Is Krauss's Choctaw Hayride actually BlueGrassJazz?

July 6, 2007 at 1:37 AM

Listen to how it is put together and see what you think. It is coming mighty close. Improvisation has been around for ever and isn't that the backbone of Jazz?

Which came first - who stole what from whom - Hillbilly or Jazz?

From Scott 68
Posted on July 6, 2007 at 2:20 AM

this is the way i look at american music:

the origins of bluegrass is actually derived from irish folk music

as for jazz, at the heart of all black music is gospel - the origins of jazz come from songs the slaves sang in the fields and ragtime/dixieland and then later blues - all of this combined with classical harmony (the progressions of bach, etc) is the source of the evolution that became jazz, it later became popular to mix african rythms with latin rythms in the mid 50's and the whole brazilian bossa-nova jazz thing with jobim also became popular in the 60's

i believe the origins of both jazz and bluegrass mutated and formed at the same time, immigrants came to america and everything just mutated into something new at some point

From Scott 68
Posted on July 6, 2007 at 2:42 AM

i dont think one stole from another i think they have both been improvisational from the beginning - the only difference is note choice - what notes youre playing

bluegrass usues major scale and major penatonic stuff

blues and jazz is more dominant oriented - like the use of dorian or mixoludian or blues scales, its also popular to use major/minor modes and adding chromatic/passing tones

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 6, 2007 at 4:03 AM

It's well known that blacks stole jazz from the hillbillies. I'll spare you the details, but Larval and his sister Jailene, the two finest jazzers in the hills, were in an airplane that crashed in Harlem.

From Albert Justice
Posted on July 6, 2007 at 4:57 AM

Both bluegrass and jazz have ties with black gospel music, blues, and in the case of bluegrass a strong mixture of Scotch/Irish influence.

One may also look at Roma(gypsy) influence in jazz somewhat because of the French influence in the deep south IMHO. (check out the blog about Busking for more on Roma/gypsy and European Jazz.

You see, globalization actually began with Magellan, rather than Bill Monroe.
Or if one wants to look at primal origins, consider the Khans in being tolerant of crusaders and protecting the trade routes.

To really understand all this mixing in perspective check out Daniel Boorstin's , "The Discoverers". Nobody stole anything from anybody really.

Finally, when one considers bluegrass, and outlawed tunes on outlawed instruments, the Gypsy greets the Highlander knowingly again. So also consider highly valued by the "Rolling Stone", Tom Rush's "The Circle Game".
You can figure that'n out.

From Robert Berentz
Posted on July 6, 2007 at 1:32 PM

Thanks for all of your comments.

Music is like putting people in a circle and one person tells the person next to them a short statement and it passes around the circle back to them.

Asking different instruments to ad lib in between the main theme is a veritable gold mine. One song can be the cause of many new experiences.

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