Music: Is there a more influential musician for contemporary music than Louis Armstrong?
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BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
Chuck Berry.
name a riff or move any rock act has done since 1960, and you can be sure Chuck did it 1st.
There is no rock or metal without him. He inspired the Beatles, Stones, Sabbath, The Who, Springsteen, etc.
Hell, Lennon may have been the biggest Chuck Berry fan around. He idolized him, and the Beatles have never been shy about admitting they stole their sound from Berry. Richards said he "lifted every lick" from Chuck.
HM to Little Richard...
the dude gets no credit when he was the other pillar of modern music. what he was doing performance wise and musically was well beyond its time and inspired nearly as many acts as Berry did.
Lennon's fandom of Berry was matched by McCartney's fandom of Little Richard.
Little Richard was the one to give the R&B and Soul elements to Rock and Roll
name a riff or move any rock act has done since 1960, and you can be sure Chuck did it 1st.
There is no rock or metal without him. He inspired the Beatles, Stones, Sabbath, The Who, Springsteen, etc.
Hell, Lennon may have been the biggest Chuck Berry fan around. He idolized him, and the Beatles have never been shy about admitting they stole their sound from Berry. Richards said he "lifted every lick" from Chuck.
HM to Little Richard...
the dude gets no credit when he was the other pillar of modern music. what he was doing performance wise and musically was well beyond its time and inspired nearly as many acts as Berry did.
Lennon's fandom of Berry was matched by McCartney's fandom of Little Richard.
Little Richard was the one to give the R&B and Soul elements to Rock and Roll
NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Robert Johnson is another seminal figure who was relatively unknown in his own time and yet had a massive footprint on the musical landscape of the 20th century, particularly among the most influential UK artists and bands.
He might be the complementary figure to your Louis Armstrong example.
He might be the complementary figure to your Louis Armstrong example.
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Dipsy Doodle
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Dipsy Doodle
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Huggy43
Registered User
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
Maybe one could throw in Bob Dylan as an honorable mention because of his impact on lyricism, or even on the first-person perspective in music.
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
At one point, I was going to ask 'influential for good music', to open the door to classical or even somewhat obscure artists, but then people might just throw in favorites and-or the topic would be obfuscated.
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
for the rock/metal world classical influences are everywhere, but there's 2 main ones.
Wagner for the dark/ominous tones and subject matters
Paganini for the extreme virtuoso style of playing
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Duke Ellington, Chuck Berry, Bob Marley, Milton Nascimento--one could build a case for any of them depending on the region of the world that you were living in. Then there is Miles Davis who may have picked up the torch from Louis Armstrong but then redefined jazz composition and soloing. He's probably a bigger influence today than Armstrong. Then what do you do with Charlie Parker, Django Reinhardt and John Coltraine? I don't think there is an easy answer.
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Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
no--he was great but he is not the most influential
I think the OP needs to explain more and back it up with evidence
one guy who Armstrong played with--who heavily influenced him was Fats Waller--they came out about the same time performing live and it was after Armstrong played in a trio with Waller that he changed up his style
I think the OP needs to explain more and back it up with evidence
one guy who Armstrong played with--who heavily influenced him was Fats Waller--they came out about the same time performing live and it was after Armstrong played in a trio with Waller that he changed up his style
Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
Dipsy Doodle
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I hadn't heard that. Do you have a link supporting it?
I'm not sure how much an apocryphal tale about where the most directly influential musician was inspired affects the discussion, but I am curious to hear it. Armstrong doesn't have much of an opportunity to rebut at this point.
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
The music of the United States has been the location of much of the music that is associated with individuality as well as the modern condition of the individual. Armstrong was at a ripe point in history as a disenfranchised black American in the aftermath of slavery and in the advancement of an age of global commerce. Armstrong lived a commitment to share and develop the blues music of the past toward a music of alternative foundations where grooving in the moment and individual expression come to the fore. In blues, ragtime, and swing, Armstrong spread his music and style between New Orleans and Chicago, and beyond.
Ouroboros
There is no armour against Fate
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For classical music I'm not sure how much argument could be put forward for anybody but Arnold Schönberg. His 12-tone/serialist method of composition dominated much of the mid-to-late 20th century art music world. You need only look at the Darmstadt school [led by Schönberg student Anton Webern] to see how pervasive this influence was. Even much of what has become the most popular forms of contemporary classical - the minimalism of Reich and Glass, the holy minimalism of Pärt, Tavener and Vasks and the neo-romantic works of Rautavaara, Górecki, Copland and Barber - arose largely as reactionary movements in the wake of serialist essentialism.
In the metal world I would put forth Slayer. During their peak period of 1984-1988 they laid down what has become, essentially, the extreme metal riffset. Some of their contemporaries became more commercially successful/popular, but who else could lay claim to such a pervasive influence across thrash, death and black metal? They are the bedrock - probably even more so than a band like Black Sabbath - of what contemporary metal has mutated into.
In terms of popular/rock music as a whole it would seem that it could only be The Beatles, right? I can't claim to be any sort of expert on their music - in fact I've never heard an entire album of their's - but surely they were trailblazers in writing/performing their own music, the popularity of the album as the primary format for consuming music, and for incorporating aspects of the then avantgarde [sound collage, Hindustani classical, etc.]. Not to mention their impact on culture at large; they are probably the most all-encompassing musical entity of all time. Everybody knows who they are. Even people who aren't interested, like myself.
In the metal world I would put forth Slayer. During their peak period of 1984-1988 they laid down what has become, essentially, the extreme metal riffset. Some of their contemporaries became more commercially successful/popular, but who else could lay claim to such a pervasive influence across thrash, death and black metal? They are the bedrock - probably even more so than a band like Black Sabbath - of what contemporary metal has mutated into.
In terms of popular/rock music as a whole it would seem that it could only be The Beatles, right? I can't claim to be any sort of expert on their music - in fact I've never heard an entire album of their's - but surely they were trailblazers in writing/performing their own music, the popularity of the album as the primary format for consuming music, and for incorporating aspects of the then avantgarde [sound collage, Hindustani classical, etc.]. Not to mention their impact on culture at large; they are probably the most all-encompassing musical entity of all time. Everybody knows who they are. Even people who aren't interested, like myself.
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
I saw a Leonard Bernstein video on Youtube wherein it was claimed that contemporary (classical?) music is in a position where it must adjudicate a position between chromatic and diatonic sensibilities for composition.
Duke Ellington - He laid the groundwork for modern arrangement of pop music with his innovations in music theory with regards to jazz and blues.
Delia Derbyshire - Her mastery of cutting tape and sampling directly led to the groundbreaking records like The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, as well as the sound collages of Throbbing Gristle. Techniques regarding sampling were fundamental for the dub genre, leading to disco, hiphop, jungle and house.
Stephen Foster - established the viability of and preference for publishing original compositions from the American musical tradition by American publishers.
Béla Bartok - His research into rhythm is critically applied in modern pop music and is critical for the development of more rhythmically oriented genres like jazz, metal, and EDM.
Delia Derbyshire - Her mastery of cutting tape and sampling directly led to the groundbreaking records like The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, as well as the sound collages of Throbbing Gristle. Techniques regarding sampling were fundamental for the dub genre, leading to disco, hiphop, jungle and house.
Stephen Foster - established the viability of and preference for publishing original compositions from the American musical tradition by American publishers.
Béla Bartok - His research into rhythm is critically applied in modern pop music and is critical for the development of more rhythmically oriented genres like jazz, metal, and EDM.
Jumptheshark
Rebooting myself
and you are over looking the guys the influences him
fats waller--as I stated before--when Armstrong played with him--Armstrong changed nearly everything about his style and his approach
Spent most of my life being tortured by family members who played JAZZ. While Armstrong is good. I put Miles, Coltrane, Parker, Ellington, Goodman(token white), Hawkins, and Basie a head of Armstrong. I like Armstrong, but he gets points for doing stuff that others did first and he scores points because he somewhat refused to get involved in politics and was viewed as being harmless, while other Jazz people, who rocked the boat did not get the credit they deserved
