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  1. #176

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    Quote Originally Posted by targuit
    ... Purple Haze was of course a big release for Jimi as well as the name of a well known and appreciated variety of pot, also part of the counterculture...
    I could be wrong, and it really doesn't matter, but I think that Purple Haze was a variety of acid, not pot.

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  3. #177

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    That's a question actually - was jazz ever popular, or was it just dance bands?
    Yes, jazz was popular. Many popular jazz bands played dance music.

    The "King of Jazz" in the 1920s was Paul Whiteman, who is dismissed by many fans today as---one might now call it---lame. He commissioned Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Here's a "video" of it from 1930.


  4. #178

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    Jazz was popular when it was an extension of pop and dance music.

  5. #179

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77

    My dad describes Hendrix as having been 'underground' and part of the 'counterculture' as he was there, I defer to his knowledge. Most straights were into boom bang a bang or Sinatra at this point :-) Motown was huge of course, as well. The Beatles manage to straddle both worlds... But Jimi was proper counterculture.
    I don't knew how things were in your dad's neighborhood, but when I was a kid, Jimi Hendrix was a household name. His records were available everywhere, and his wall posters too. (Including even---wait for it---blacklight posters!) He was a concert draw and one can see footage of him on television in America and Europe. Between August of '67 and October '68, he released three studio albums (and one of those, Electric Ladyland, was a double album.) Then live albums started coming out---the historic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, "In the West" (-much of which was in the documentary film "Jimi Plays Berkeley"), The Band of Gypsys album, the performance at Woodstock, singles....

    Despite enormous popularity, The Beatles were considered "counterculture" by many. So was Dylan. In the '60s, one could be very popular---this was the Baby Boom----despite having no--or few-- fans over 30. ;o)

  6. #180

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    Quote Originally Posted by lammie200
    I could be wrong, and it really doesn't matter, but I think that Purple Haze was a variety of acid, not pot.
    You are not wrong about this.
    It would notsurprise me if some strain of marijuana also bore that name now. But back then, this was understood to mean acid (or, if you prefer, LSD).




  7. #181

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Yes Ellington was a bit 'underground' in the sense that most of the (white) record buying public in the 1920's were listening to sweet dance bands.... They often play this stuff at vintage events, and the difference between this essentially white music and the real 'jazz' stuff... well it's err... black and white...

    As I understand it the real deal jazz stuff, while known, was edgier, and of course there was the whole issue of racial politics. Happy to be corrected if this is untrue.

    My dad describes Hendrix as having been 'underground' and part of the 'counterculture' as he was there, I defer to his knowledge. Most straights were into boom bang a bang or Sinatra at this point :-) Motown was huge of course, as well. The Beatles manage to straddle both worlds... But Jimi was proper counterculture.
    In the US Jimi was getting hassled by both the Panthers and Hells Angels. I think they wanted him to take a stand on the war but maybe he just wanted to play music.
    Sly's 'Thank You' changed everything. The world became a very funky place.

  8. #182

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    Quote Originally Posted by targuit
    I'm not sure about the term underground so much as 'counterculture'. Jimmy happened in the Sixties and I was there so to speak. Saw him perform two or three times live. The setting was that of the British invasion - Beatles, Stones, Who, etc. - and the Vietnam War was coming into the consciousness. Purple Haze was of course a big release for Jimi as well as the name of a well known and appreciated variety of pot, also part of the counterculture.

    As far as I know, Jimi's roots were in the blues. But he has his Woodstock performance of The Star Spangled Banner as his 'defining moment' with the swoops of his whammy bar mimicking the bombs dropping. Jimmy was also a showman and had a bit of the "James Dean" thing going. He would appear on late night television and sort of defy category. A real character.

    Sinatra was the older generation's star they had grown up with as a popular singer phenomenon in their youth. But in the early Sixties Sinatra's star had dimmed considerably and a movie role as a GI in WWII brought his career out of the shadows. Bigger than ever. I grew up hearing Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Sinatra, and others on the black and white and then color TV. The "Rat Pack" as Sinatra, Dean Martin and their buddies were nicknamed were big time.
    I'm from the UK. I think it's slightly different historically...

  9. #183

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I don't knew how things were in your dad's neighborhood, but when I was a kid, Jimi Hendrix was a household name. His records were available everywhere, and his wall posters too. (Including even---wait for it---blacklight posters!) He was a concert draw and one can see footage of him on television in America and Europe. Between August of '67 and October '68, he released three studio albums (and one of those, Electric Ladyland, was a double album.) Then live albums started coming out---the historic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, "In the West" (-much of which was in the documentary film "Jimi Plays Berkeley"), The Band of Gypsys album, the performance at Woodstock, singles....

    Despite enormous popularity, The Beatles were considered "counterculture" by many. So was Dylan. In the '60s, one could be very popular---this was the Baby Boom----despite having no--or few-- fans over 30. ;o)
    Interesting. My dad was in London at this time IRC. Maybe he wasn't as mainstream here even though he got his breaks in London.

  10. #184

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Yes, jazz was popular. Many popular jazz bands played dance music.

    The "King of Jazz" in the 1920s was Paul Whiteman, who is dismissed by many fans today as---one might now call it---lame. He commissioned Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Here's a "video" of it from 1930.

    And dismissed by me, apologies for the cliche. Paul Whiteman is not jazz IMHO. Really not my cup of tea, doesn't have the feel. Which is not to say the players couldn't swing, just that it was sweet music, designed for what we now call ballroom dancing.... I do believe they put some jazz feeling in there sometimes, when they could get away with it.

    Ray Noble's early British bands are a bit like that too. Every so often they let some jazz off, and then return to that sweet stuff....

    Why waste time listening to Whiteman when you could listen to Duke Ellington? Very trendy though... People like that twee nonsense.... They can sit around eating their cupcakes and knitting their snoods to it.

    I can hear it's quality twee nonsense though - impeccably played... Well it's nice. It causes no offense.

    And yes he had some great jazz players in his band, including Eddie. But just because a jazz musician plays music don't make it jazz.

    Rhapsody in Blue is good though, have to give him that.
    Last edited by christianm77; 02-05-2016 at 01:39 PM.

  11. #185

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Yes, jazz was popular. Many popular jazz bands played dance music.

    The "King of Jazz" in the 1920s was Paul Whiteman, who is dismissed by many fans today as---one might now call it---lame. He commissioned Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Here's a "video" of it from 1930.

    Side Comment:

    That was quite an artistic dance intro.

  12. #186

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    Quote Originally Posted by AlsoRan
    Side Comment:

    That was quite an artistic dance intro.
    I thought so too.

  13. #187

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I'm from the UK. I think it's slightly different historically...
    I am currently a refugee from the UK but was still there as a fully participating member of the London scene during the time period in question.

    In the mid to late '60s there was a highly self-conscious sense of "otherness" among the young - centred primarily around the swelling popular consumption of recreational drugs. We liked to think of ourselves rather pretentiously as "underground" because the mainstream overground struggled to comprehend what was going on. There was much demonisation in the media - which was much provoked, much encouraged, and much reflected, by our behaviour.

    The idea of counter-culture came from the heady dialectic of opposition to the dominant culture of the grown-up world made of adult survivors of war. We nursed the illusion of being an international band of brothers and sisters united around the same principles and values and understandings generated by the sacrament of LSD.

    What we were, really, was a market segment, a demographic. One which continued - despite the British Invasion - to believe that the world and whatever in it that was important to us kiddies, this world and the excitement of real life was taking place elsewhere. In America.

    Then, here comes Jimi.

    Jimi was American. He was black. He was exotic. He became convenient repository of our racial myths about sexual danger. He represented a whole bunch of imagined funky shit that we had never had before. Perfect outlaw material. And so we appropriated him and his music as symbols of authenticity for our pretend counter-culture. Easy.

    Jimi had potent counter-cultural meaning for the underground, alright. But, as a commercial commodity who moved units, he was an overtly overground success, a household name, on the telly, recognisable from front pages, even grannie knew who he was. How much more mainstream can it get?

    The British Invasion was a funny thing. Acne-ridden white boys selling counterfeit copies of black music to a US market ignorant of its own culture. How ridiculous. Many of us were amazed they got away with it.

    While the Dave Clark Five were laughed at at home, they were actually in the Vanguard of that faux moment.
    Can you believe it?

  14. #188

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77

    Why waste time listening to Whiteman when you could listen to Duke Ellington? Very trendy though... People like that twee nonsense.... They can sit around eating their cupcakes and knitting their snoods to it.
    You say this in total ignorance of Ellington's praise of Whiteman. You think he wasn't worth listening to but Ellington thought otherwise. Duke's view carries a lot more weight with me. Of course, Duke was also accused of "twee nonsense" more than once...)

  15. #189

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    I had a jazz guitar teacher who said to me, "there are more people making a good living in the NBA than there are musicians making a good living playing jazz guitar".

    That was Bill Thrasher who said that, the year... 1977.

    I'd guess things have only gotten worse for jazz musicians (and better for NBA players). Kind of puts things in perspective.

    If you are making a good living playing jazz guitar, you are a rare bird indeed.

  16. #190

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Why waste time listening to Whiteman when you could listen to Duke Ellington?
    One answer might be Fletcher Henderson.

    "Paul Whiteman was known as the King of Jazz, and no one as yet has come near carrying that title with more certainty and dignity." Duke Ellington

    You might possibly get a kick out of more real history as opposed to myth. I mean, the myth is crucial - can't escape it in the business of entertainment - and it clearly does have both meaning and great significance - but, for me, personally, the biggest slice of fun I get since I started to study the history of western popular music more assiduously and critically is to discover that most everything we believe to be true is likely complete bollocks.

    If you're interested in that style of fun, of course.
    For me, it's a perfect fit for my own naturally iconoclastic tendencies.

  17. #191

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    From my perspective, it seems that most of the people who are concerned that jazz is dead are performers. Sure, I'd like to have a venue where I could sit down with a beverage and groove to some cool jazz, but I think very many of us who don't play out (or just love to listen) revel in our elitism. Hating rock 'n' roll or rap for their lack of sophistication is a different brand of discrimination. I see some elitism and arrogance in a lot of players, too.

    Now I'll duck.

  18. #192

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stevebol
    There's no passion in today's music. Not in the US. Thank got for Youtube where I can listen to older music. And stay off my lawn!
    There's a draught! Pull that lawn out.

  19. #193

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    Quote Originally Posted by MaxTwang
    There's a draught! Pull that lawn out.
    Let me guess, CA? I'm 7 miles from Lake Michigan. Maybe they should run a pipeline from this sucker for you guys.

  20. #194

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    Quote Originally Posted by henryrobinett
    I had a student who loves punk. Ok he's an inmate. He's all about rebellion. Skin Head, but a very smart guy. I tried to get him to see that in its day jazz was total rebellion and to think of it in those terms. From ragtime to bebop. It still is in a certain sense. Make no mistake. But it's achieved a certain artistic and intellectual cache.
    I had a keyboard player friend who saw Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", Weather Report's "Mr Gone" and the Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks" as equals as they were all rebellious and attempts to change the world. I learned a lot from him about innovation and passion in art.

    In the 80's there was some interest in jazz among some punk artists. IIRC Henry Rollins gave a couple jazz artists their break and recorded them on his label.

    Unfortunately the attempts at 'punk jazz' I've head focus on 'thrash' as a sound and not the passion to communicate.

  21. #195

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    There was plenty of cheap, lame music made in the past. It gets forgotten, and everyone remembers Duke Ellington and Jimi Hendrix, but these guys were not mainstream at the time. They were underground or at least off mainstream.
    This is BS, plain and simple. In 1967, Melody Maker named Hendrix Pop Musician of the Year. In 1968, Rolling Stone dubbed him Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo named him Top World Musician in 1969 and 1970. Jimi Hendrix received a staggering amount of attention while he was alive, popular performers from the Stones and Beatles on down the pop music food chain raved about him, and he recorded enough material to keep two bands going.

    As for Ellington, he gave annual concerts at Carnegie Hall during the '40s for godsake; hardly the venue for someone far outside the mainstream. (Those were the Blanton / Webster years: to many ears, Duke's best orchestra.) His time was much longer than that of Hendrix of course----Duke recorded from the mid-20s until the early 70s.

    Here's his 'final speech' from his 70th birthday concert (recorded in Manchester, I believe). Just wanted to hear it again.


  22. #196

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Paul Whiteman is not jazz IMHO.... quality twee nonsense though - impeccably played... yes he had some great jazz players ........ just because a jazz musician plays music don't make it jazz.
    Yeah - well.. I guess one could level the same comments at the Duke's oeuvre if we were cherry-picking. There is certainly much of his work sounds less jazz to me than it is just music. Music of the people, he said. But I'm less interested in drawing any jazz/not-jazz line than I am in feeling the river of tradition. As a significant C20th composer about whom I still have much to learn, the Ellingtonian current as I see it very much involves the influence of Fletcher Henderson's work for Whiteman as well as the guidance and example of pre-jazz Will Marion Cook.

    Reading around the story of the Whiteman Orchestra is great fun. I think they established an Olympic standard for musicianly misbehaviour that was only surpassed by Charlie Barnett's mob. Bad boys. Very jazz.

    The last surviving Whiteman band guy took the coda only a handful of years ago. Al Gallodoro - alto sax. Played right up until the end, after his 95th birthday. Toscanini favourite. Very jazz. But not exclusively. Unbelievable articulation that tricked my ears into thinking "violin" one minute and "button-accordion" the next. Phenomenal technique. Jimmy Dorsey called him the best who ever lived. Both Ellington and Bernstein, among others, dug him. And if you can raise any agreement that him in the Whiteman band didn't swing I'll eat my computer.

    I remember myself dismissing that lot out of hand too, though - the Whitemans and Hendersons and Barnets - in my arrogant ignorant past.

    But I'm better now, thanks.

  23. #197

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lazz
    Yeah - well.. I guess one could level the same comments at the Duke's oeuvre if we were cherry-picking. There is certainly much of his work sounds less jazz to me than it is just music. Music of the people, he said. But I'm less interested in drawing any jazz/not-jazz line than I am in feeling the river of tradition. As a significant C20th composer about whom I still have much to learn, the Ellingtonian current as I see it very much involves the influence of Fletcher Henderson's work for Whiteman as well as the guidance and example of pre-jazz Will Marion Cook.

    Reading around the story of the Whiteman Orchestra is great fun. I think they established an Olympic standard for musicianly misbehaviour that was only surpassed by Charlie Barnett's mob. Bad boys. Very jazz.

    The last surviving Whiteman band guy took the coda only a handful of years ago. Al Gallodoro - alto sax. Played right up until the end, after his 95th birthday. Toscanini favourite. Very jazz. But not exclusively. Unbelievable articulation that tricked my ears into thinking "violin" one minute and "button-accordion" the next. Phenomenal technique. Jimmy Dorsey called him the best who ever lived. Both Ellington and Bernstein, among others, dug him. And if you can raise any agreement that him in the Whiteman band didn't swing I'll eat my computer.

    I remember myself dismissing that lot out of hand too, though - the Whitemans and Hendersons and Barnets - in my arrogant ignorant past.

    But I'm better now, thanks.
    But I love Fletcher Henderson and Charlie Barnet.

    I know I don't like Paul Whiteman because every time I hear it and I don't like it I ask what it is and it's always Paul Whiteman.

    But, yes there are some amazing stories. And those musicians made some records I really like in other settings... They were all motherfuckers. But I still don't like the Paul Whiteman Orchestra very much.

  24. #198

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    This is BS, plain and simple. In 1967, Melody Maker named Hendrix Pop Musician of the Year. In 1968, Rolling Stone dubbed him Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo named him Top World Musician in 1969 and 1970. Jimi Hendrix received a staggering amount of attention while he was alive, popular performers from the Stones and Beatles on down the pop music food chain raved about him, and he recorded enough material to keep two bands going.

    As for Ellington, he gave annual concerts at Carnegie Hall during the '40s for godsake; hardly the venue for someone far outside the mainstream. (Those were the Blanton / Webster years: to many ears, Duke's best orchestra.) His time was much longer than that of Hendrix of course----Duke recorded from the mid-20s until the early 70s.

    Here's his 'final speech' from his 70th birthday concert (recorded in Manchester, I believe). Just wanted to hear it again.


    I did say I would enjoy being corrected.

    Thanks for the information. I still think Duke was perhaps less mainstream than say Benny Goodman.... Jimi was less mainstream than ... ooh .. the Monkees?

    These things are relative. They were still more mainstream than me :-)

  25. #199

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    every time I hear it and I don't like it I ask what it is and it's always Paul Whiteman.
    Yeah - I hate it when they do that.
    The bastards,

  26. #200

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    Duke Ellington was nominated for a Pullitzer music price but ended being bypassed in favor of some pop singer. Asked his thoughts of that, he said: "I thank The Good Lord for not letting me to become famous too young." He was well into his sixties by then.