Posted on 03/27/2013 7:36:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
These are strange days, when we are told both that tax incentives can transform technologies yet higher taxes will not drag down the economy. So which is it? Do taxes change behavior or not? Of course they do, but often in ways that policy hands never anticipate, let alone intend. Consider, for example, how federal taxes hobbled Swing music and gave birth to bebop.
With millions of young men coming home from World War II—eager to trade their combat boots for dancing shoes—the postwar years should have been a boom time for the big bands that had been so wildly popular since the 1930s. Yet by 1946 many of the top orchestras—including those of Benny Goodman, Harry James and Tommy Dorsey—had disbanded. Some big names found ways to get going again, but the journeyman bands weren't so lucky. By 1949, the hotel dine-and-dance-room trade was a third of what it had been three years earlier. The Swing Era was over.
Dramatic shifts in popular culture are usually assumed to result from naturally occurring forces such as changing tastes (did people get sick of hearing "In the Mood"?) or demographics (were all those new parents of the postwar baby boom at home with junior instead of out on a dance floor?). But the big bands didn't just stumble and fall behind the times. They were pushed.
In 1944, a new wartime "cabaret tax" went into effect, imposing a ruinous 30% (later merely a destructive 20%) excise on all receipts at any venue that served food or drink and allowed dancing. The name of the "cabaret tax" suggested the bite would be reserved for swanky boîtes such as the Stork Club, posh "roof gardens," and other elegant venues catering to the rich.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Just like the over-produced ballads of the late ‘50s and very early ‘60s led to the boom in small, energetic combos like the Beach Boys and the Beatles.
To add, the real height of the big-band craze was probably more like 1938-42. Records were coming out at a fast-and-furious pace. In 1942 was also when the Petrillo recording ban started (ending in 1944), which prevented records by big-bands, yet allowed the record companies to release vocalists’ recordings. Timing that with the wartime draft snatching up sidemen, gas rationing hampering traveling, and such, it was really crippling things even well before 1946. Seemed like bands were trying to regroup and get their mojo back in late-1945, but tastes had changed, and apparently this cabaret tax was also a factor.
The recording output of major-name bands in 1945 and 1946 (after the recording ban) was very tiny, compared to 1942 and before.
Rock and Roll had virtually nothing to do with the demise of the Big Bands! There were 8 to 10 years between them. 8 to 10 years of Patti Page, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Eartha Kitt, Rosemary Clooney, The Hit Parade, and on and on. No Rock and Roll until years later. I was there. And now I’m stuck with “The Wayward Wind” buzzing in my brain. Help! Time to put on some Gatton and clear away the fuzz.
WSJ attribute the decline of Big Band music to a tax.
Wikipedia attributes it to:
a loss of quality (due to WWII deaths of key members) and
a 1942 musician’s strike (causing vocalists to break away from the bands, leading to an emphasis on the vocalists) and
changing tastes to non-danceable music (bebop, cuban, modern jazz)
I especially like this point: "When Rep. Thomas Pelly (R., Wash.) in 1957 argued that musicians and entertainers were "under the lash" of the tax, other lawmakers suggested the solution wasn't to repeal the tax, but to provide musicians with federal grants." So the cure for federal meddling in the free market is even more meddling.
Argh! Where is it on that page?
Hrmph. It isn’t.
I actually knew about this tax. My father had been in a swing band to earn extra money while in college, then he went off to war. When he returned he rejoined the band briefly until the band dis-banded because of Truman’s tax on music. Most of the bands barely broke even and the tax made is a guaranteed loss.
Oh, I agree that the big-band trend would have gone away anyway. It was also extremely (prohibitively) expensive, having all those sidemen to pay. Indeed, another thing is that by around 1945-46, a lot of the jazzier bands starting veering in the direction of more of a be-bop sound, which has its afficianados, but the general public just never warmed up to it. Same time, some of the mainstream/hotel bands seemed to go in the other direction, more sweet than swing.
Not much middle-ground for the public, which probably found some bands either too harsh/abrasive in the be-bop jazz vein (and bands like Stan Kenton were always an acquired taste), or too syrupy/mellow, referred to as mickey-mouse bands in the Sammy Kaye mold. The “swing bands” of 1937-42 were hitting a happy medium of hot and sweet, and that’s when they attained their highest popularity.
I bought the old rubber records in the 40s (still have some) then the vinyl LPs. After that I bought 8 track, then cassettes. Then the CDs came out and I bought them. Now I have Itunes. But I did like the big bands. My cousin’s husband is 85 and he still has a band that keeps busy in Kansas City.
I've got "In The Mood" in my head now, thanks.
That was always my understanding. Not only were there all those salaries, but the travel expenses of touring with a large outfit. Guys like Louis Jordan were figuring out that you could get a big sound (and fill a dance floor) with a smaller combo, and you could put them all, with instruments, into one or two cars.
I’ve now shifted into;
“How much is that doggy in the window? Arf! Arf!
The one with the waggly tail?”
The cute Teresa Brewer.
If you copy and paste the title into a search engine, a public access version will pop right up.
I think people with a subscription have a slightly different url so when they use it to post articles, we get the suscribe page.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578348050712410108.html
bkmk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942–44_musicians’_strike
There was also the small problem that ascap and BMI would not allow musicians to record their music....
ha ha ha ha
What happened between the end of big bands in the late 40s and RR in the mid-50s?
TV.
The new craze of which many big bands found their way onto.
Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson??
Try The Ed Sullivan Show, and an endless parade of movies which once cost $0.25 for 15 minute installments, now seen in full for free at (for a long while) a neighbor’s house. Many featured all the big bands, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Abbot and Costello, I Remember Momma, and so on.
The only draw back in those times were the 15 minute commercials.
Who needed to go out and sit in a dark theater when one could sit at home with friends with mom’s cooking and be entertained, or even dance.
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