1978 Bill Clifton Red Rector Don Stover Bluegrass - 6-Page Vintage Article

Description

1978 Bill Clifton Red Rector Don Stover Bluegrass - 6-Page Vintage Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
A Bluegrass Experiment
THE FIRST GENERATION
(BILL CLIFTON-RED RECTOR-DON STOVER)
Over thirty years ago an astute jazz
promoter named Norman Granz had an
idea. Big bands had dominated the jazz
and pop scenes before World War II,
producing much of the significant talent
which emerged during the era. But
between the war itself and the spiralling
inflation which followed it there was little
opportunity for new bands to succeed and
even most of the established ones were
going under. Granz noted that a number
of top-flight jazz soloists were either out
of work or scuffling hard for the few jobs
available. So he conceived an all-star
system which he called “Jazz at the
Philharmonic,” assembling the reigning
names of the era into package shows
which toured America and Europe,
featuring names like Lester Young, Dizzy
Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday
and many others who consistently served
as drawing cards for his financially
successful ventures. And it was a formula
which kept him and his musician
colleagues solvent until the advent of rock
and roll in the mid-50’s, which managed to
duplicate the excitement Granz’s tours
had provided while presenting a simplified
lowest common denominator music which
10- and 12-year olds could relate to.
What, you may well ask, has Norman
Granz to do with anything a bluegrass fan
might want to read about? Well, several
things. The years of Jazz at the
Philharmonic’s ascendancy also marked
the first years of bluegrass development,
and along some of the same lines.
Bluegrass has succeeded because its best
musicians have been as uncompromising
in their artistic vision as were Lester
Young and Charlie Parker in jazz. Much of
the early and continuing excitement in
bluegrass has, like jazz, been due to the
competing and contrasting voices of
individual performers, the best of whom...
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