Yes, the music changed in 1965 especially in pop. But in jazz, Kind of Blue, Ah Hum, Time Out convey innovation remain the distillation of everything until that point and unsurpassed in their importance. Change does not automatically convey progress and novelty should not be confused with innovation.
Your point about the variety of music found on AM radio during that time is significant. Sinatra likely would not have recorded “It Was a Very Good Year” had he not heard the Kingston Trio on his car radio. The closest I came to that was when I lived in San Francisco in 1985. There was still an AM station (can’t recall the call letters) that had that format. I can remember hearing Kenny Ball’s “Midnight in Moscow”, Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things”, and The Association’s “Windy” in the same quarter hour. I thought it was fabulous! I also remember the last commercial jazz station, KJZZ, was still on the air. They were in the last throes, and soliciting donations. They soon thereafter went silent. Television at that time also reflected variety, and it soon disappeared. Carol Burnett alone soldiered on into the ‘70s. I have always felt that variety was the spice of life, and culture suffers when things become homogeneous.
Yes, the music changed in 1965 especially in pop. But in jazz, Kind of Blue, Ah Hum, Time Out convey innovation remain the distillation of everything until that point and unsurpassed in their importance. Change does not automatically convey progress and novelty should not be confused with innovation.
Your point about the variety of music found on AM radio during that time is significant. Sinatra likely would not have recorded “It Was a Very Good Year” had he not heard the Kingston Trio on his car radio. The closest I came to that was when I lived in San Francisco in 1985. There was still an AM station (can’t recall the call letters) that had that format. I can remember hearing Kenny Ball’s “Midnight in Moscow”, Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things”, and The Association’s “Windy” in the same quarter hour. I thought it was fabulous! I also remember the last commercial jazz station, KJZZ, was still on the air. They were in the last throes, and soliciting donations. They soon thereafter went silent. Television at that time also reflected variety, and it soon disappeared. Carol Burnett alone soldiered on into the ‘70s. I have always felt that variety was the spice of life, and culture suffers when things become homogeneous.
Nice piece. Btw, might want to edit the opening paragraph…the Miles album was Kind of Blue not So What. :)
1965 is the cutoff date between the Boomer and GenX generations as well