[HN Gopher] Ford Dabney might have been the first jazz star
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       Ford Dabney might have been the first jazz star
        
       Author : Khaine
       Score  : 69 points
       Date   : 2024-07-06 04:00 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.honest-broker.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.honest-broker.com)
        
       | xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote:
       | I've never heard of him, and I'm glad to see an article that
       | calls someone (or something) "forgotten", where it's not an
       | exaggeration for dramatic effect.
       | 
       | Sure, Ford Dabney does have a Wikipedia article and he appears in
       | various music databases, but otherwise, well, I tried searching
       | the internet and it's a wasteland. His songs get less than 1000
       | views each on YouTube and there seems to be hardly any mention of
       | him on social media.
        
         | DaoVeles wrote:
         | Like a few weeks ago there was an article about eden abhez.
         | Most people would have never heard of him.
         | 
         | Always great to heard about those that were two steps ahead of
         | the world.
        
       | yakito wrote:
       | For anyone interested in the origins of jazz I recommend the book
       | Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development by Schuller. It
       | covers mostly 1920-1930 and a bit of its origins is west Africa.
        
         | analog31 wrote:
         | I'll check it out. Thanks. Also worthy of mention is Gioia's
         | history of jazz. And I haven't read it, but his _How to listen
         | to jazz_ is highly regarded and considered to be not quite so
         | encyclopedic.
        
       | tonystride wrote:
       | As a pianist I love the ragtime era. It's full of low hanging
       | fruit like this that's just waiting to be reawakened. The coolest
       | thing I've noticed is how timeless these pieces can be via live
       | performance. Tbh recorded ragtime can be meh, but there's
       | something truly captivating about watching the velocity of that
       | left hand stride irl.
       | 
       | This was a pleasant surprise to see on HN, I'm looking forward to
       | adding some of these pieces to my repertoire
        
       | Pine_Mushroom wrote:
       | Great version of his tune 'Shine' performed by Dick Hyman:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1nAPI23iRQ
        
       | underlipton wrote:
       | Tangential, but I was watching A Capitol Fourth this past
       | Thursday, and near the end of the traditional performance of
       | Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue_ , I was reminded how much I'd like
       | to see Joplin (one of the other fathers of popular American
       | music, and the father of a sadly-abortive branch of "serious"
       | American music) celebrated in the same vein. Whoever decided to
       | use Joplin's "Solace"[1][2] as the loading screen theme for
       | Bioshock: Infinite is a genius, because... wow, what a piece.
       | 
       | Unfortunately, rags have been misrepresented as an almost naive
       | form over the years, instead of the foundational element (ripe
       | for rediscovery, experimentation, and innovation) of American
       | musical composition that it is. Looks like Dabney was another
       | casualty of this oversight.
       | 
       | [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38ms-WVWI9w (B:I's modified
       | version)
       | 
       | [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLNORRrRyMQ (Full version)
        
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       (page generated 2024-07-06 23:00 UTC)