An Introduction to America’s Music

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F

rom the start of this exploration of America’s music, we have used the

conceptual model of three spheres of musical activity: the classical, the

popular, and the folk or traditional. At some points in history the model

fi ts quite well and at others not so well. Some kinds of music making belong

fi rmly in one sphere, while others seem to straddle two or even all three. The

most recent developments in the history of America’s music suggest that the

three spheres can now overlap to such an extent that the similarities among

music styles, as varied as those styles may be, are no less signifi cant than the

differences. The convergence of classical, popular, and traditional elements

indicates that the United States has a dynamic music culture that continues to

develop in fresh ways. Distinctive traits defi ning each sphere persist nonethe-

less, and the sense of negotiating boundaries is part of what makes certain kinds

of new music eventful.

JAZZ: AMERICA’S CLASSICAL MUSIC?

Since the 1960s jazz has seen both a proliferation of styles and a shift in the

music’s cultural position. Alongside the development of free jazz and fusion,

described in earlier chapters, a family of musical approaches coalescing in the

wake of bebop and post-bop styles came to be known as mainstream jazz, or

straight-ahead jazz. Keepers of the straight-ahead fl ame included such musi-

cians as Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughan, Sonny Rollins, and

Art Blakey. Older artists such as Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, and Roy Eldridge

continued to work in the idioms they had helped to establish decades earlier.

During the 1960s, too, Duke Ellington continued to fi nd the big band an arena

open to fresh musical creativity.

As straight-ahead jazz proved its artistic worth as a music to be composed and

studied as well as performed and listened to, the notion of formal instruction

took hold in the United States. Programs of jazz study were established in schools

and colleges beginning in the 1960s, and by the end of the 1970s a quarter million

CHAPTER

22

REMIX

America’s Music since 1990

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