About that whole "Greatest American" poll

[Kuciwalker]

Alexander Graham Bell should've made it.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by mrmitchell


Personally spreading AIDS to 2,500 gay men

Eating Nicaraguan babies for breakfast

Putting together one coherent sentence

Giving confidence to millions of wierdos to be proud that they're Republican

[Mr. Harley]

OK Rufus - I didn't know the rest of Louis Armstrong's history - that makes him a great American. FYI, I was bringing up Copeland reference people like Michael Jackson making the list. Nobody bothered to try to compete with Sousa's work after his death, and even today marching bands play him music. He essentially was such a genius he helped stop the genre cold. What's sad is that he really wanted to be a songwriter and poet. Obviously that's not where his genius lay.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by mrmitchell


Personally spreading AIDS to 2,500 gay men

Did Nancy know? I always wondered why he hung out with Rock Hudson so much.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
OK Rufus - I didn't know the rest of Louis Armstrong's history - that makes him a great American. FYI, I was bringing up Copeland reference people like Michael Jackson making the list. Nobody bothered to try to compete with Sousa's work after his death, and even today marching bands play him music. He essentially was such a genius he helped stop the genre cold. What's sad is that he really wanted to be a songwriter and poet. Obviously that's not where his genius lay.

I take your point, particularly regarding Jackson. BTW, have you every seen teh old Hollywood film bio of Sousa? There's a hilarious scene where he composes a ballad with really schmaltzy lyrics and wants his wife to hear it; she sits down to play it, he begins singing his awful treacle, and his wife suddenly shifts up-tempo and shows him that even his love song is really a march (The Washington Post, iirc). Hilarious scene, and a pretty good movie.

Besides, any guy who wrote the theme to Monty Python's Flying Circus should definitely be on the list.

[Mr. Harley]

Which makes my point - his music will be around for generations to come. I also agree that applies, even more so, for Louis Armstrong and I suspect Elvis. The difference is that Louis Armstrong also made a difference for the country, given what you've told me about his involvement in Civil Rights. That makes him very possibly the greatest of the American musicians. Are there any other American musicians who were so definitive for their genre, internationally famous, and yet who also made a lasting contribution to their civil society?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


It was really him. There were jazz players before Armstrong (though not by much) and jazz musicians contemporary with him, but no one played it better, innovated more, was more revered by fellow musicians, or did more to define what we mean by "jazz" today. The comparison to Mozart wasn't glib; Armstrong really was that important to jazz, and that head-and-shoulders above everyone else (though Charlie Parker gets close, but even Parker is unthinkable without Armstrong). It's amazing and distressing to me that he could be on his way to becoming an historical footnote; it would be like the Germans forgetting about Mozart, or the British forgetting about Shakespeare.

And I see your point about Sousa; but the genre of military music itself is small, self-contained, and without any real impact on the larger culture (in fact, is there such a thing as "contemporary military music"? Or did it just kind of stop with Sousa?). Jazz swept the world.

Add to that Armstrong's unflinching and very public support of the civil rights movement -- very similar to Jackie Robinson's -- and his very effective deployment as a Jazz Ambassador (along with Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington) during the Cold War, and in the end you have one truly great American.

Armstrong was perfectly placed in time and space and talent to be for several decades constantly placed at the leading edge of Jazz as it made its most important changes and created its most enduringly popular forms. Many of us remember him only as a living legend, but before that he already had lived a lifetime as a major innovator. He's not even one of my favorite jazz players / composers, but his greatness and influence is undeniable.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Sikander


Armstrong was perfectly placed in time and space and talent to be for several decades constantly placed at the leading edge of Jazz as it made its most important changes and created its most enduringly popular forms. Many of us remember him only as a living legend, but before that he already had lived a lifetime as a major innovator. He's not even one of my favorite jazz players / composers, but his greatness and influence is undeniable.

Exactly. Very well said.

I'm right with you on the last sentence, too. I'm a much bigger fan of other jazz musicians; even among Armstrong's contemporaries, I prefer (slightly) Fats Waller and early Duke Ellington to Armstrong. But Armstrong's genius and career simply awe me.

[Odin]

Reagan over LINCOLN, WASHINTON, FRANKLIN, and MLK? My God, I know our educational system sucks but this is terrible. The profusion of celebrities and lack of people like Emmerson, Twain, etc really goes to show how braindead people have become. And how the hell did Shrub get into the top 10?

[Alexander's Horse]

Bush is like Reagan - out to lunch - but both say warm fuzzy patriotic stuff all the time - see a pattern?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by JohnT

Before Elvis, American music had always been second-rate. After Elvis, it became the worlds standard.

Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Billie Holiday Scott Joplin and Cole Porter beg to differ.

Not to mention Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.


Tsk tsk.

[Dr Strangelove]

Long before Elvis American jazz had spread around the world and had become the music of the avant - guard set of society. It took the mass media (radio and TV networks, big record companies) to give the "pop" music genres (rock, country, hip-hop) the ability to shove other forms of music out of the public conciousness.