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I
n 1959 a prestigious university press published a book of essays called The Art
of Jazz, a title meant to be provocative. Over the past two decades, the editor
told his readers, a body of criticism had accumulated around jazz—the kind
of writing “that only an art can inspire and that only an art deserves.” Gathered
in The Art of Jazz, these writings focused on the music itself, especially as pre-
served on record. While far from the most lucrative popular music in the post-
war years, jazz was the only one then being taken seriously by critics. Popular
music stars received plenty of publicity, but it was a kind that treated them more
as celebrities than as artists.
That situation would change in later decades. Today, many writers are cri-
tiquing popular music and exploring its history. This new inclination owes
much to the example of jazz critics, who, by discussing jazz in a way that only
an art deserves, vouched for the music’s excellence. But only by treating per-
formances as the equivalent of compositions were they able to claim authority
for their judgments. Phonograph records made that possible by turning fl eeting
performances into permanent works. Fashioned by singers and players in col-
laboration with composers, arrangers, producers, and technicians, recordings
were defi ned not by musical notation but by their sound; they became the means
through which historical trends could be traced, fi rst in jazz, then in other kinds
of popular music. Because of the importance of phonograph records as primary
documents for popular and folk music in the years after World War II, this chap-
ter also looks at postwar developments in the record industry and in radio and
television.MAINSTREAM POPULAR MUSIC AND THE
MASS MEDIA IN THE POSTWAR YEARSThe primary unit of sale in the popular music industry both before and after the
war was the single—actually a double-sided phonograph record, usually with a mar-
ketable song on the A side and a less commercially promising “fi ller” on the B side.CHAPTER
17
“GOOD ROCKING
TONIGHT”
Popular and Folk Music after
World War II
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