real Book, which is a book of these standards. Did they just say hey this is a cool song lets throw it in there, or did Miles cover it and put it on a record?

By your logic, since every song that has been written has been done by someone else, anything I or anyone else plays is a cover.
This may be too sophisticated a concept for you, but using an element from an original arrangement, such as the intro to "A Train", or the aforementioned All Blues, is not a matter of imitation but of admiration and respect. It is not imitating so as to profit from someone else's work, which is the original meaning of "cover", and which still applies, as in cover bands.

 

[ChuckCorbis]

Also your logic for All Blues is contradicting, if they were only original performances and neither pop or show tunes, how come the songs mentioned, and others are in the Real Book, which is a book of these standards. Did they just say hey this is a cool song lets throw it in there, or did Miles cover it and put it on a record?

The Real Book is a BOOTLEG book that if I remember correctly, was sold on the street in New York in front of Sam Ash in the mid 70s on West 48th Street by a trombone player named Charles who had a business card that said he was a "LIBRARIAN". How it became this POPULAR is amazing.

 

[NicholasF]

The Real Book is a BOOTLEG book that if I remember correctly, was sold on the street in New York in front of Sam Ash in the mid 70s on West 48th Street by a trombone player named Charles who had a business card that said he was a "LIBRARIAN". How it became this POPULAR is amazing.

It was popular in the early 70's, because the books originated in Berklee by students who were playing, learning and listening to popular jazz songs, these were standards long before they were in the Real Book. The guy in front of Sam Ash story is varried, when my uncle was in his 20's late into them(he said around'76) he went into that Sam Ash, he asked for a real book, and they had led him to the back giving him a copy, they did have to do certian things to get the book, i forgot the specifics, but it was Sam Ash employees

 

[gerry grable]

The original meaning of "cover" was imitation, copying someone else's approach, arrangement, delivery.

The misunderstanding of the terms "cover" and "cover band" has long been a pet peeve of mine. They are now used by, mostly younger musicians, as put down meaning a cover band that plays or rerecords other people's music as opposed to a band (much superior in their minds) playing only their own original material. Actually "cover" refers to a racial practice which goes back to recordings of the 20s and 30s when major white record companies had splinter or parallel black record companies that catered to the black audiences.They actually were called "race records!" If a song on the black label showed promise and a potential to cross over to the more lucrative (for the record companies) white market they found a white artist to rerecord it, not necessarily copy it note for note.
One song that comes to my mind is Peggy Lee's cover of Lil Green's version of You've Come a Long Way From St. Louie. Lee's record was a huge hit on the white label while Green's original version, while great and popular, was less financially successful on the black label. This naturally caused animosity and resentment as being yet another example of black exploitation, hence the perjorative tone of the term that continues to this day
The practice of using cover artists (always from black to white) went on through the 50s with Pat Boone's soul-less covers of Ivory Joe William's blues songs I Almost Lost My Mind and Since My Baby Left Me . These were covers in the true sense of the word. The practice goes on still but is no longer insidious. Nowadays writers get royalties! In a rare reversal (white to black) I'm sure that Dolly Parton is more than happy with Whitney Houston's cover of her hit I'm Saving All My Love For You. Also, Michael Bolton lauched his career by covering Sitting On the Dock of the Bay.
P.S.
And. . .for some three-chord wonder to call my interpretation of Stella by Starlight (not a show tune but a movie sound track as is On Green Dlophin Street, a cover is simply ludicrous.

 

[ChuckCorbis]

It was popular in the early 70's, because the books originated in Berklee by students who were playing, learning and listening to popular jazz songs, these were standards long before they were in the Real Book. The guy in front of Sam Ash story is varried, when my uncle was in his 20's late into them(he said around'76) he went into that Sam Ash, he asked for a real book, and they had led him to the back giving him a copy, they did have to do certian things to get the book, i forgot the specifics, but it was Sam Ash employees

Thanks for reminding me of the reason I moved in with 2 brothers at Columbia on 116th street and enrolled at C.C.N.Y. in Harlem instead of going up North and running up a bill that I and my parents would have regretted paying. My B.F.A. cost less than $16,000 total for 4 years. I wonder what it costs now for the B.M. at Berklee for 4 years to be TOLD what's popular. Ha. LOL

 

[azureblue]

I doubt most of the commenters here who slam jazz even know who Buddy Bolden was, could describe in music terms his contribution to jazz, much less musically define and describe the eras of jazz from Buddy until the present..... or play them for that matter.

For you lunkheads, take a gander and listen to Arturo Sandoval http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Sandoval . Here is a master of jazz who can not only play in his own style, but in the style of his predecessors...

 

[Shakin-Slim]

While I like the music of Miles and Coltrane and Bird, they also come off as elitist a$$holes.

Can't the majority of artists who take their art seriously be considered as just the same? I wouldn't call them elitist at all, only sure of their intentions and goals as artists, and not willing to compromise being relegated to the same ranks as their dance/pop peers. That isn't to say they wouldn't have dug that music, only that they were doing what they were doing for a reason. Determination could be read as elitism, but it's an incorrect reading.

 

[Rockford]

Can't the majority of artists who take their art seriously be considered as just the same? I wouldn't call them elitist at all, only sure of their intentions and goals as artists, and not willing to compromise being relegated to the same ranks as their dance/pop peers. That isn't to say they wouldn't have dug that music, only that they were doing what they were doing for a reason. Determination could be read as elitism, but it's an incorrect reading.

All I'm saying is that these artists, whose names and personalities define jazz, do not come off as very friendly or likeable people. Since we're talking about popularity I'm suggesting their un-inviting image contributes to the general public's lack of interest in jazz.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

All I'm saying is that these artists, whose names and personalities define jazz, do not come off as very friendly or likeable people. Since we're talking about popularity I'm suggesting their un-inviting image contributes to the general public's lack of interest in jazz.

And somebody like Lou Reed or Leonard Cohen come across as ....

How about Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan?

 

[thunderstation]

Personally, I think jazz is popular, it's just that jazz fans aren't as rabid about the genre as some others. also, because i think jazz is intellectual, it takes a while (years?) to develope an ear & appreciation and understanding of the form so maybe more ardent listeners are older and are less inclined to get excited about the style.

 

[NicholasF]

The original meaning of "cover" was imitation, copying someone else's approach, arrangement, delivery.
Jazz musicians did not cover pop and show tunes. They played them whatever way they wanted. Sometimes, an original performancewould set a standard which everyone would follow, but out of respect, e.g. the bass figure on All Blues.

Take a read here
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1920s_jazz_standards

From the 3rd paragraph down, you'll see that standards were pop tunes, and down below that there's a list of standards that were show tunes.