The Proof Is In The Jam - Part 5: Jukebox Audience

I have often been perplexed by the seeming disregard by philosophers of music aesthetics to consider carefully the writings of musicians and music critics. Most of the chatter seems to be between philosophers only. When I read David Schiff's important books on Elliott Carter and Duke Ellington there are no mentions of philosophers therein - although the late Milton Babbitt and the late Charles Rosen are mentioned, both of whom were touched by maths and philosophy. A common move made by philosophers of music aesthetics is to mention Eduard Hanslick or Art Tatum and move swiftly back to the cosy, comfortable environment of academic discourse. Another thing that I've noticed, and which bothers me, is that the papers in music aesthetics tend to be less freely available on the internet than papers in metaphysics and logic.
  I've been concerned recently with jazz vocalists and Jerrold Levinson's concerns about jazz vocal interpretation verses pop vocal interpretation. Levinson may be right about a pop singer's interpreting a piece of popular sheet music. But I think he's wrong about what this comes to in terms of jazz vocalists. I think if one is going to avoid unnecessary confusion, it's best to stick with what one knows.
  I know for example that Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan were jazz vocalists. If I write about what it is to be a jazz vocalist, it helps if one has heard a jazz vocalist in person. It also helps if one has heard a jazz vocalist in a setting in which she/he feels comfortable. If one takes Billie Holiday as one's favorite example of a jazz singer, it is almost certain that one has not heard Miss Holiday in person. The best we can do is the television broadcast with Lester Young et al.
  So with these exemplars of jazz singing we are relying on recordings. If one assumes that was is a special connection between these singers and their audiences, one must rely on newspaper, magazine, and trade publication accounts such as Downbeat, The Jazz Review, or Metronome for news and insights about a singer's audience. Even today occasions to hear a jazz vocalist in person, up close are quite limited. The closest that I've been to a jazz singer's performing in a comfortable acoustic environment was in Detroit at the Book Cadillac Hotel 30 years ago, where Johnny Hartman performed with a trio. Mr. Hartman sang ballads that he had performed for many years. I was impressed with his singing artistry, quality of his voice, musical taste. That was the closest that I ever been to a great singer in performance. Communication? Did I feel that Mr. Hartman was transmitting or communicating anything? Sublime Artistry - That's what was communicated. Sarah Vaughan 'communicated' sublime artistry at great distances, in concert halls verses supper club settings (the setting where Johnny Hartman sang for (not to) me).
  Billie Holiday's 1935 recordings with Teddy Wilson's small groups - jam session settings - are thought to be the apex of her recorded jazz-vocal art. Martin Williams in his chapter, "Billie Holiday: Actress Without an Act" of his book The Jazz Tradition offers a vivid description of how Miss Holiday created music with Mr. Wilson's small band of soloists. Martin Williams writes, page 71,

[The] recordings were primarily intended for an urban Negro audience, and during those depression years they were sold largely to jukebox operators. Like Henry "Red" Allen and Fats Waller before them, Teddy Wilson and Billie Holiday were asked to come to the studio with a group of the best musicians available (they would most often be drawn from the Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman bands). The were no preparations or rehearsals. The performers would be given "lead sheets" to the popular songs, many of which they had not seen or heard before, with indications of melody, simple harmony, and words. They did some "standard" songs too, but the new material seems to have been selected with little care or taste . . . . The jazzmen proceeded to transmute the material into their own idiom - they worked up fairly innocent arrangements and they improvised solo variations. Certainly not all of what they did was good - inspiration falters and some of the songs can't be helped much - but they apparently felt much at ease in handling material they had never laid eyes on before.

Miss Holiday, Mr. Wilson and the other musicians "transmute[d] the material", the songs qua "lead sheets"; they changed the material into something new - into new material. A jam session tradition allowed the musicians to rearrange the tunes into coherent new material in the jam session or swing session tradition. The audience was to have been an urban Negro audience. The transmission was to have been via jukeboxes in public places - restaurants, night clubs, pool halls &c. Whatever communication that would have happen between Miss Holiday et al. would have been in and of a tradition in swing-music. (My own jukebox experiences took place in pool halls and shoe-shine parlors - Gene Ammons, Miles Davis and The Drifters.)
  Given the setup as described above I doubt that Billie Holiday was trying to communicate anything to her audience. She and the other musicians were interested in creating music not in embellishing pop charts. Perhaps today we are at a stage in our jazz-vocal aesthetic lives where our singers' aims are not as high as Miss Holiday's. But at least we have Messrs. Hodeir, Schuller, Williams and Hamilton to redirect our thoughts about these matters.
  André Hodeir, Towards Jazz
  Gunther Schuller, The Swing Era
  Martin Williams, The Jazz Tradition
  Andy Hamilton, Aesthetics & Music