Re: [ARSCLIST] A gripe Was: A Holiday vision

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 28/12/07, Steven C. Barr(x) wrote:

> I would also include Jimi Hendrix as a "creator!" There are a VERY few
> artists who picked up their instrument and started playing in a way
> than no one had previously done...! 

However, the influence from Coltrane is very strong. It's a great pity
Hendrix died so young, it would have been interesting to see how he
developed.

> I'd include Armstrong, Ellington,
> possibly Goodman, Charlie Christian and/or Aaron "T-Bone" Walker,
> probably Broonzy (but NOT RJ, who I feel is over-rated through having
> been the main acoustic/country blues artist available in the UK just
> as their blues fascination started...?!), Jimmie Rodgers, Hank
> Williams I, Earl Hooker (Chicago bluesman who was playing that "funk"
> rhythm in c.1959...!), Bob Dylan, the Beatles, James Brown,
> Hendrix...and not much innovative in a larger use of that term from
> there on...!
> 
> I'm thinking of new musical developments that completely changed the
> face of "popular music" when they appeared...like ragtime c.1900 or

But wht does music have to be "popular" to be important? Have Hugo
Wolf's songs ever been popular? Or Mompou? Or Mabel Mercer? 

I think the mass popularity of a few musicians or bands was a phenomenon
of the 20C which has passed. There will not IMO be another Glenn Miller,
Sinatra or Beatles.

But there are many outstanding and original musicians around, some of
whom are fairly widely known, other less so.

> so, jazz c.1915, swing and "big band" in the early thirties, combo
> blues (late thirties, early forties) and a few years later electric
> blues...rock'n'roll (1952, although to my ears Louis Jordan was
> playing it on "Cal'donia" c.1941...!)...and the evolution of
> country music from the folk "string bands" of the mid-twenties,
> through Rodgers and into its "hillbilly heyday" in the forties
> and early fifties...!
> 
> In theory, we are due...heck, OVERdue...for some brand new and
> totally different idea of "pop music" that won't depend on much
> that went before it (and those can only be recognized in retrospect!).
> Instead, we get "urban dance" that is essentially James Brown's
> riffs computerized (to their loss!) and endlessly repeated...?!
> 
You won't find great food in the Ready Meals freezer of your local
supermarket.

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx