Go listen to Straight Otta Compton and then Vanilla Ice and you'll get it. Or for Swing Count Basie vs. the slicker more commercial Glenn Miller but it's subtle.
And then Coltrane and Orman and Davis come and change the whole jazz world.
And then Coltrane and Orman and Davis come and change the whole jazz world.
My point is if the music actually is so different, it should be noticable and describable without knowing the race of a particular artist. So how would you describe the black music that describes only black musicians but not white musicians from this period, and vice versa.
The most obvious difference is the energy level and "rawness" of songs - those white bands had really carefully choreographed performances with minimal deviation, even solos were often written out in similar big bands.
Black musicians often shouted, yelled or mugged during performances - all of these are completely absent in white performances at that time.
The brain can categorize much more easily than it can create a concrete definition for those categories.
For some reason, the view is widely held that internal thoughts are expressed in words. This would mean that anything you can think can easily be verbalized.
The fact that this view is quite obviously false seems to bother very few people.
Talking about the arts is difficult. In everyday conversation, well known phrases for describing the arts include “I know it when I see it” and “if you have to ask, then you’ll never know”. I’m a fan of “writing about music is like dancing about architecture”. It just isn’t easy to describing differences in performance and interpretation.
Since it’s widely recognised that describing music is difficult, and since you’re familiar with the artists in question, perhaps you could accept the point in good faith or put into words why you don’t think they are any different?