All Proportions Kept

[poliphilo]

Al Sharpton was saying yesterday that Michael Jackson was the first black entertainer to appeal to black and white audiences alike- and my immediate response was, well if that's true it's a big achievement.  But then I thought about it and I saw that in fact it wasn't true-  and then I put myself to sleep listing people who had made that leap across the race divide before him. It turned out to be a pretty long list.

Paul Robeson
Josephine Baker
Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong
Ella Fitzgerald
Miles Davis
Marian Anderson
Sammy Davis Jnr
Harry Bellanfonte
Nat King Cole
Eartha Kitt
Diana Ross
Lionel Ritchie
Chuck Berry
Jimi Hendrix

Well, you get the picture. And I'm sure I could go on adding to it. 

Also yesterday I found myself watching a documentary about Felix Mendelssohn- and how he managed himself as a converted Jew in mid-19th century Germany, and how the Nazis tried to expunge his music and how his family- as people of "mixed race"- struggled to survive under the Third Reich. Felix Mendelssohn was also a child prodigy; he handled fame with grace- and died at 32 having written much great music, revived the reputation of J.S. Bach, founded the Leipzig Convervatory and a whole lot else. There' s achievement and then there's achievement- and Billie Jean may be a pretty good song, but it's not the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.



Felix Mendelssohn, aged 12. 

Comments

[mamadar.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Little Richard, with whom Jackson had much in common. And there's also Billy Eckstein, a wonderfully smooth singer from the big band era.

Pop music fans and critics both have a tendency to think that Nothing Happened in American music before rock'n'roll. And yes, I think Miles Davis and John Coltrane, let alone Felix Mendelssohn, have made more lasting contributions to music than Jackson, may he rest in peace.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's it. I think one of the things I'm protesting against is the way our culture functions as if history began in in the late 1950s. I'm arguing for the long view.

Richard Thompson was once asked to supply a magazine with his list of the "greatest songs of all time". He (mischievously) took them at their word and included a medieval hymn, a 19th century music hall ditty and a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan. They refused to print it.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

And then made an album and a tour of it.

I love the portrait of youg Felix.

Nine

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course- I was forgetting that. I'd like to hear the album.

It's a sweet portrait.