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| A 1945 ad: Big Band and jazz music was the teen-age music of its day. |
What happened to America between 1939 and 1968? That's, say, one generation. A child born in 1939 could have had children in kindergarten or first grade in 1968. That would have been pretty normal for that age cohort.
But what a different world 1968 was from 1939! It's almost as if a different...I don't know...species...had replaced the people of 1939. America was a different civilization, a different people entirely in 1968 than it was in 1939.
Why do I pick those two dates? Well, 1939 was the year Glenn Miller had a big hit with "In the Mood" and 1968 was the year Jimi Hendrix had a big hit with "All Along the Watchtower." Could there be any two pieces of music more different, not only in the sound and lyrics, but in the dress and manner of the musicians? And while it's very likely that most Americans today may never have heard "In the Mood"; indeed may never have heard of Glenn Miller, you can bet they've heard Jimi Hendrix's rendition of "All Along the Watchtower" -- and probably liked it, even though now it's about two generations old.
Even when Hendrix first played "Watchtower," Miller's "Mood" was considered fuddy-duddy music, utterly passé. That's even though when it first came out it was music for teenagers, bobby-soxers, the latest thing. Why was that so? How could musical tastes have changed so much so quickly -- and wasn't the fact that they did a sign that American culture had changed as much, too?
What happened that so radically changed us? You could say it was baby boomers, but the whole shift in society happened before they could have had much, if any, influence. The oldest baby boomer in 1968 would have been 22 years old. Rock and roll, or just rock, to distinguish it from Buddy Holly, the Diamonds, Elvis, and their sort of music, was well established by then. Hendrix himself was born in 1942, so not a boomer.
I suppose I should say now that I have a theory as to why American culture changed so quickly in just one generation, and has not really changed that much since -- people still listen to the Beach Boys, the Byrds, the Doors and other popular music groups of the sixties. You might walk in to a supermarket and hear one of their tunes playing. But it's a sure bet you won't hear a Glenn Miller, Woody Herman or Tommy Dorsey song.
Well, like I say, I should have a theory for why that is so. But I don't. Just as I don't have a theory for why "guitar music" as it was dismissed as in the 1930s and '40s is still so popular that it essentially the only popular music there is. Guitars and drums and a keyboard. That's all you need to have a hit these days.
There was a big band revival of sorts in the late '90s, typified by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, which incorporated jump blues and swing as well as rockabilly into its big band format, Setzer leading the band with a guitar, but it faded out pretty quickly.
Anyway, I find the phenomenon interesting -- very interesting -- and think that the change in musical preference so quickly says something profound about what was happening to Americans in those days, something so deep and lasting that we are still living with it today; that there was a civilizational break that left what had been American culture behind.
If we need a break year, maybe we could say 1963 with the assassination of President Kennedy, or the 1964 Free Speech movement in Berkeley, or the Marines landing in DaNang, Viet Nam, in 1965.... Again, I don't know. But the change did happen. What do you think the cause was? And would you cite a specific year?
This clip is from the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade. The woman, by the way, is Sonja Henie, who had won more Olympic and World titles than any other women's figure skater. At the time this movie was made, she was among the highest-paid movie stars in Hollywood. The band is Glenn Miller's and the song is "In the Mood." Note how well-dressed the musicians are, their showmanship formal and pre-planned. They read sheet music. They are a dance band, the music meant to be danced to as well as listened to. There are no lyrics. The audience is also well-dressed and well-behaved. It's all so sophisticated...and...public. Everyone is there to be seen as well as to enjoy the music.
Miller would die three years later under unclear circumstances while flying from England to France to entertain our troops during World War II. He was 40.
This music video is of the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing "All Along the Watchtower" in 1968. Could there be more of a contrast with the Glenn Miller performance, not only in the musical style but in the way the video is filmed, what is filmed, the musicians themselves, their hair, their clothes, their actions, including biting their guitars. And the music. It can raise the hairs on the back of your neck. And the lyrics seem to hint at something profound, telling you something important, but just exactly what is left to your imagination. The whole performance seems somehow more...personal, both for the musicians and for you...and certainly more emotionally intense than that of Miller's orchestra. It is exciting.
Hendrix would die two years after this video was filmed from a drug overdose. He was 28.
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Just for fun, here's the Brian Setzer Orchestra's version of "In the Mood" from 2000. I wonder what Glenn Miller would have thought of it.