The JAZZ Story

The war years took a heavy toll of big bands. Restrictions made travelmore difficult and the best talent was being siphoned off by the draft. But

more importantly, public tastes were changing.

Ironically, the bands were in the end devoured by a monster they had

given birth to: the singers. Typified by Tommy Dorsey's Frank Sinatra,

the vocalist, made popular by a band affiliation, went out on his own; and

the public seemed to want romantic ballads more than swinging dance

music.

The big bands that survived the war soon found another form of

competition cutting into their following--television. The tube kept people

home more and more, and inevitably many ballrooms shut their doors for

good in the years between 1947 and 1955. By then it had also become too

expensive a proposition to keep 16 men traveling on the road in the big

bands' itinerant tradition. The leaders who didn't give up (Ellington, Basie,

Woody Herman, Harry James) had something special in the way of talent

and dedication that gave them durability in spite of changing tastes and

lifestyles.

The only new bands to come along in the post-war decades and make it

were those of pianist-composer Stan Kenton (1912-1979), who started his

band in 1940 but didn't hit until `45; drummer Buddy Rich (1917-1987), a

veteran of many famous swing era bands and one of jazzdom's most

phenomenal musicians, and co-leaders Thad Jones (1923-1990), and Mel

Lewis (1929-1990), a drummer once with Kenton. Another Kenton

alumnus, high-note trumpeter Maynard Ferguson (b. 1928), has led

successful big bands on and off.

THE BEBOP REVOLUTION