(By JC)
While there has been some debate about whether Bob Dylan should feature on BSH it should be noted that, following his two earlier GAS book recordings, he has now released another 30 songs on a 3-CD album called Triplicate. As this has just been released I have not heard it yet but it's on my list (at the moment I am still working my way through last year's release of a 36-CD box set of every concert on Dylan's infamous 1966 world tour!). However, I have read an interview he gave to Bill Flanagan to coincide with the release of Triplicate in which he talks in a very interesting way about why the songs are important to him and why he wants to record them.
He talks about meeting Sinatra and what songs he liked and also what jazz musicians he likes and draws on - Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Elvin Jones, Artie Shaw and Fats Waller. He also mentions seeing Coltrane at the Village Gate and how Ornette Coleman and himself would go to each other's concerts. When asked about what he listens to late at night Dylan mentions Sarah Vaughan's My Kinda Love and the album she did with Clifford Brown. And I've left out all the references to the folk tradition, blues and rock and roll. Whatever people think of him this is a guy who really listens to other people's music.
For his last question the interviewer asks:
'- From the 20s into the early 50s, the line between blues and pop and country and jazz was very flexible. Robert Johnson, Jimmie Rodgers, Bing Crosby, Ray Charles all tried their hand at everything. Why do fences come up between different styles of American music?'
'- Because of the pressure to conform.'
The interview can be found on Bob Dylan's website - http://bobdylan.com/news/qa-with-bill-flanagan/
JC
1 comment :
I don't think it was that Bob shouldn't be on a jazz site, especially doing versions of the great American songbook, but concern that it had the most hits.
There's been a discussion this very day whether progressive rock should feature and, while I can't believe I'm agreeing with Steve T, there are far greater parallels between jazz and progressive rock than jazz and Bob, even Bob doing great American songbook.
Incidentally, Robert Johnson made less than thirty records, all fairly straightforward country blues.
Bing was a crooner - always and as far as I can tell Jimmie Rodgers made country and western. Ray Charles was a jack of all trades, master of none. As a soul singer he was no James Brown, as a blues artist he was no Muddy, as a rock and roller he was no Elvis, as a jazz artist he was no Miles, as a crooner he was no Sinatra. He may have been good at c+w, I've no idea. Better than Johnny Cash I'll bet. Oops, another sacred nut-roast.
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