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The late pianist, radio dj, educator, radio host etc. Dr. Billy Taylor originated the phrase: "Jazz is America's Classical Music." 

It was the topic of his thesis.

On Apr 5, 2013, at 11:20 AM, David Lewis wrote:

> For the time being, Ken Burns' Jazz is rather solidly entrenched as a tool
> in jazz studies courses curricula as "there is simply nothing better about
> the subject." And for ten years, it basically
> silenced most other prospective film projects that might have dealt with
> jazz topics. Some got through, including a docu about free jazz called
> "Inside Out and in the Open" which was made
> as a reponse to Burns' rejection of that style as irrelevant. It appeared
> in 2008; I don't think it has been very widely seen.
> 
> I once attended, in high school, a demonstration by singer Kathy Wade in
> which she said that "the blues led to jazz and jazz is America's classical
> music." It was a program designed to reach
> kids and this phrase was repeated several times like a mantra, despite the
> fact that it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and is anti-historical. It
> is pretty easy to document how separate blues
> and jazz are in terms of development and where they connect, and how the
> blues as understood by jazz players really isn't the same music as what
> Charlie Patton played. This idea was being
> advanced, though, in 1978 as I saw it. Kathy is a lovely lady and a fine
> singer, but I would like to know where this comes from and why it is
> important to promote it.
> 
> Naturally, the problem with jazz being "America's classical music" is that
> America has classical music already. Roll over Aaron Copland; tell John
> Knowles Paine the news. I have issues with
> any agenda that works on disenfranchising or discrediting some other kind
> of music. From that stems the notion that you only ever want to listen to
> the best, as listening to discredited music
> is like investing in a delisted stock; it might seem attractive, but really
> isn't a good idea. However, music is not like that: if you enjoy Erroll
> Garner, what would keep you from enjoying the side
> of Carmen Cavallero that is close to that sound?
> 
> I do have a partial answer: there seems to be at work a conservative black
> agenda behind a lot of this, one that not many folks of my shade are even
> familiar with. Nick Payton elsewhere on his
> blog states that he does not support President Obama and is glad that he is
> relatively powerless, as it just shows that the old white power structure
> is still in control. And this does echo some of
> the attitudes that I have heard from other friends of mine who are
> conservative African-Americans. I believe that their perspective matters,
> but I don't think it should be regarded as the only one
> that is regarded with any validity on these topics; it's too limiting. They
> may hate ODJB and Paul Whiteman, but I recently joined a Paul Whiteman
> facebook page that is far more active that I ever
> expected one would be; it's almost too much, and I may drop it. What to do
> with all of the 'discredited' people, listening to 'discredited music'? I
> don't know, but one thing for certain is that they will
> remain silent.
> 
> UD
> Lebanon, OH
> 
> 
> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Wolf, James L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> I've been appreciating this discussion a lot. Sounds like its about time
>> for a solid historiography of jazz, meaning a critical evaluation of the
>> different ways in which jazz history has been constructed.
>> 
>> One term for jazz that's always bugged me is "African-American Classical
>> Music." To me, this speaks volumes not so much about racial identity but
>> about class identity. By trying to claim to the golden ring of class status
>> in music, certain jazz historians and musicians assume that European
>> classical music actually occupies some throne of music and that jazz needs
>> to "raise" itself by association. Both of these assumptions are absurd and
>> unnecessary, IMO.
>> 
>> Jazz's history is as complex as America's history, and that's how it
>> should be. So I hope a lot of this reaction to Ken Burns gets taken up by
>> academics and makes its way into the general populace.
>> 
>> James
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:
>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carl Pultz
>> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 9:09 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] revisiting an old thread -- jazz anthologies
>> 
>> Fascinating discussion - thank you, all.
>> 
>> I recommend a book I recently read: "Where the Dark and the Light Folks
>> Meet: Race and the Mythology, Politics, and Business of Jazz" by Randall
>> Sandke. As with any study of such a complex subject, it should not
>> represent a definitive or final judgment on the history of the music. It
>> does reflect the experience of musicians I've known, for whom the late 60s
>> and early 70s were a heart-breaking time of exclusion and distrust. It gets
>> at some very uncomfortable things.
>> 
>> The research also makes the Burns series dominant model of two racial
>> tracks, parallel but isolated, appear that much more absurd. But, it is PBS
>> and it is KEN BURNS, both brands that have a lot invested in mainstream
>> consensus and pretty pictures and golden memories, calculated to liberate
>> the check-books of "viewers like you."
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:
>> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Don Cox
>> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 4:13 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] revisiting an old thread -- jazz anthologies
>> 
>> On 05/04/2013, David Lewis wrote:
>> 
>>> I note that in 2009 someone noted that "discussion of jazz is finally
>>> coming out from under the shadow of Ken Burns' 'Jazz.'" One direction
>>> the discussion is now taking is the idea that the word 'jazz' itself
>>> is inappropriate to identify the central core of the music, as it is
>>> shackled to a milieu of colonialism and slavery. The term "Black
>>> American Music," or BAM, or #BAM has been suggested as an alternative
>>> by trumpeter Nicholas Payton, who cites that musicians such as Duke
>>> Ellington disliked the term "jazz" and Louis Armstrong stated that in
>>> New Orleans in the early days the term was not used.
>>> 
>> Jazz is certainly not the same thing as "black American music".
>> 
>> Do we have to define it ?
>> 
>>> I've met Nicholas Payton, a long time ago, and I liked him very much
>>> personally. But even he has said that he is not the same person that
>>> he was 15 years ago when we met, and in all fairness, neither am I. I
>>> will not link directly to his manifesto of thinking on this topic
>>> because I think the foul language and content of the piece would tend
>>> only to enrage many of the people here. Below my sig I have a link to
>>> a (mostly negative) article about it, which does contain a further
>>> link to Payton's statement, for those who dare. You've been warned.
>>> 
>>> I do understand how such a designation, or one like it, might help to
>>> separate out the desirable core from music that was either already
>>> around, or also evolving, circa 1916-22 that is either distantly, or
>>> not, related to it, all of which is called "jazz" in historical
>>> advertising and other sources. But if you look at its history, what we
>>> commonly call jazz covers a lot of territory that develops swiftly and
>>> overlaps.
>>> In just the years 1945-50 alone, we have bebop, progressive, the
>>> decline of swing, sweet things like Marjorie Hughes vocal on Frankie
>>> Carle's "Oh! What it Seemed to Be," Buddy Clark's last recordings,
>>> Frank Sinatra's first solo outings, the rise of Latin Jazz. All
>>> different things -- some may say Marjorie Hughes doesn't fit, but what
>>> she did is not far off what we regard as jazz singing from other
>>> singers who have reputations for that sort of thing. So you take BAM
>>> out of that, and all of the other stuff goes flying off into other
>>> directions category-wise. And there's a bit of a problem in separating
>>> the Latin Jazz and the bebop, as they are clearly related in this
>>> period. And most listeners at the time couldn't tell the difference
>>> between bebop and progressive; it was all modern jazz, and many people
>>> then hated it. Which brings up the question as to how important
>>> historically derived categories are; it appears that we adopt some and
>>> reject others with no traceable lineage as to why we determine that
>>> some are not useful.
>>> 
>>> So my main question is; are we all ready to redesignate such
>>> individual, past styles into microcategories, much as has been done
>>> with popular music of the last two decades? I do not know the
>>> difference between Darkwave, Screamo or Slowcore, but they are all out
>>> there and are recent. If we have to develop new authorities, who's
>>> going to make the call? Are there folks on this list who already have
>>> devised such smaller categories in their own systems? I can see at the
>>> library/archival level where the idea might be desirable. But I do not
>>> see how we would rid ourselves of the word 'jazz" in regard to the
>>> past, and I can't say that getting rid of it altogether because "it is
>>> holding on to an oppressive idea" is reason enough. If you want to be
>>> rid of it in regard to what you are playing now, then I guess I don't
>>> have a problem with that.
>>> 
>>> http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/01/10/call-jazz-call-b
>>> lack-american-music/
>>> 
>>> Uncle Dave Lewis
>>> Lebanon, OH
>> 
>> I would divide jazz into N categories, where N is the number of jazz
>> musicians.
>> 
>> It is more like a network of relationships than a stack of boxes. Modern
>> wiki-style databases make it easy to show cross links from any one person
>> to others.
>> 
>> One odd feature of jazz is the rarity of family links - there is nothing
>> like the Bach family in jazz. (The junior Brubecks are not really great
>> musicians.)
>> 
>> Regards
>> --
>> Don Cox
>> [log in to unmask]
>>