Re: All that Jazz (WAS: Re: Walkabout Science Nit Pick) Spoilers removed

 Posted on 10/8/1996 by jmsatb5@aol.com to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated


Here's what I think is a bit of cultural short-sightedness. Everybody
keeps saying, "well, if they had that kind of music, shouldn't it have
been shown to be an oldies bar or something?"

Look at classical music for a moment. Goes back to Beethoven, Brahms,
Bach and lots of composers whose names don't even begin with B. And
earlier. Now, I don't mean to alarm anyone or startle anyone with this
revelation, but classical music is *still being written and performed*
hundreds of years later. Not old stuff, new stuff, of that school and in
that style. The orchestral suites in the Star Wars movies are strongly
based on classical compositions...is that "oldies" stuff? You've got one
of the longest running musical plays running now in London, in "Phantom of
the Opera," a *new* composition (well, mostly, knowing how Webber works).

Jazz and blues kinda formally began in the 1920s and 1930s, but its roots
run back to spirituals and african-american music in the 1800s. And it
didn't just stop suddenly in the 1930s. There's still new material being
written in that style now; so should Stevie Ray Vaughn's albums or
performances have been labeled "oldies?" After all, it's sixty years
later and more.

Certain musical styles will stay with us for a long, long time. Not
performances based on old stuff, but new material in that vein, for those
forms that have shown themselves to be enduring. 200 years from now, in
addition to other forms, you're still going to have original blues songs,
original classical compositions, original jazz, original compositions in
the style of gregorian chants, on and on and on.

It's odd when people try to apply illogical rules to the future that don't
apply now; no one said, as noted, that a Stevie Ray Vaughn concert should
be billed as an "oldies" event, or an oldies bar...even though it's over
half a century since serious blues started going...it's just silly.


jms