ROB REINER
Well, he made, he made the music that Robert Wood Johnson that started,
that came out of the rhythm and blues. He made that popular. He made
that acceptable to mainstream audiences.
CHERYL CROW
And you talking a time when radio would not play black music, and you
had bands who were being heavily influenced even in early stages by
Chuck Berry, Little Richard, like the Beatles, kind of like...
ROB REINER
I mean, Hound Dog, Hound Dog was written by a women, uh, by Lieber and
Stoler. And it was recorded a woman by Big Mama Thornton...
CHERYL CROW
Big Mama Thornton.
ROB REINER
Who was a tremendous, you know, blues, jazz and blues, and, and,
and R&B singer. But it didn't become popular till Elvis recorded it,
changed the lyrics a little bit...
CHERYL CROW
Right.
ROB REINER
....and recorded it and then became part of the mainstream.
ROBERT HUGHES
Let me ask you something, can you think of anybody who is not black, who
is, apart from Dylan, who you would regard as absolutely fundamental to
the history of rock 'n' roll?
CHERYL CROW
Anybody who's not black?
ROBERT HUGHES
Anybody who's not black.
CHERYL CROW
Well, I don't know the history of rock 'n' roll well enough to say that,
but, this, do you?
ROB REINER
rock 'n' roll came from the Mississippi Delta.
CHERYL CROW
Certainly.
ROB REINER
It came from the Mississippi Delta, all the people you mentioned,
Howling Wolf, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy
Waters, Sun House, all these people came from Mississippi Delta, and
that was the basis of all rock 'n' roll.
ROBERT HUGHES
Hm.
CHERYL CROW
But you also think i--, you got to, you got to remember, when black
music came to America, we were still listening very white, European
music, and, uh, that became sort of the, uh, the bed for what later
became a very American art form. You know blues, uh, R&B, rock and
roll, you have to look at Bee-Bop, you have to look at jazz, you got to
look at Duke Ellington, and then certainly Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis,
people who, and Miles Davis, I look at him and I think, he's very
similar to a Marlon Brando, who, he found his voice, you know, was a
counter culture thing, it wasn't about, necessarily, being mainstream
and popular, and they did of did it for themselves, and you had
Coltrane, and Charlie Parker, and those guys in there who were, who were
kind of a counter culture, and they were slowly sort of seeping out, but
that was a complete new and innovative art form to American music, which
later on, James Brown took, and, uh, people like that, and...
ROB REINER
Theloneus Monk. Also.
CHERYL CROW
Theloneus Monk. I mean there's so many there.
NORM PEARLSTINE
Well there's a body of work that Miles Davis had that goes, went on for,
for at least forty years.
CHERYL CROW
And kept changing, and kept influencing.
NORM PEARLSTINE
It kept changing, it kept evolving, and as you say, the people who
played with him and went on, uh, maybe if you think of his early groups
with people like Paul Chambers, Red Garland, John Coltrane, Bill Evans,
who went on to really define jazz, we've joked a little bit
about Armstrong because my colleague Walter Isaacson, the Managing
Editor of TIME is from New Orleans, and, so there's a special
dispensation for him, and if, in as you try hard enough, then
Wynton Marsalis will come in, also (Overlapping voices).
CHARLIE ROSE
But, but then, why is it...
NORM PEARLSTINE
But I think Armstrong was certainly, brought a lyricism and the idea of
the solo jazz musician, or the solo musician to jazz, where everything
was ensemble before that, he, but when he was playing with King
Oliver is when he really, I think developed an awful lot of the
traits of, that, he went on to popularize. What he didn't have to
me, was the length and range of work, or develop the musicians
that an Ellington or a Davis did. If you think of the Hot Five, or
the Hot Seven, Lil Harden, who became Lou Armstrong, was the great
musician with him, but it's hard to think of many other people who came
out of the Armstrong bands that went on to have careers,
themselves, the way that people came out of Ellington.
CHARLIE ROSE
All right. Let me, let me move this to you, because I want to talk
about your, get your opinions on jazz...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Right.
CHARLIE ROSE
....and then also, contemporary music today, other than what we've been
discussing so far.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Well I just wonder, 'cause I notice as we're talking about music, we
sort of have this rolling list of names, rather than sort of staying on
one person and saying, well, is it Marlon Brando or is it Lawrence
Olivier. And I think that's curious, right here, when we talk about
music, so, when you talk about...
CHARLIE ROSE
Well, no, I was going to do that, actually, I'm prepared to do that. Is
it...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
....is it, sort of jazz, as jazz, or is it Motown as Motown, and sort of
all the people under that roof, or are there individuals? You know?
CHERYL CROW
I think there were innovators in each field, you have somebody who
stepped forward like a Miles Davis or even Louis Armstrong, that's a
really great point, about the soloist meets lyricist, or the singer,
singer-songwriter who happens also to be an eloquent musician, and
you've never seen that before, and, I think in each category, there are
definitely stand-outs of people who brought something that had never
been done, and it changed the scene of music. But, to look at music as
an overall, to me, it would be impossible, because you've got George
Gershwin in there, who took, uh, jazz, and gospel, and took it to
theater, and uh...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
Right. It's very interesting...
CHERYL CROW
....and classical, and you put it all onto one...
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH
We, we, when we think about music as a so-called universal language or
even to go back to the question you posed to me, can I think of, you
know, sort of one white person, a non-black person, um, it seems, as we
talk, that in music, it's more about people taking a little of this and
a little of that, and being more open to influences, I have the feeling,
and moving over, out of cultural boundaries. It's maybe easier in
music, to do that, is why we can, you know, go to another country and,
and see people standing on their feet and cheering, when they hear Negro
spirituals, you know, Korean Americans telling you that they sang "We
Shall Overcome." It somehow gets beyond, and maybe, that also means it
gets beyond the person.
