At 03:50 AM 4/20/99 -0400, always pushing me to have to think <g>, Tera wrote:
>Crosby has said that his greatest musical influence was Al Jolsen. Should
>we be talking about Crosby here or should we be giving a nod to Al Jolsen as
>one of the single most influential?
There's no doubt that Crosby idolized Jolsen. EVERYONE idolized him, but
I'm not so sure he was that big a musical influence on Crosby. Certainly
Jolsen's charisma as a performer was an inspiration, but as for the way he
actually sang, Crosby was far more influenced by Armstrong, and he often
said so. This is also the distinction made, in fact, by both Will Freidwald
(in the indispensable Jazz Singing: America's Greatest Voices From Bessie
Smith to Bebop and Beyond) and by Crosby friend and biographer Ken Barnes
(in the out of print The Crosby Years). I have read where Crosby said that
he wanted to become a singer, in large part, because of Jolsen but I've
also read him saying that he stopped trying to sing like Jolsen very early
on, as in while he was still in his pre-solo-career group, the Rhythm Boys!
Jolsen is undoubtedly influential, though--he'd have to be in the top 20 or
20 or so somewhere. Still, there's something about his work that doesn't
translate well to our times--am I speaking out of turn here? I don't think
so--something stagey and overdone and unsubtle and rhythmically dense, etc,
etc. etc. to our modern tastes. It's as if he's speaking a different
language, practically. Which is just another way of saying, I guess, that
his specific musical influence didn't much carry over throughout the rest
of the century.
>No matter where you look to the
>greatest, there's always someone who came before.
>Whoever it was who talked about Buddy Bolden - yes, Armstrong borrowed a
>lot from Buddy. Should Bolden be the influence, I wonder?
As I've said you could trace influences back forever, which would make the
most inlfuential artist ever the first artist ever, the one who picked up a
rock and banged it against another rock for the sheer pleasure of the sound
or whatever. But that's not very revealing (and I know it's not what Tera
said..). It's also inacurate, I think, since it means that predecessors are
always more influential, by definition. Little Willie John is more
influential than James Brown? Jake Hess is more influential than Elvis?
Miss Ross is more influential than Michael Jackson? Bolden, and King Oliver
too, were certainly big influences on Louis but how many people in future
years cited Oliver or Bolden as influences? And how many named Armstrong?
--david cantwell
