I figured you'd focus on the other side of them not being able to exist today, primarily being that the selling factor of all of them was firmly rooted in talent. and this connects you and bammer's (talent, exposure, and what was the other one...) posts.

while i understand what you mean by scenes it's a little bit more than that. scene has the implication of being transient where as what i think what you're talking about is a general environment which had parallels all over the globe. we'll call this the player eras.

player eras exist when there's music classes and bands in schools where everyone has to at some point at least take up an instrument and in so doing so those with a natural knack for those instruments can be identified and nurtured. Before integration roe v wade and all that black folk didn't exactly have the same music programs, they had the church. if you had a musical talent you took your ass to church and worked it out. that side of the music education didn't falter in the post integration era, at least not immediately. Eventually you learned to play in schools and learned to feel in either church or the jook joint.

But yeah when these instruments are introduced as a part of the general culture you create players, and when you create players, players seek other players and these players create the environment where playing is respected. it is from this pool that talent is scouted and refined into marketable icons but let's digress on that.

Players. It's a big thing because players play what's on the paper. That's where the players start. You learn to play what's on the paper. When you get good you don't need the paper no more, you when you get really good you can improvise off of what's on the paper. Wait hold up, contextualize that because it's important to remember that playing off the paper in an official (non-folk) capacity is practically under a 100 years old (I didn't look up the date so I'm saying practically). Being a really good player for the front bulk of the history of written music, meant just playing what was on the paper. You could interpret it to some extent.... maybe. But for the most part being good meant just playing what was on the paper. This was the era of the paper or the era of the composer. The composer was the artist and the players merely the paint.

It's when players start envisioning beyond the paper but within the paper as well (non-folk music) that we get to the era of the player. And that happened really fast. People like to talk about the how popular music took over classical but they tend to forget that that first popular music was jazz, and one of the key factors in it was how it freed the player up while working within the paper. Even the composers were taking their cues from it (holla back tin pan alley) which was taking it all beyond the paper and right into the players hands. Jazz really is what did that.

So you start with Jazz for the player era and then you have to come to a realization that we are no longer in that era. That era lasted primarily until the 80's, 90's if you want to stretch it. The age of the era waned with the rise of the machines. Man I've got a really dope piece in the work to capture that (I'm just rambling now) so I'm not going to get into it too heavy. But when you think about the age of the players moving into the age of the machines it becomes clear why those golden era artists can't exist today. There's no respect for players.


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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."