John Halle wrote:
>
> In a promo for the series Burns refers to Louis Armstrong as
> "unquestionably the greatest musician of the 20th century." (I think I got
> the quote right.)
>
> I'm curious as to whether this position has become conventional wisdom
Depends what Burns means by "greatest". Satchmo may be Burns favorite musician. It's conventional wisdom that Louis was one of the great innovators in jazz and when in his prime probably the greatest trumpet player and improviser, relative to the time he played. There have been others who were at least as great as innovators and sheer virtuosos in their time; Parker, Powell, Mingus, Coltrane, Cecil Taylor,Brotzmann, Maneri and so on. As for the greatest musician there's also; Horowitz, Heifetz, Richter, Gilels et. al. Miles Davis took Armstrong to task for being an "UNcle Tom".
Evidently Burns likes the early period of jazz before jazz became an "angry" music reflecting the turbulent sixties, when jazz and popular music were divorced. Burns' docu is too Ameri-centric. In the last thirty years and continuing today, the major innovations in jazz have come from Europe. Europe today is the only place where jazz is alive as a cultural expression.
Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
Parker sounds "conventional" becomes his innovations became
> jazz. Bird lives. --jks
>
Towards the end of his life Bird became friends with Edgar Varese and both suggested working on some kind of colloboration. Parker had grown a little bored with be-bop. Too bad he took so many hard drugs. The coroner thought Bird was in mid-sixties when in fact he was 34.
Sam Pawlett