Our small grandson is staying with us for a few days, and as usual we were playing music during the evening meal. He told us (fairly emphatically) that he didn’t like jazz, and preferred rock. I know that he follows in this respect in his father’s footsteps. We got to talking about rock music, and I was horrified to find out that he had never heard of Elvis Presley! It seemed to me that he needed a crash course in the development of rock music, which we began immediately, with Chuck Berry. (Yes: I know that it is possible to trace the history of the genre back much further than this, into blues and so on. He is only seven, however, and only with us for two nights.)
After dinner we listened to Little Richard and Elvis. I don’t quite know how he responded, but I had a wonderful time. Tomorrow night’s session is already planned, with attention to The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. I do think that it is important with music as with the arts in general, to have some understanding of where contemporary work stands in relation to history. Let’s face it, we are all engaged in a permanent dialogue with our own past, without knowledge of which anything we do must appear as arbitrary nonsense.