03-07-2017, 09:23 PM
Others have made several good points, but I'd also point out the habit of carrying only a fraction of any particular era's music forward to succeeding generations, losing a bit more over time until the originating era's "songbook" is defined to the point that it can studied and promoted as the only stuff future generations "need" to listen to to "understand the times." As with other art forms - literature, theater, film, "fine" arts like painting and sculpture - the vast bulk bloomed and died in its time, and only the most popular bits were preserved and/or revived. That unavoidably skews the perception of quality in earlier generations, let alone Turnings.
Add to that the classical training many of the mainstream composers, arrangers and performers had, and combining that background with the growing influence of non-Anglo cultures led to a number of pieces that were both easy to recognize and relatively easy to perform/cover - which in turn leads to more folks performing, and thus endorsing given pieces as "good", while the less-approachable (or popular) pieces faded quickly.
From a technology perspective, another contributor was the change in the early '30's from the 78rpm, fragile, shellac 12" single to the 33 1/3rpm (more durable) vinyl, long-playing 12" record album, and its smaller, cheaper sibling, the 45rpm vinyl single. The cost of records fell as a result. This, along with the explosion of radio after the Radio Act of 1927 (establishing the forerunner of the FCC, and setting the standards for what kinds of programming could be aired) and the Communications Act of 1934 gave the music industry something it had never had before: commercial distribution. No longer were musicians and groups constrained to the number of bodies they could draw to a theater or ballroom - there's a scene in the "The Glenn Miller Story" where Glenn (James Stewart) explains to his father in law that he makes three cents on every record sold. Pops isn't too impressed by this, at least until he does the math on how many thousands of records Glenn is talking about.
It would be interesting to see what music from our current market survives or gets revived in 40-50 years time, and which Grammy and AMA winners make that generation's ears bleed.
Add to that the classical training many of the mainstream composers, arrangers and performers had, and combining that background with the growing influence of non-Anglo cultures led to a number of pieces that were both easy to recognize and relatively easy to perform/cover - which in turn leads to more folks performing, and thus endorsing given pieces as "good", while the less-approachable (or popular) pieces faded quickly.
From a technology perspective, another contributor was the change in the early '30's from the 78rpm, fragile, shellac 12" single to the 33 1/3rpm (more durable) vinyl, long-playing 12" record album, and its smaller, cheaper sibling, the 45rpm vinyl single. The cost of records fell as a result. This, along with the explosion of radio after the Radio Act of 1927 (establishing the forerunner of the FCC, and setting the standards for what kinds of programming could be aired) and the Communications Act of 1934 gave the music industry something it had never had before: commercial distribution. No longer were musicians and groups constrained to the number of bodies they could draw to a theater or ballroom - there's a scene in the "The Glenn Miller Story" where Glenn (James Stewart) explains to his father in law that he makes three cents on every record sold. Pops isn't too impressed by this, at least until he does the math on how many thousands of records Glenn is talking about.
It would be interesting to see what music from our current market survives or gets revived in 40-50 years time, and which Grammy and AMA winners make that generation's ears bleed.