Jazz

[John Halle]

>
> Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 12:15:18 -0800
> From: Sam Pawlett <rsp at uniserve.com>
> Subject: Re: Jazz
>
> >
> > 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".
>

Bartok, Schoenberg, Berg, Shostakovich, Ives, or the Beatles (for that
matter) etc. are not on the LBO map, it seems. (Quincy Jones just got the
national humanities medal.  What about him?)

Perhaps Doug wants to put in a word for Madonna (after he gets done with
Edward Luttwack on the radio.)

Are these opinions representative of the intelligentia?

John