Question about collaborator status

Hi,

That leaves me out, since the value of "jazz" as an art form in the 20th century is being left behind ... for the smaller bit of knowledge of jazz between the 1920's and 1950's ... and the listing and materials over the Internet on this are not very good, and might list a few names, but no one seems to know much about the music itself or how it survived as an art form at the time ... and that includes a band using 2 names, and not a single fan knows anything about those 2 folks or how they relate ... I bet you one thing though ... they don't relate anyway and it was just cool to name it after musicians instead of the "normal" style of clever names for a band to be noticed on radio !!!

In my mind, I don't think that "jazz" was valuable or important until after WW2 when it seems like it just woke up, but obviously that meant that it was already important and around, enough to be noticed but there was no forum anywhere that showed it or discussed ... the forum boards of today did not come around until the late 1990's after the Fido threads started falling off because of the amount of spam in them.

The 1920's was much more about film, and the public reaction to it ... with many stories about it, however .... THE JAZZ SINGER made a massive impression and the hard part is that he was NOT black, and had a painted face ... which speaks more about the studios than it does about the music itself. His music continued for at least 10 more years, though he is not exactly seen or heard after WW2 for some reason, and I think the studios were now more interested in their stars than anything else. But somehow, after WW2 black music took off and it was noticed, though the record companies (owned by the film studios, btw!!!) did not think the public would be interested in black music ... until one day they were found to be very wrong! One important detail ... Darryl F. Zanuck was the producer of the film, and he was one of the folks that helped pioneer the "cardboard" black that went on to television later. 

The Jazz Singer, is often thought to be the first "talkie" film of all ... however, history of film in Europe has never really shown or added to this, and there were a lot of experimental small films done in Europe (and likely America) that we don't know about or have not ever seen.

There you have it ... the arts in the 20th century in America ... in Europe, you can add Theater, Film, Literature and Painting to the whole thing, but in America it kinda stops with the stars and the blue or pink scrim in the background! America was not very good or caring about the arts, and still isn't ... and the ideas that define a website like this one or its sister site, are ... for my tastes, a bit off key in that they are almost totally and completely separated from all the arts and the history around them. Kinda reminds me of one of the things during the depression ... and how so many things were written off newspapers and performed ... and there were many writers that made their name at the time ... but one thing that was not touched and made it even further was radio dramas and theater ... that finally made its mark one day when the whole nation got scared senseless and the Feds immediately started a bunch of rules to prevent radio from scaring people like that ... and it was Orson Welles that did it, btw ... but he was never given the historical perception that he deserved ... but again, this was almost a complete freak show that got folks listening to radio even more ... and WW2 was about radio and how it spoke of everything.

The arts in America, you could say, were a huge mess, and the Depression really hurt many folks, and I'm sure that the 30's are completely invisible for jazz and blacks ... a really sad thought in my book ... but I can't say I ever found much about it ... I think I have to go read one of my books on black film ... "From Sambo to Superspade" ... by Daniel Leab. I do not remember how far back he goes on the book and will see if I can find something there ... but I am not sure that as much stuff was visible and heard from the 20's on when the record that became the LP was first created, however, its availability was very limited to well to do folks ... and that left the population behind for the most part.

In Europe, it was ... all of it together, but in America this is impossible since America is a sort of 4 or 5 countries together ... you're not likely to find, for example, a lot of "jazz" in those early years in the country and western sides of the country, because they were not "hits" and no one ever heard them ... even though for several years there was a long list of black musicians that did their thing all over the country, but none of them really made it big ... reminds me of a guy that worked at the PBS station in LA that had quit the music business and his 30 minute special was far out, and dumped by the station and not respected for what it said and what he sang ... Mississippi Charles Bevel was extraordinary ... but the record companies didn't care about a soulful and beautiful voice ... and many black artists were dumped ... for a long time. The LA station will not reply to the email requests about it, or if the special film they had on Mr. Bevel still existed ... just another example how America treats its artists ... and it ain't in just one place in America!

History of jazz in the 1920's and into the 1040's with WW2 ... is spotty at best ... mostly very few things were recorded, and it was something that only the well to do and rich folks could afford.

Thus, the history of many arts up to WW2 is mostly in a sorry state of affairs, regardless of which one, although there are some interesting bits and pieces ... The newspaper plays that were created by The New Deal, so that the theater/film folks could have a job, however small it was ... but though The Jazz Singer was recorded, it was not sold on the market, likely because it would be too expensive and almost no one had anything to play the disk.

We forget that during the 1920's almost all arts were "owned" by the movie studios, and specially the music folks ... and the studios ended up making sure their stars would sing and sell ... however, this did not exactly take hold until AFTER WW2 ... when the studios knew well enough that other music was coming around ... but since they were the only ones with the recording facilities, they could decide what to do ... and black music, or the likes of jazz was not exactly looked at, and it was thought that it wouldn't sell anyway ... of course not ... no one had a player for it!

The one art that flourished a lot, but is not discussed, was RADIO THEATER, that did really well, until Orson Welles scared everyone poopless ... and the FCC and Hollywood, immediately chained radio down to prevent issues ... but Orson's work was intense and really scared a lot of folks, the same ones that ran out of the theater when the gun pointed at the camera and the locomotive was coming straight at you! The viewers (and listeners) that could not exactly define the reality from anything else ... and that Orson Welles adventure was massive, at least for the changes that were made to regulate all radio in America ... but the real issue was not to "regulate", but to ensure that independent folks, like Orson Welles, would not be able to do something and get bigger than the studios ... and it hurt radio in general, and its creativity, that sadly was all but destroyed by the big war.

I'm still trying to get more information on that stuff for the earlier part of the 20th Century, but in reality, it is a bad time for things ... popular music, only took off AFTER WW2 when a less expensive player was made and now a few records could be made and sold ... it gave credence to a lot of new things that we had never heard before, and black music and jazz became big really fast ... though the distributing and selling was still an issue ... where were you going to find the disks? Often only a few radio stations had them, but most of them did not play the stuff, because it was not the studio mandated material of their stars. 

AND we forget who owned most of these stations ... the studios! And it wasn't until the 1950's that smaller independent radio stations came up and then in the 1960's the FM band made huge improvements, and by then, records were more available, allowing all of us to see a lot of music, and wonder about what much of it was ... the number of folks playing black music went ballistic, while the studio stars went down hill ... comparatively speaking. 

Sadly, all the early jazz greats could not say much of anything ... because it would get them punished and their music obliterated ... and a lot of those early folks never got talked to and helped much ... until the time in the 1960's when they sold enough to get away from the studios ... and fly a big MAD finger ... they became big and bigger, and the studios lost it all because they were racist, and above all stupid in their ideology about the arts, specially. And ignoring other venues of music, it wasn't like there were no clubs playing black music in LA, SF, NY, Chicago or NO ... it just shows that the studios were only interested in the money their stars could bring ... nothing else.

This helped a lot in the early FM radio days of the 1960's and it brought an incredible ear to a lot of music, specially in America ... black music got huge, and even was shown that it had some strong hubs ... like Detroit, New Orleans, and New York ... and we loved it all ... at the same time that rock music is coming up and trying to get away from the controls exercised by the hit bound AM radio ... that was owned by? ... You got it!

The rest is a tougher story .... until the time of the Great America FM Radio Rape by the largest commercial interests in America that bought all the independent FM stations and turned them into "Classic Rock", and these are still around ... and no one gave a damn ... some say that a lot of progressive, experimental music died at the time ... too late ... the whole thing had already got big enough that the studios and commercial interests were no longer in total control.

And you just about knew that within a decade something was gonna happen to punish those commercial/studio folks ... and it was the Internet ... that brought us the world that had been hidden since the dawn of time. The arts gained the most now.