The era of American popular song that was characterized by the styles of Big Band music is an era of duality; this duality existed in the form of Swing versus Sweet music, and within these two genres, as artistic integrity versus commercial appeal. Artists such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington exemplify such contrast within the Big Band era. However, the antithetical nature of art and business does not only appear during this time or within this genre music, but exists in many other periods and styles of popular American music. The musical characteristics of Sweet and Swing music parallel characteristics of other American genres, such as folk music and the topical song, bebop and "cool" jazz, and rock'n'roll, as well as suggest that opposition to hegemony is frequently juxtaposed with the aspiration for commercial success.
While the characteristics that are associated with Sweet and Swing music as separate entities of the Big Band era distinguish the two in terms of artistic integrity, it is important to note that there existed a tremendous amount of "cross-pollination" between Sweet and Swing. From a black-and-white perspective, Sweet often embodied songs that were indicative of commercial motives and mass appeal; contrastingly, Swing represented the side of Big Band music that remained committed to the creation of music as art, and rejected the immediate rewards of popularity and commercial success. In reality, the artists that are most often associated with these styles employed their efforts in both directions.
An excellent example of such efforts lies with the artist Benny Goodman. As a composer and performer for radio, he was required to create new music at an incredible rate in order to satisfy the needs of radio's mass audience. In order to do this, Goodman derived his compositions from the work of Fletcher Henderson, a little known African-American Big Band artist. While Goodman always gave Henderson credit for the role he played in creating this music, using another person's work to compose the music stripped it of its artistic and creative validity. Although Benny Goodman was instrumental in establishing jazz (Swing) music as a legitimate art form, this particular aspect of his music illustrates how music of this era sacrificed artistic ideals for commercial interests.
Relatively new forms of media such as radio made the need for mass appeal paramount during this time of American music. To this affect, even composers such as Goodman were forced to take measures that catered to this need. Similarly, Glenn Miller exemplifies this sort of appeal more than any other individual of the genre. Miller's music has been described as accessible to the whole of the American public on a level of emotional and intellectual expression. This characteristic undoubtedly contributed to his commercial success, and serves as a common characteristic of Sweet music. Even Duke Ellington, who was very loyal to the musical elements of African and jazz music, recognized how essential it was to appeal to the Sweet-oriented listener. However, all of these artists - Goodman, Miller, and Ellington - included musical characteristics that supported Swing music as a legitimate form of art music, and replaced the sole interest of financial success.
Following the period of Benny Goodman's career that was centered in radio entertainment, Goodman went on a national tour with a band that heavily preferred Swing music's definitive style. The national audience, a mass audience by all standards of the time, preferred the accessibility and sentimentality of Sweet music; this contrast in interests between the artists and their audience nearly ended Goodman's career as a Swing musician. However, Goodman maintained his approach to performing Swing music and eventually saw success with west coast audiences, subsequently climaxing with an appearance at Carnegie Hall that would mark the acceptance of jazz and Swing music as a legitimate genre of art music. Similar trends, which favor the non-commercial nature of Swing music versus Sweet music, appear with Miller and Ellington.
Like Goodman, Duke Ellington masterfully employed the theoretical advances of Western music in the creation of jazz, further supporting the genre's validity as high art in American culture. Glenn Miller went a step further, and popularized elements of jazz music in previously conservative settings such as military bands against the will of administration. Such hegemonic resistance is also present in Miller's work for film soundtracks and scores; he insisted that his music be integral in enhancing the film's story. These artists contribute to the conclusion that Sweet and Swing music were not definitely contradictory in support of either artistic integrity or commercial motives.
Using this understanding of Big Band era music as dually in support of artistic integrity and commercial success, it becomes clear that other periods and genres of American popular music exemplify similar characteristics. The period in American history that ushered in the popularity of the topical protest song is associated with artists and songwriters like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. These two individuals represent a duality in folk music of this time that is very similar to that of Sweet and Swing. On one hand, folk music had come to embody the protest of hegemonic influence and the rejection of commercial motives, but it also sought a larger audience in order to instigate the change it forwardly supported. Woody Guthrie's numerous contributions to the genre were characterized by support for the weak or oppressed citizen; while Guthrie's ideologies were in favor of a great number of people, the fact that he never polished his sound for commercial appeal suggests that his motives were far removed from those associated with economic gain. However, the sole aspiration of protest music is to instigate change, and that is not possible unless the music has public exposure. Consequently, other artists like Pete Seeger targeted wider audiences, as is apparent by the title of his album "Songs for John Doe," and portrayed less stability in their public expression of ideological opinion, suggesting external influences in the content of their music's message. The content of Seeger's songs was still representative of a minority perspective, but in general, his work was more akin to the commercial characteristics of Sweet music during the Big Band era. While protest music truly gained mass appeal during the 1960s, modern jazz immediately followed the demise of the Big Band during the late 1940s, and it too portrays characteristics like those of Sweet and Swing.
Bebop and "cool" jazz share Swing's definitive style of "hot" dance music, as well as employ similar rhythm sections as those seen in Swing bands. Although modern jazz music used a mostly standard instrumental lineup, groups experimented with other instruments like the electric guitar and flute. The presence of a flute in a jazz recording of this period is usually associated with a more commercialized modern jazz sound, which became more common in the later years of the period. In this sense, modern jazz occasionally supported the commercial motives of Sweet music. However, artists like Count Basie redeem this genre's artistic integrity; Basie implemented formal techniques of Western music such as "obliggatto," and introduced the concept of "comping" to the rhythm section. These musical techniques represent a heightened understanding of music theory, and therefore show how modern jazz is a valid form of art music in much the same way as Goodman and Ellington did for Swing.
The more recent musical phenomenon known as rock'n'roll also supports the contradictory nature of American popular music as being both artistically and commercially motivated. Rock'n'roll is a genre that inherently conjures up iconic imagery; Elvis, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones are some of the most prominent of these iconic figures. It only stands to reason that individuals and groups with such mass appeal would be accompanied by commercial initiatives that overlook the value of music as art. Indeed, there are countless t-shirts, novelties, figurines, and other merchandise associated with these artists, but rock'n'roll does contain elements that redeem its validity as a genre with artistic integrity. The musical influences of rock'n'roll consist of an extremely wide range of genres, and apply the theoretical advances that are associated with those genres. Rock'n'roll has also had a close relationship with opposition to hegemonic desires; consider The Beatles' beginnings as a group that constantly focused its music on youth, love, and other mainstream ideals, as opposed to their emergence as countercultural, drug-tolerant intellectuals. Clearly, this period also reflects the concepts that are associated with Sweet versus Swing music.
The artistic focus of Swing music in opposition to the commercial concerns of Sweet music is a pattern that appears often in American music history. While some genres lean more to one side or the other, it is clear that their value is rarely straightforward, and all of them are valid in their place in American music history despite any shortcomings in either artistic integrity or commercial success.
Brian Sullivan received a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, in the field of communication, with a special interest in mass communication and media studies. As part of this program, Brian also studied musical theory, history, performance, and the impact of music on contemporary popular culture.
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