John Ford, actually I'm not surprised. Paul always seemed to have an affinity for 1930s-1940s style music writing songs like "When I'm Sixty-Four", "Martha My Dear" and a few others.

Another switcher:

Gerry Mulligan started as a jazz baritone saxophonist, then started writing serious orchestral music that was definitely not in the jazz genre, and then went back to jazz bari sax.

And another:

Andre Previn switched from jazz pianist to the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

One more:

Benny Goodman started as a Klezmer clarinetist and then turned into the 'King of Swing'.

Not exactly a switch, but John Lord from Deep Purple wrote a "Concerto For Group And Orchestra" (it's actually quite good) and Billy Joel as William Joel wrote a classical album called "Fantasies & Delusions" and hired classical pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo to play it on the album.

I think many of us think of music as music and different genres more as different ways to express ourselves. I think the public worries more about genres because we as humans like to classify everything. But on our gigs we regularly play Rock mixed with Jazz mixed with Country mixed with Salsa mixed with Reggae and at least a half dozen other genres of music, and the audience doesn't seem to mind at all. I see Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel" and Rick Derringer's "Rock And Roll Hootchie Coo" more closely related than the audience probably does.

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Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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