Improvisation and Value in Rock, 1966

Bibliographic Data

ID21788939
AuthorsDavid Brackett (corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume14
Issue2
Pages197-232
Publication date2020-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Society for American Music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1752-1963 • E-ISSN: 1752-1971
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1752196320000073
OpenAlexW3018820572
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited46

The mid-1960s has figured as a central period in the historiography of popular music, but the role of improvisation has been little discussed. This article argues that issues of improvisation and value are crucial to understanding the emergence of a high-low split within popular music, a division that figures prominently in criticism and fan discourse up to the present day. This new stratification within popular music made it possible for rock to acquire critical prestige relative to other popular music genres. The formation of rock also relied on its association with a primarily white, male, middle-class demographic. This article demonstrates that rock's prestige rests simultaneously on maintaining this narrow demographic profile while locating aesthetic and spiritual value in musical practices coming from elsewhere (in terms of geography, race, or cultural hierarchy): blues, Indian classical music, jazz. The socio-musical transformation in which improvisation played such an important role is explored through a survey of recordings and an analysis of the development of rock criticism in 1966, the year in which a new constellation of aesthetics, politics, and musical style crystallized

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Blues · Criticism · Historiography · Improvisation · Jazz · Linguistics · Literature · Musical · Popular music · Prestige · Visual arts · History · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy · Theater, Performance, and Music History