[buddhashenglong]

Gotta go with Satchmo, I can still hear his phrasing in many rapper's flow.

 

[Dublo7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quinto /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not very fond of his symphonies though, except for his 9th.., I find his use of instrumentation a bit poor somehow (can I say this ?)

not even Overture to Egmont?

I'm not entirely fond of Beethoven's symphonies, either. With Beethoven's piano sonatas is where my heart lies.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by buddhashenglong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Gotta go with Satchmo, I can still hear his phrasing in many rapper's flow.

Excellent point. Armstrong's vocal brilliance is often overlooked, despite the fact that he has been such a huge influence on singers (and rappers, as you correctly point out) who followed. As I'm sure you know, he is widely thought to have invented scat singing. That alone marks him as a fundamental influence on everyone from Billie Holiday to Mel Torme and beyond.

And I hear he was a pretty good trumpet player, too...

 

[slytown]

Quote:

Originally Posted by robm321 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Very true - I guess we agree. Also, I'd say: Robert Johnson for blues and Duke Ellington for jazz.

Crap, I meant Robert Johnson and not Leadbelly. My bad. Leadbelly has credit too, but Johnson had much more influence.

 

[Louis940]

Shostakovich was influential during the Stalin era for all communist-time composers.
 
The way he took on his censorship was quite daring, was probably close to costing him his life at times.

 

[p a t r i c k]

The question "Most influencial musician of all time?" has only one answer which is Richard Wagner.
 
I am not a fan of Wagner myself these days, in fact I turn off the radio if his music comes on. However no other musician, or composer has had that kind of influence.
 
After Wagner everything changes. His influence spreads into philosophy, politics, it is everywhere.
 
The way we perceive art of any form today is very often Wagnerian. Our idea of the audience as passive and placed into a pure observational mode is Wagnerian. His influence is so pervasive that we often do Wagnerian things without realising it. When you sit in the cinema and complain that your neighbour is eating sweets noisily, making that crackling sound with the bag, your complaint is essentially Wagnerian.

 

[cataleet]

Claudio Monteverdi, he completely changed the counter point game with his books of madrigals and brought light to a free-er style of counterpoint paving the way for a lot of music to be written.