Letter: Hail hail rock and roll (but with no disrespect to jazz)

Letter: What is Sidney Evans's point when he talks of the terminal decline of rock music (January 24)?

• See the letter here: Rock music has had its day, daddio

He tells us there were only three rock records in last year's top 100 . . . so? He tells us he is a confirmed jazz fan, so how many "jazz" records were in last year's top 100?

He says rock is a vulgarisation. But surely jazz is the ultimate form of vulgarisation, being based on improvisations around a theme and ending up not sounding like the original tune in the least.

To suggest rock music with "its attendant drug-taking" was the worst thing to happen to popular music, is extremely blinkered.

Is Mr Evans of the belief that drug-taking has never been involved with some of the great jazz musicians of the last 80 years?

I think he will find that, like jazz, rock has always been enjoyed by a minority looking for something different from the norm.

If you don't enjoy it, don't watch, read or listen to it!

Live and let live, eh?

Colin F Smith

Shrewsbury