Unit 6 -- The Post-War Era

The Post-War Era

(ca. 1945-1955)

 

The decade or so from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s might be seen as transitional between the previous swing era and the upcoming era of rock and roll. Diverse styles of music, popular with diverse audiences, were both a culmination of musical practices preceding this time period and the precursors of what was to come. What follows is a quick tour of some of the more influential categories of popular and cultivated music in the Post-War Era.

 

 

Popular Vocalists

 

As the height of the swing era and the big bands began to pass, popular vocalists came to the fore. They sang popular songs in a style influenced by swing jazz and using sweet orchestral arrangements utilizing the instruments of the Western orchestra, often heavy with strings. The songs included both old and new Tin Pan Alley and Jazz standards.

 

Crooning was an intimate style of singing made possible by the technologies of the microphone and recording, which continued to advance in quality during this era. Bing Crosby is the classic example of a crooner.

 

 

 

Frank Sinatra was the most sensational vocalist of the era and phenomenally popular with young audiences.

 

 

 

Nat "King" Cole achieved remarkable crossover appeal as an African American singer of popular standards.

 

 

 

 

Urban Folk Music

 

Urban folk musicians like the Weavers, led by Pete Seeger, continued the tradition of Woody Guthrie, performing folk and folk-inspired music with a leftist political orientation. "Goodnight Irene" is a song originally composed and recorded by the blues musician Leadbelly. It became popular in this version by the Weavers.

 

 

 

 

Rhythm and Blues

 

 

An important style of popular black music during this era was rhythm and blues (not to be confused with contemporary R&B). Much of this music was influenced by up-tempo jazz forms such as jump blues and boogie woogie. It was mostly marketed to black consumers (the term rhythm and blues basically replaced the term race records in the late 1940s), but some white listeners were starting to pay attention, too.

 

Louis Jordon is the best-known of the rhythm and blues musicians performing in the up-tempo style.

 



 

 

Big Mama Thornton was represents another example of rhythm and blues, which would be an important source of rock and roll.

 

 



 

 

 Yet another style of rhythm and blues involved slow tempo ballads sung by vocal groups that were the precursors to doo-wop.

 

Country and Western Music

 

Country music continued to grow in popularity. Electric guitars and drum kits became more common as more country musicians were playing in noisy bars and honky-tonks.

 

Hank Williams was a popular country musician of the time.

 

 

 

 

Avant-Garde Movements in Art Music and Jazz

 

Much of the important work being done in art music during this period was of a highly experimental nature. While some composers were crafting music in highly controlled systems, usually employing atonality (music that avoids a central pitch or conventional key based on the traditional scales), others were attracted to freedom and chance in music. John Cage is an example of the latter type. He experimented with silence in his most famouls piece, 4'33", in which a pianist sat at a piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without playing a note.

 



 

 

In the performance of this piece, the ambient sounds become part of the composition of the performance. In addition to silence, Cage experimented with chance--certain events in a performance would be determined by the role of dice or by consulting the I Ching,  the ancient Chinese book of divination. Cage was also know for using the prepared piano, in which a conventional piano is "prepared" by inserting bolts, pieces of rubber and other foreign objects into the strings to create a new kind of percussion instrument.

 



 

Here, Cage talks about his philsophy of music, sound and silence:

 



 

 

By the late 1940s, jazz musicians who had played supporting roles in the swing era were taking jazz in new and experimental directions as well. Bebop and other new styles of jazz were taking the genre in a more intellectual direction. Jazz began to take on more characteristics of a cultivated or "high art" music intended more for listening than dancing. A classic example of Bebop, with its small combos and fast improvised virtuosity (exceptional technical ability on an instrument) is Koko by Charlie "Bird" Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

 

 



 

 

Avant-Garde movements developed in jazz, too, with musicians like John Coltrane and Charles Mingus experimenting with atonality, dissonance and free jazz. Jazz has undergone a remarkable journey at this point. Having started out as a style of popular music close to the folk traditions of African Americans and reviled by those who thought of it as low-down and dirty, jazz eventually developed into a style regarded as sophisticated and artistic--even highly intellectual in the view of many of those who played bebop and other late styles of jazz. It is partly because of this movemont of jazz in a high art or cultivated direction that it began to recede from the popular music scene, making way for other styles such as rhythm and blues, country, and rock and roll to dominate in the later 1950s and beyond.