This can only be a good thing, if you ask me. Hopefully the powers-that-be at the television networks that hold the rights to many of these video clips realize what a great service YouTube is doing for the preservation of visual culture and history.
What's got me on about this idea is a video I watched earlier this afternoon. It's a 1957 clip from a popular CBS series that existed at the time called 'The Sound of Jazz.' The video features Billie Holiday and a handful of the greatest instrumentalists of the 1940s and 50s (Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, etc.) performing a slow blues that Holiday made famous: 'Fine and Mellow.'
While all of the soloists turn in a fine performance -- as does Holiday, with her smoky voice and incredible phrasing exhibited in fine form throughout -- it is Lester Young's solo (at the 2:39 mark) that I keep returning to. For those of you familiar with the Ken Burns: Jazz series, you'll probably recognize this video from the 'Bebop' chapter. For those who have not, Young and Holiday -- Prez and Lady Day -- were known to have had a very close relationship that had come under some serious strain. For whatever reason, so the story goes, they had seen and spoken very little in the years leading up to this 1957 broadcast. This performance was their first time seeing each other in many years.
It is not surprising to see the deep, decidedly physical reaction that Billie has during Lester Young's solo. I'm fairly sure that my mouth was left hanging after hearing Prez's solo on this video for the first time. After a fine solo by tenorman Ben Webster, Prez, looking very frail throughout (note he is sitting down until his solo), proceeds to blow one of the bluesiest, most awe-inspiring twelve bars I think I've ever heard. The reaction on Billie's face says it all.
I try to stay away from making the inevitable comment "I was born in the wrong era" while experiencing most media from past decades, however there are certain times when this feeling overwhelms me. Though I have experienced the feeling, as I'm sure we all have, more than a few times for more than a few different decades, I try and convince myself that "Hey, the 21st century ain't that bad..."
And it's not. We've got a lot going for us. We have our faults too, but hey, so did the 1950s.
However I can't help but wonder what we'd be like if we still had broadcasts like this -- even just once a week -- on mainstream networks today. Of course, jazz was popular music back then. Whoops, there's that unsettling feeling again... "Hey, the 21st century's not that bad," remember? Much like hip-hop today, I suppose, these performances were probably the equivalent to music videos that we see (used to see?) on MTV and MuchMusic.
That's a wild thought.
Lester Young to 50 Cent in 51 years, with Elvis, The Beatles, BeeGees, Nirvana and a host of others strewn in there somewhere...
The popular music industry is quite the juggernaut...
