The decline in live music is probably the greatest contributor towards the decline in the arranger. In all fairness, even your top flight arranger isn’t much of a studio tool, never has been, never will be. But live on stage, especially for the solo or duo musician, the arranger has been an excellent choice.

But that doesn’t reflect the modern music scene in any way whatsoever. I don’t blame the kids, I don’t blame anybody, no more than I blamed anyone for when the home organ went the way of the dinosaur. Music changes, the tools that make music change, the actual production of music changes. There are exceptionally talented young musicians making amazing music in ways that we cannot comprehend. I can’t bring myself to condemn them for how they go about it, or at least I expect them to be as contemptuous of my criticism of their production methods as we were of our seniors when synths first came out and the old school of hard-core piano and organ players failed to understand what we were doing.

We are no more relevant to them than the old school piano players were to us, in our new fangled synth bands LOL🎹😂☠️