New York-ish -- When a Jazz and Broadway Ballad singer can get the award for Best R&B Recording, and, on the Capitol Label to boot. I bet that surprised the heck out of the guys at Capitol.
The votes , so they say, came from her peers, fellow musicians, most of whom would be in NYC and LA(same thing just more to the West).
Great, but not representative of the music scene of NY “at its best“; certainly not exclusively so.
And exactly what music scene in NY outshines JALC? As long as Wynton keeps the noise makers at bay, Jazz lives!
Unless, of course, for someone for whom “the best” only existed in the past.
Depend on the subject at hand. The best computers are the ones being made today. The best cameras. The best cars. All tech.
The Arts, that is a different question. Just think about it. All the best was / is, in the past, for all genres in music.
The musical tech is better, the gear is better, the speakers are better, BUT the performers? Not so much.
Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Armstrong, Ellington, Miles, Coltrane, Mingus, Basie and the many many many more. All long dead. All still the best at their craft.
Today, we have paint splattered on canvases, Pictures of Soup cans, and non-musical noise makers. The Emperor and his new outfits are back with us.
And, to use 1964 Grammy’s as an example?! 1964?! The thick of the civil rights movement and all its implications?!
Look at the list again. If anything, it shows the need for a movement, not the implications of one ongoing.
Cheers