The Big Band Era gave the greatest popular music ever -- unless you are ready to concede that Mozart and Haydn were 'popular' music in their day. I'm not sure that the 'rock star' treatment that the late Milos Forman gave to Wolfgang Amadeus in Amadeus is quite accurate, but he was profoundly popular in Vienna and Prague -- about like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey in their day. Think also of the Strauss family (waltz kings)
It is hard to see how any great mass of music could approach the likes of Mozart, Haydn, or the Strauss family in quality and profusion. Maybe the Big Band Era had popular musicians who respected the classical tradition than do the musicians that we now have.
It is hard to see how any great mass of music could approach the likes of Mozart, Haydn, or the Strauss family in quality and profusion. Maybe the Big Band Era had popular musicians who respected the classical tradition than do the musicians that we now have.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.