Are books dead, and can authors survive?

[David Morris]

Sorry, I just don't agree with your formula.

Rock's infancy was the early 50's.  Serious jazz was already well
established by the start of the 50's.  I don't think Charlie Parker
ever felt the need to be "relieved of the burden of having to be
popular."  It was his lead in this regard that freed his
contemporaries, not the emergence of Rock, which barely existed at the
time.

Charlie Parker:
"By 1950, much of the jazz world had fallen under Parker's spell. Many
musicians transcribed and copied his solos. Legions of saxophonists
imitated his playing note-for-note. In response to these pretenders,
Parker's admirer, the bass player Charles Mingus, titled a tune
"Gunslinging Bird" (meaning "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger,
there would be a whole lot of dead copycats") featured on the album
Mingus Dynasty. In this regard, he is perhaps only comparable to Louis
Armstrong: both men set the standard for their instruments for
decades, and few escaped their influence."


On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 5:30 PM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jazz wasn't taken seriously, it was popular dance music. Once it
> ceased to be, it was .
> It's path was not obscurity. I don't think you can call Bitches Brew
> obscure. Jazz flourished during the rock era because it was less
> popular. Jazz musicians could take risks that pop musicians couldn't
> because they weren't expected to be teen heartthrobs. They were free
> to be real musicians.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 3:01 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Pickin' a few nits here on your theory/history re. rock & jazz:
>>
>> Dominant forms of popular musical mass entertainment change with the
>> generations.  Dominant audiences change (are born and die) parallel
>> with genres.
>>
>> Jazz didn't get "serious" in response to rock displacing its audience.
>>  It was following its own path, and that path led it to its own
>> obscurity.  Serious listeners and pop music don't usually cross paths.
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 1:22 PM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I'm reminded of the critics of popular culture who thought that rock 'n' roll would kill jazz by replacing it as the dominant form in musical mass entertainment. In fact, rock 'n' roll made jazz better by allowing it to take its place as a serious art form as opposed to mere dance music for the masses.
>>
>