In today’s episode of Pop Music, U.S.A., Dad gives the audience the second half of his look at jazz, which features the following highlights:

• A cold opening with Dad in full beatnik-hipster regalia: beret, sunglasses, and goatee
• More of his textbook look at the how the socio-economic landscape in the America of the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s can be seen in the shifts in the form and substance of jazz–from the assembly-line precision of the big bands in the 30s (a response to the Roaring 20s and the Great Depression) to the anything-goes boundary-obliterating free-form jazz of the 60s (a response to Viet Nam, the struggle for civil rights, and a host of other concerns)
• An all-too-brief audio example of how a Dixieland or Big Band-era jazz piano player might treat a C 7th chord vs. how a Be-Bop pianist (like Thelonius Monk) might treat it in the midst of a piano solo
• Two audio recordings of “Sweet Sue” done in two completely different jazz styles separated by only 10-15 years
• A live-in-the-studio performance of what Dad always called “straight-ahead jazz,” including my bass guitar instructor, Bill Grimes, holding down the low end.

I hope you enjoy “Jazz, Part II.”