Feels like 1977 (almost) again. Nightlife and pop culture in this city during a depression/recession/downturn/ whatever we’re calling it this week, is feeling a lot like the last time New York had to suffer through massive job layoffs, gas price volatility, and multilateral rising costs of living. Businesses are already getting more creative about attracting consumers. And museums, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and entertainment vendors of all types are visibly rethinking how they do what they do.
In New York we are fortunate in that there have usually been ample free and low-cost concerts and festivals during the warmer months, and imminent offerings from the PEN America World Voices literary festival, the Tribeca film fest, the African Diaspora Film Festival, MoMA monday nights, SoHo gallery weekends, Summerstage and Prospect Park bandshell , and River to River concerts promise memorable delights to soothe the stress of urban life during fiscal wartime. Over the next few weeks I hope to report on much of this as it makes a difference in the quality and direction of cultural trends in my city.
7 Responses to NEW YORK CITY, RELOADED
Fascinating. If any RBP scribes here in the UK have parents/grandparents who lived through the 2nd World War, maybe this is the time to go talk to them and ask how they got their entertainment in hard times, and what it meant to them.
Maybe there are lessons we can learn and,sadly, maybe this is last time we’ll have the opportunity of asking them.
Good idea, Johnny. Ofcourse as you know, during WW2 and for some years after, the US entertainment industry started catering more to the Latin American market, paving the way for the mambo, Latin jazz, cha cha and bossa nova movements of the 40s.50s. and ’60s.
Fred and Ginger “flew down to Rio”, and Carmen Miranda made a Marx Brothers film.
Fascinating. So you’re saying that the biz became skewed more towards the Latin market for economic reasons?
What were those reasons? Did Latin artists work cheaper? Cheaper to film down there? Or was it more a realisation that there was a larger Latin market in the US because of immigration?
We, as journalists, tend to see everything from an artistic perspective – i.e. a genius comes along and his/her brilliance re-shapes the artistic horizons. And yet, very often, major artistic changes happen for rather less glamourous/intellectual technical, technological or socio-economic reasons.
The shift from big bands to small combos/rock bands, I’m sure, had a lot to do with the invention of amplification making it possible for small combos to make enough to fill a large hall, thus making them a better economic prospect for venue owners.
If it hadn’t been Elvis, it would have been someone else who kick-started it, but whoever did so couldn’t have done it without the amps.
Correct. You will recall that after WW2 most of Europe’s capitals needed years to repair their urban infrastructures. Decimated and struggling populations were in no position to consume large amounts of American-made entertainment. Also, wartime needs drafted many musicians and subsequent wartime shortages in the U.S. also rationed the production of entertainment items like vinyl records.
When U.S. entertainment industries needed (and wanted to mirror) stable consumer markets during and after the war, they usually had to go where a peacetime economy still dominated, which meant South America. Hispanic intellectuals often wryly observe that it took a world war and shrunken European markets for their wares to make Hollywood pay any serious attention to Latino culture.
Oh, and the demise of American big bands had more to do with the prohibitive costs of paying and touring with so many musicians, than with the invention of amplification tools. Hence the lovely miracle of 10 and 12 piece Latin “caribbean swing” bands (not to mention the larger Tito Puente and Mario Bauza orquestras)lasting through the ’50s and ’60s. For a long time the only big dance bands still working were big Latin bands.
Carol, you should write a book. I’d certainly buy it.
Ha, ha, ha! Did that! My *Pop Culture Considered* is already on Amazon.com!
But meanwhile check out the “Rockefeller/Hair” blog I posted here. I’d like to know your thoughts….
A prvoociavte insight! Just what we need!