In the last hundred years, there have been many, many musicians, even limiting it to Americans, at least as, and in some cases more, significant: Joplin, Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith, Woody Guthrie, Gershwin, Sinatra, Ella, Armstrong, Ellington, Miles, Monk, Patsy Cline, Mingus, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Barbara Streisand, Philip Glass, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Elvis, Prince and Springsteen. Make your own list.
Jackson made (some) interesting music and was, up to an obvious point, good at marketing himself. He has a measure of cultural relevance as a black man (albeit apparently not willingly) who crossed boundaries. Then again, so does Sonny Rollins (willingly, I might add) and, when Mr. Rollins, or Fred Anderson, for example, pass, the media and thus the world will scarcely notice the ripple, which I find truly sad.
The venerable New York Times on the day of Jackson's death led its Web page with five, count them five, stories about it. I guarantee that on the day Quincy Jones dies, the NYT will not lead its Web page with five stories about it and not because he lacked importance in comparison to Michael Jackson by any rational measure. What he lacks is a freak show quality to his life. Prurience is not the same thing as significance.
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