Alright! The best episode yet, on the 1955-1960 era, and giving special emphasis to the demise of Lady Day, the maturation of Miles as a composer and innovator, the ground breaking phenomenon of Ornette Colman, and the revolutionary impact of my favorite Jazz performer, John Coltrane. I feel that the period from 1945 (with Bird and Diz reaching their creative peaks) through the late '60s, when Jazz/rock diluted much of Jazz's purity and power, was the golden era, and I highly look forward to the next episode.

Which reminds me...the topic of improvisation, of the creative act being generated during the performance, is a recurring theme in the program. That, I believe, is an interesting dichotomy among the two forms of traditional music that are the raison d'etre for this forum. Blues, to me, is a very musician oriented music, and (as in Jazz) its best moments seem to be unanticipated, improvised. This seems to be innate to the form, whereas in folk, the piece of music is more often brought out and performed by script- being true to the tune and the lyrics is the rule. The Blues is music/musician oriented, while Folk is song oriented. Does anyone feel that these two musical traditions are somewhat at odds in this regard...or am I all wet? I realize that there is room for improv in instrumental bluegrass, Irish and other Folk forms, but isn't there a powerful pressure also in play to be true to the song?