My son gave me a very interesting book – “Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans”. When I began reading it, I realized it wasn’t a linear biography in the normal sense. Basically, the author is overlaying the presence of Armstrong in the context of the development of jazz in New Orleans.
The author claims that prior to emergence of jazz and the blues into a popular music form, music enjoyed by Americans was almost exclusively of the Eurocentric style of music played from notation. The audience’s enjoyment of the music was based upon the quality of the composition, and the skill and precision with which the players rendered the music from its sheet music.
The author traces the movement in New Orleans towards a “vernacular” style of music from the influx of Creoles and Negros into the area, bringing their own music with them. Since these two groups didn’t (couldn’t, at the time) mix with the dominant white class, they were insular and their music developed into an exciting, free-form music meant to be enjoyed by people in all area of their lives.
Instead of presenting music in indoor halls, with paid admission, the music in the black and Creole sections of New Orleans was a part of their daily lives – they heard it in church, they heard it in the streets (“advertising wagons” used to have live bands to announce upcoming events or sales) and in weddings, and famously, the New Orleans funerals.
This reminded me of a couple of things. One is, we all know someone who, as a child, was pressured (forced, in some cases) to take piano or violin lessons, which often consisted of strict adherence to reading sheet music. The lessons went over each piece in detail and the student practiced and practiced until they could play it through without error, and then they’d move on the next piece. Can you think of a more soul-sucking approach to music?
The second thing it reminded me of, was bluegrass. It too, grew out of a class of immigrants who were, for the most part, isolated from the Eurocentric music world. In situations where music is passed through generations in a purely oral (and aural) way, there were naturally be variations along the way, and I think this, like the situation in New Orleans, leads to embracement of improvisation as being an inherent part of the music’s appeal.
Now, I know plenty of musicians who take pride in learning a particular banjo or fiddle part from a “classic” bluegrass record note-for-note, and that’s impressive (and basically impossible for me), but the true joy in bluegrass (and jazz, and blues) is the improvisational aspect of it.
This fine book I’m reading (I’m just about done) made me realize that it was revolutionary for this approach to music to become popular music(many historic and socio-economic factors came into play here) and for the virtuosos of these genres to be recognized as musical giants. A similar book could be written about Bill Monroe!
