Big Beat Steve

THAT'S THE POINT. Like I said: If you are being grabbed by some recording and feel there is something there that strikes a chord with you though you have a feeling you do not (yet) grasp it in full, then OF COURSE do take your time to work your way into it. But if you aren't even moved by that recording at this "starter's" level then why bother (for now) trying to force yourself into something just because somebody says this is a "must listen"? Unfortunately there are those out there who value the concept of "essential listening" above all else. Falsely so IMHO. I've stressed that point just because for all I have witnessed BB is one of those records that falls into that bracket (almost) whenever it is evoked. BB can stand on its own merits for those who see the merits and appreciate them but those who are unmoved have not missed anything either. Because ultimately it IS a matter of personal taste - legitimately so.

This is just why all this "mandatory listening" and "gotta have heard it" blurb is just bogus. Of course BB must have clicked with lots of people which is why it acquired its cult status pretty fast (when I got into collecting in 1975 all this jazz rock and "Electric Miles" thing was oh so big everywhere and BB had been touted as a major work of art for some time). Now if - as you indicate - there are lots out there who say you GOT to allow yourself PLENTY of time to grasp it, then the obvious quesiton is: WHAT FOR??? Either you grasp it at least to a moderate extent (so SOME more in-depth listening will reveal the full strength of the music to you) or a lot of the success of those times was just hype (because among those who made this record a hit there were LOTS who had been lulled into believing they "had to like it" in order to be part of the "in crowd" - but in fact only "pretended" having gotten the message) and so the record may not have been THAT overwhelming. Or it - again - really is a matter of taste, not a matter of forced endless re-listening in order to WORK oneself into somehow grasping the music. In which case there is no need to be ashamed in saying that BB (or any other allegedly "must listen" record) just doesn't cut it with you. Because - again - IMHO there is no such thing as "mandatory listening" that you have to do in order to pass a sort of "music appreciation test" of any given style of music. You can like country music without being touched by Hank Williams, you can like swing music without being touched by Benny Goodman, you can like Classic Rock (i.e. Hard Rock as it used to be called in fact) without being touched by Deep Purple etc. It just is so ... because there is SO much more in EVERY style of music that one's personal preferences are just that ... personal, and certainly not to be dictated by what one is "supposed to appreciate in order to understand", even if these personal preferences contradict established thinking patterns. Or is music listening (and HEARING) - which basically is a very personal experience - to be reduced to some sort of academic rites with preestablished curricula that you have to work off in order to have fulfilled your listening duties?

Speaking out against the "accepted wisdom" can never be wrong. Because what is disguised as "accepted wisdom" in the field of music in the end all boils to a matter of taste and hardly, really hardly ever is it justified to insist that one just "has to like" this or that music. Actually I heard BB at about the same you heard it (at a time everybody seemed to claim that "jazz rock" was what "ALL jazz" was all about). Left me slightly underwhelmed (which to an extent certainly was due to the fact that while I had already progressed to Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus etc. I was not really smitten with that jazz-rock mishmash). I've been ready to reconsider since and was about to pick up a vinyl at a clearout sale at a local record store a while ago but the vinyl was so thrashed that I passed it up. Some other day, maybe ...

I refrained from buying CDs for a VERY long time - simply because I did not like the medium (of course I have since made my peace with it - for practical reasons, evidently - but still prefer vinyl whenever I can). But I distanctly remember the VERY first CD(s) I ever bought: the 8-CD box set "Deutsches Jazz Festival 1954/55" released by Bear Family in 1990. As I figured I would NEVER get to hear that music any other way (rightly so because most of it was issued there for the first time and the EPs and 10-inchers of the "rest" originally released was rare as hens' teeth and simply out of reach price-wise) I just had to have it. So I snapped this set up as soon as it hit the market in 1990 but it took me several years before I could finally listen to it as I did not buy a CD player until 3 years later or so.

Taken at a very fast tempo?

This is sad but I think not quite unexpected at 89, though we may have come to expect those few "survivors" to be around forever. Unfortunately it is not so. Will spin one of his discs later on too.

Another one of those pairings that could drive you nuts because they are DEAD SURE to pair a relatively easily accessible (via previous reissues) record with one you've been looking for for ages. In fact I picked up a (Fresh Sound) LP of Rushing Lullabies not long ago but what's been written about that Rushing & Brubeck pairing (which would have looked extremely incongruous to me too, though I am not a Brubeck hater) here has made me quite curious.

:lol: Been wonderng about that too ...

Same here too. (I see I am in good company ... hee hee) Actually I've stopped counting accurately quite a long time ago but a collector's feature for a fanzine made me recalculate the other day: Some 6,000 LPs (12in), some 700 to 800 CDs (I still prefer vinyl if I can), plus 300 to 400 10in LPs, aprox 1,000 78s and 1,500 45s (singles and EPs) - the majority of it jazz, but not nearly all of it. But storage space is running out fast here too (if I am to keep things halfway in order). As for the basic dilemma, see Paul Secor's wise words above.

Edit again: Just finished reading it. Very interesting and illuminating. It goes to show it cannot do any harm to step outside the trodden paths of music history and music criticism to look at things from a somewhat different angle. BTW, while a lot of what Elvis Presley and his peers have been accused of after 1954 (i.e. "ruining" "good" pop music and pushing the entire pop music spectrum onto an excessively youth-laden road to "banality" and musical three-chord limitations) has been a recurrent theme in a LOT of what the music establishment wrote (not only in the USA but even in Europe) after 1954 and throughout the entire rest of the 50s (and for the most part, and with the benefit of hindsight, is exceedingly funny to read today), I wasn't aware this is still such a gripe with that many exponents of jazz TODAY. O.K., so we know neither the Beatles nor the Sex Pistols nor Michael Jackson nor Hip Hop nor Techno nor Lady Gaga would have happened without Elvis ... maybe ... but what if the pop section of what you refer to as "The House of Good Music" had lasted? All the lesser Frankieboy imitation crooners, lush orchestra sounds such as Hugo Winterhalter's plus the lachrymose likes of Teresa Brewer, Patti Page, Eileen Barton or the McGuire Sisters (for whom Down Beat in a fit of middle-of-the-roadishness found no better tag than "wholesome" to characterize them) had continued to set the tone for pop music to come? How saccharine can you get? And the teens (who'd already been flocking to R&B etc.) would have accepted this kind of syrupy, gutless make-believe assembly line pop as "THEIR OWN" music forever? Elvis may have been the catalyst in changing the direction of the streams but even if he had not been there those powers-that-be in the mid-50s music establishment would not have been able to stem the tide forevermore IMHO. Because the tide had already been swelling by the time Elvis entered Sun Studios for the very first time. Besides, I think you are being a bit kind with describing R&B as being, from the JAZZ ESTABLISHMENT point of view, "a respectable African American form if, to the jazz way of thinking, sometimes a bit repetitious and frivolous". No doubt this was what some jazz exponents thought, but others from the jazz field were much harsher in their disdain of the "popular" aspects of R&B. And I'd venture to say that one of the major gripes that the POP establishment of the mid-50s had against Elvis was that in adding a WHITE side to R&B he made it a LOT harder (and eventually impossible) to restrain R&B to the ghetto where undoubtedly it belonged according to the majority society "reasoning" of the (white) pop music establishment of those days. Signs of the times ... OTOH if the jazz world did indeed accuse Elvis of "bringing down the House of Good Music" which, if I got this right, included all the abovenamend streams of mainstream POP of the early to mid-50s, then the jazz exponents apparently were playing a pretenders' game in a big way. After all, wasn't it the diehard jazzmen and jazz fans who accused each and every jazzman of note who settled down to the security of (pop and film) studio work, to pop music backing dates etc. of "selling out"? Were they ACTUALLY trying to keep up a facade of pretending that "selling out" to mainstream pop was somewhat "less" of a "sellout" than "selling out" to post-Elvis teen music? Strangely enough I'd venture a guess a good many R&B musicians with strong jazz credentials found work in the backing bands of those teen singers much LESS of a "sellout". But then they did have more of a feeling for that music than white 50s pop crooners and string orchestra hacks of the pre-1954 era ever would have been able to muster. Which of course remained another sore spot with THAT part of the pop establishment of the day. Louis Armstrong, OTOH, showed how to do it and how to make the best of all of those worlds in combining jazz and pop into just his very own brand of "music". And I'd guess that one of the reasons why he probably was not accused of "selling out" (to the degree that other jazzmen who branched out into the security of studio work, etc. were accused) was that he remained a safe harbor for ALL of those who wanted to be remain on safe and familar musical territory by being able to listen to a breed of pop music beyond the teenagers' rock'n'roll etc.

I've had the TEXAS GUITAR: FROM DALLAS TO L.A. LP ever since it was current (mid- to late 70s). As I had only heard "The Things That I Used To Do" by him before that time his track on that compilation introduced me to more of Guitar Slim (and made me search out more by him later), and in fact this 70s LP does give the full line-up as given in the opening post. No mention of any involvement of Lloyd Lambert anywhere. So Atlantic knew what was up at that time. BTW, all three released tracks from that session also are on Guitar Slim's LP "Red Cadillacs & Crazy Chicks" (Sundown CG 709-08). P.S. @Michael Weiss: This 1958 date may well have been a sort of "Joe Morris reunion" (for whatever reason). Johnny Griffin was a stalwart of the Joe Morris band in the late 40s, and except for the absence of the baritone saxophone man, the lineup on that 1958 Atlantic session is a 100% duplication of the lineup of a Sept. 19, 1948 recording date by the Joe Morris band!

I wouldn't even disagree with you from a point of view of the "musical content". Unfortunately this later period also yielded a lot of MOR dross. And I admit a lot of that just does not fit my STYLISTIC preferences. But again, one man's meat is another man's poison. A lot of good and valid points you made there, Bev.

True, this amounts to the umpteenth rehash of something that has been around the block a zillion times. I was more aluding to the thread opener's statement how his offspering found the 50s Elvis music particularly fascinating. Those repackagings actually leave me dead cold, myth or not. Yet I can only say to each his own and one man's meat is another man's poison, because the umpteenth rehash of KOB or that incessant drooling about the umpteenth remastering of one and the same small bunch of Blue Note CD's is nothing short of perpetuating a myth (and milking a by now pretty much worn-out cow), too. A myth that apparently can only be sustained anymore by this kind of self-fulfilling marketing prophecies, because those who appreciate the music for the music itself and out of their own initiative have had all the music for a long time so by now it seems to be a matter of shoving these musical myths down the throats of others who listen to the music because "it is something to listen to if you want to be in the knowand real hip". Just like those cases of clients asking the collectible record store to round them up a cross-section of Blue Notes because they have just finished having their loft refurbished and need those BN's as the finishing furniture touch. Wonder if THIS kind of myth can really be that much healthier than the myth surrounding Elvis.

Which is what many of those who (to a greater or lesser degree) like to listen to Elvis MUSIC (especially YOUNG Elvis music) are primarily interested in (and that's what started THIS thread, BTW). The "Elvis" myth is fodder for those who believe in watching parades of Ugly-Bloated-70s-Elvis-Lookalike-Wearing-Ugly-Liberace-Lookalike-Garb-Impersonators on stage. Apart from that, it's nothing more than chicken dung to those interested primarily in the MUSIC. Those interested in the REAL rockabilly music subculture today for the most part have no use for Southern White silliness, especially outside the US of A. Which is borne out a.o. by the fact (if screenings on the subject are ANYTHING to go by) that the above impersonator thing still seems to be a big thing in those Southern circles, evidently because those who believe in that myth have long grown far too old and potbellied to take in and "reenact" the young mid-50s Elvis zoot suiter (well, of sorts) image. 70s Fat Elvis Liberace lookalikes are far easier to identify with. Sad. But irrelevant to those truly interested in the 50s Sun era music.

Doesn't really speak for America. Or does this tie in with what you say about America becoming one big jail and a certain mindset being produced by a certain music? Any guarantee that - if there had been no Elvis - this tendency of America becoming one big jail would NOT have happened just as much with mobster-dictated Las Vegas lull-in lounge music as dispensed by Frankieboy et al? :crazy:

Forget about Fat Elvis and Movie Elvis, but Young Elvis had a large and very real core of real life in himself, and like Dmitry said, the Beatles (and most other music superstars, right up to thoroughly artificial products such as latter-day Michael Jackson et al.) had as much of an artificial component in them. But Sinatra - the lone wolf with the big heart and that All-American Song Book blurb? To some "mainstream" middle/uppity class American oldies listeners who grew old (or should I say "ripened"?) with their idol, certainly. But beyond that? On a WIDER scale of the pop music audience at large? And beyond sheer "nostalgia"? I have my doubts. And what if we equal the worse sides of Elvis (that no doubt were there) with Frankieboy the Eternal Mobster (or should I say Mobster's Darling) and Make-Believe-Boy-Who-Lends-Respectability-To-The-Carefully-Hidden-True-Face-of-Organized-Crime? I can't see this as being any less seamy than what Elvis can be accused of. And of course there is a not so nice parallel to Fat Elvis - that of "Withering Frankieboy" (or whatever you would like to call it): Anybody remember that mid-to late 70s rock collage/picture book called "Rock Dreams" (by Nik Cohn and Guy Peellaert)? The final ilustration of the book shows the dimly lit contours of an ageing Frankieboy raising a glass to his audience while holding a mike (onstage) in the other. And this set to the caption of that timeless statement by The Who: "Hope I Die Before I Get Old". And capture they DID indeed the essence of that latter part of Frankieboy's life and career IMHO. In fact this latter part and all its phoniness of what it pretended to be started a long, long time before that. Just remember those phony make-believe roles Frankieboy and Bing played in "High Society" of 1955. Who were these 40+ grownups trying to kid with the pretended wannabe youthfulness of their roles anyway? As a timely coincidence in the evolution of pop music, credits should therfore go to Elvis and his ilk for once and for all toppling those phony characters of a bygone era who - if it hadn't been for the rock and pop music events of rock in 1954 - would have clung on to an artificial image of middle-class youthfulness that in fact wasn't even YOUNG anymore by that time in the way it was perceived by the target audience (or why would more and more of them have flocked to unheard-of new artists from "the wrong side of the tracks"?). So if it hadn't been for Elvis who knows how long it would have taken before pop music really would have become a music by young artists for a young audience (like it's been taken granted for the past 55 years), or what thoroughly unhealthy direction the evolution of pop music would have taken? It would of course have been gratifying if somebody else with greater musical merits had become that LASTING catalyst in 1954 but unfortunately it wasn't so - so credits must go to Elvis. You can rightly fault Elvis for an awful lot of things and for being a phony but was he more of a phony than what he and his peers pushed out of the "teenagers' music for teenagers" market in 1954 and thereafter? Not in a long shot.

Start by trying to put things into perspective, that would help. And basically that's the entire issue. You may have as much of an axe to grind with Elvis as you like but my feeling is you are interpeting waaaay too much of an (alleged) obligation of what he ought to have assumed as his duties into his existence. If you did that with everybody who has made a name for himself in whatever artistic field you care to name, where would you end? You could fault ANYBODY among those who attained stardom if you looked hard enough. Like I said, ELvis would be in excellent company. And if you are willing to cut some slack in the case of some (that you happen to like) then try to maintain at least a modicum of fairness by cutting some slack elsewhere too (e.g. in the case of those you don't like). That's all.

That those who pull down others instead of ELEVATING them (as they seem to be obliged to do in EVERY aspect of their entire lives according to what you repeatedly said - "to take ownership, at any point, in any way, of the power that was his, musically or otherwise") then they have failed in those not so insignificant aspects of their lives and according to your standards have become human LIES in this particular aspect of their lives. Because the examples they have set in that aspect of their lives have failed to guide people in whatever might be termed the "right" direction that would have ADVANCED people. In short, whatever accusations of having been a living lie may be leveled at Elvis (and no doubt and undeniably there are plenty), he is in excellent company throughout. Because nobody (not even Elvis) was a failure or disappointment (or, in your terms, a "lie") throughout ALL aspects of his/her life but hardly anybody is beyond reproach either.

You had me until this statement, Jim. Suggested further reading: Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock'n'Roll, DaCapo 1999, p. 176 - ESAU SMITH. ^_^

Yes, I had a feeling that's what you did. I realize I got myself out on a limb (somewhat...) with some of my statements too and did hesitate about posting some of them but then I figured if you cannot even speak your mind and make your point in no uncertain terms if you feel things have been blown up beyond all reasonable proportions then why engage in any discussion at all on what is supposed to be a discussion board after all?

Touchy souls, you know, Peter .... But you know, why not just enjoy the music you LIKE to enjoy for WHAT IT IS WORTH TO YOU and for WHAT IT SET OUT TO BE, not for what one would like to project into it (with the benefit - or curse? - of hindsight)? That would be a healthy attitude throughout, IMHO. Bye for now ...

This thread has indeed evolved in a funny and somehow tragic way through the (local) night. And I agree with Ghost of Miles' comment that drawing an analogy between a 10-year old enjoying 50s Elvis and forced Wagner listening in a concentration camp is just way over the top and speaks LONG about somebody out there who evidently has got TONS of sour grapes on his chest about "him making it and my personal heroes not making it". So, JSngry, note this once and for all: By your very own yardstick or "reasoning" ANY jazzman who took even so much as a hint of DRUGS (hard drugs of the post-1945 variety, in particular) in his very own life was no less a LIE than Elvis. Because he (willingly or unwittingly) portrayed a picture of a life worthy of emulation that proclaimed loudly "Do as I do and you will reach the heights I have reached". And this not only ruined lives but KILLED people in a very direct artist/emulator relationship. Now how many people did Elvis ruin and kill in such a direct relationship, I wonder? More than himself and those who in despair may have jumped off a bridge after his death? And now don't give me that crap about them (those jazzmen) having attained far higher artistic achievements (which I certainly would NOT doubt one bit). Because NO measure of artistic achievement entitles ANYBODY to killing (or laying the groundwork for killing) others! In fact, it all spells out nothing but utter personal weakness in one's capability of handling one's everyday life, which in turn makes these jazzmen just as weak human beings as Elvis when it comes to the task of coping with EVERYDAY LIFE DAY IN, DAY OUT. And sorry to say, if you insist on this being reason enough to label somebody a lie because he projects false images on oneself to the world at large, then there have been LOTS of human lies out there - because, again, artistic achievements are not enough of an excuse or justification overall if the "rest" of your life is a shambles that sets others (who - in false and unjustified emulation of their heroes' existence - do not realize what shambles it is) on the WRONGEST track of them all. I rest my case (for now)...

The only chumps around in my opinion are those who swallow the bait of believing that in their purported enlightedness they tower sky-high about the "rest" of the lowly beings who are willing to take things at face value. "Taking at face value" meaning in this case that one can very well enjoy the music of somebody who in his private life or in the way he wanted to appear to the world was certainly not beyond reproach. In which case being a nasty prick or being a weakling or being a mentally unhinged paranoid amounts to much the same. Because that's how life is in all its imperfections.

That comment reminds me of the time when I was marching in a counter-protest at the Dallas opening of The Last Temptation Of Christ. Some really....concerned citizen ran up into my face and screamed "I BET YOU'D BE MAD IF THEY MADE THIS MOVIE ABOUT MARTIN LUTHER KING INSTEAD OF JESUS!!!!!!!" In other words, are you serious? Depends on whether you would have been serious in your reply to the above that you WOULD INDEED have been mad. :D But if you REALLY, REALLY want to know ... yes and no. Yes - because if you'd care to compile ANY scale of excesses in the artificialites and phoniness of the pop music business both before and after Elvis, Elvis would rate an also-ran at best on that scale, and No - because I hardly expect anybody who gets soooo worked up about what IMHO essentially are moot points (that deep inside we all take for granted as part of a REALISTIC look at life) will be ready to put things really into perspective. Sorry, no harm meant, but this just had to be said .... possible (transatlantic?) cultural divides 'n all ...

Sorry to insist yet again but this thread was about the MUSIC of Elvis and I still feel you need to see his music (for better or worse) primarily within the context of the history of MUSIC. On the one hand you claim (earlier on in this thread) his societal importance has been acknowledged, on the other you insist that this is NOT about music. So it IS about societal aspects after all?? Or is it a bone you have to pick with Elvis on a PERSONAL or INDIVIDUAL level? Sorry but you still have failed to show conclusively in what way he was such an immensely bigger lie than ALL OTHERS in the pop music business up to and including his time of greatest successes who had achieved a similar status and measure of success. If you mean to show that real, huge, overwhelming success in this business corrupts people, then fine, point taken - so what. Might be said of a thousand others (before and after). Big deal ... Don't we all expect that anyway? In short, the accusations you level at Elvis as a PERSON and what a certain type of his fans want to see in him (or what he or his managers wanted to make them see in him) just don't hold water. Because that might just as well be said about a countless number of other major stars on THIS business, both before and after him. Oh my ... me (at best a moderately fascinated listener of the music of Elvis' early years) defending him to that degree ... what has become of this world and the alleged ills that some project into it??