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    Darn That Saxy Dream

    By Wattree on Thu, 03/13/2014 - 8:28pm |

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

    Darn That Saxy Dream
    Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk at the Open Door Cafe,
    New York City in The Village, 1953 
    .
    Jackie McLean

    Who are these cats, where did they come from,
    and how did they become so mean?
    The beauty of their lives must be sweet as honey,
    and what have their oh-so-hip eyes seen?
    Their lives must be a perpetual party, just jammin’ on their horns,
    and traveling around to exotic places that one day I’ll have gone.
    .
    New York City, a town of glitz and glamor,
    where the genius of Bird once spoke;
    Full of beautiful women, and progressive brothers,
    hanging on to my every note.
    .
    The man is back! But this time around
    he’s come back filtered through me,
    and we’re hangin' around this time,
    because I’m well into my prime
    and I’ve made it a point to be free.
    .
    We’ll avoid that monkey
    who slipped into Bird's horn,
    this time we’ll hold him at bay,
    because noddin's not blowin'
    when the changes are flowin',
    so it ain't no noddin' when playin'
    my way.
    .
    Bird was the man,
    but I had an immediate demand
    if he wanted to channel his licks through me;
    I loved his sweet notes,
    but that jones cut his throat,
    so he'll settle for gin and juice
    while in me.
    .
    We’ll be jammin' all night, and sheddin' all day,
     

    Sonny Stitt

    and of course, we’ll leave a little time for some wooing;
    We’ll sleep on Tuesdays between 10 and 2,
    and then warm up for yet some more blowin’.
    .
    Yeah, I know,
    sleeping on Tuesday between 10 and 2
    is a gross waste of our time,
    but we can’t disappoint our lustful fans,
    so we’ve got to keep my body primed.
    .
    Just me and my horn, chasin’ that lick
    that says, "Bird, Indeed, is back!"
    But this time around we’re doing it my way,
    and not stumblin’ upon stage
    while we're smacked.
    .
    I thought
    my dreams of Bird and Dexter Gordon
    would only age like vintaged wine,
    because it was based on the culture
    of a vibrant people that would
    last through the end of time.
    .
    But now I awake to the poetic verse
    of vulgar nursery Rhymes,
    backed by the scratching of Miles Ahead
    in something like 4/4 time.
    Taking the time to learn music
    now considered by many
    a gross waste of their time,
    so if you want to take note of what
    Thelonious once wrote
    
     

    Dexter Gordon
     

    you have to go on the White side town.
    .
    So it's sad to say, but we’re well on our way
    to making a mark unique to this land,
    by becoming the only culture
    unable to perform - What We Created -
    in the entire sojourn of man.
    .
    Thus, I batted my eyes only to find
    that I’ve awaken to another time;
    What was once so sweet
    is now a nightmare to me,
    and my sweet dream has past its sweet prime . . .?
    .
    I don’t think so . . .
     

    Bird

    .
    So I limped on over to my old dusty case
    and carefully withdrew my ax;
    Like an aging gunfighter,
    you never forget, when something you love
    is attacked.
    .
    Having mastered other things, unlike at 16,
    a little wisdom informs what I see.
    I wasted my time chasing Dexter and Bird
    instead of chasing the man I could be.
    .
    I’ll never be Bird or Dexter Gordon,
    that is now plain to see;
    So the time has now come to see who I am,
    because neither of them could be me.
     

    .

    Related Content
    .

    .
    Eric L. Wattree
    Http://wattree.blogspot.com
    [email protected]
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
    .
    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    I played this last youtube a couple of hours ago.

    I know nothing about Jazz; a year or so ago one of the Mike's attempted to explain it all to me. To no avail....hahahhaahah

    But I tell you, the music does something to my thinking, to my mind and to my soul.

    Something to do with mathematics they tell me.

    I did an homage to Dave Miller who went to Africa to seek new music, a short time ago; at least a short time ago in my mind.

    Your example just sent me to....well to other places, I guess.

    Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to post in a no place site. hahahahah

     

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 03/14/2014 - 6:33pm

    Thank you, Richard,

    Jazz stimulates the mind. Every true jazz lover I’ve ever known was an intellectual, and I have a theory on why. In most pop music, the chord changes about three of four times throughout an entire tune. In jazz, the chord generally changes every two beats, so your mind has to be active just to keep up. That’s why many people will say that it just sounds like a lot of noise.

    When a jazz musician is soloing, he’s composing right there on the spot. That’s one of the reasons that - let’s say, a sax player - is playing so fast. He’s playing, one note at a time, what the piano player is playing with all ten fingers. So when I’m playing my saxophone, I have to know every chord that the piano player is playing with his ten fingers, and I have to be able to play them in a split second. If he plays a Cminor7 chord, I have to immediately start playing C Eb G Bb, and I have to be able to goggle those notes in a way that make them sound most pleasing to the ear - and I don't have time to think about it, because I only have two beats to do it in before he goes to the next chord. After that two beats he moves on to F7, which is comprised of F A C Eb, then two beats later he moves to Bb Major 7, which is, Bb D F A. And again, I don’t play those notes in order because that's boring, so I might play D F A Bb, or A Bb D F. So it’s like doing math in your head by the beat, and that’s a rigorous workout for both the musician and listener’s brain. As a result, it makes the brain more efficient. It has the same impact on the brain as weights have on the body of a bodybuilder. So when I listen to pop it sounds like "Mary Had A Little Lamb." I don't see how people keep from going crazy from boredom.


    by Wattree on Sat, 03/15/2014 - 3:06am

    I just don't get jazz at all.  To me it is mostly noise, and I find your notion--that one has to be an intellectual to understand it--interesting, because here's living proof that you could be right.

    I had an afternoon-long session with Stanley Crouch once, where he tried to get me to understand the beauty of jazz.  Even he failed.  But I've never heard such an exact explanation of what makes jazz different.  Very interesting.

    Over the years I've tried to figure out why we either love or hate certain kinds of music.  You say pop music is boring, and I say Jazz is irritating.  What is it that causes the same music to hit us in such different ways?  (I admit that more people seem to like Jazz than hate it.  It's on the airwaves everywhere. I don't think the Weather Channel could function without it.  Jazz is the universal "please hold" background music. And you can't get away from it on NPR.  It drives me crazy but nobody cares.)

    Some people love opera and some people would rather lie down on nails than to have to listen to it.  And remember Disco?  (I like the Disco beat, FWIW.) There are entire radio stations devoted to country, pop, hard rock, and Golden Oldies.  Even Polka.  Something for everyone.  But nothing is as invasive as Jazz.  Or maybe it just seems that way because the first sounds set my teeth on edge.

    But having said that, I can separate the music from the people who love it.  When people make fun of the music I like, I get it.  Something about those sounds hits our brains in different ways.  And there's no accounting for taste.  Lol.

     


    by Ramona on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 7:41am

    I think there is so much Jazz out there that it's hard to say one loves or hates it. There is some Jazz that annoys me, but I only listen to Jazz I enjoy, so I would say that I enjoy Jazz. A self-fulfilling prophecy, one might say. I suspect that if you tried a variety of different styles of Jazz, you'd fine some you liked.


    by Verified Atheist on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 7:46am

    There's so many types of jazz so as has been said its hard to discuss it. But for many people it is just noise because they haven't trained themselves to hear how the complexity fits together as music.

    I'm not very much visually oriented. Some of art, especially modern art, is just visual noise to me and I miss a lot of the nuances even in more traditional art. I try to be a well rounded person so I go to museums and an occasional art lecture. Often the lecturer will point out things in paintings I never would have seen, some I can't even see when its pointed out. With a painting one can miss much that a schooled artist or aficionado sees and still have a superficial understanding of it. But with music its all out there assaulting your ears. One must put it all together, sort out the complexity in total, or lose track of how it all fits together.

    When I listen to a jazz improvisation I don't just hear how the chord changes, often more complex or unusual than rock, flow and how the improvised line fits with those chord changes, I also hear and know how the improvisation fits with the song melody its based on. I'd guess part of it is genetic. I've always had an affinity for music and learned and advanced quickly. I don't, but others seem to have an affinity for the visual arts and learn and advance quickly and see things I just don't see.

    Its not something that can be explained to you and suddenly you'll "get" it and love jazz. One must train their ear to hear the complexity and that takes time. Just as me attending one lecture on how to look at paintings won't give me the ability to see those things some see. I'd have to train my eye to see the full complexity of the artwork.

    Even when listening to rock those who have "studied" music hear things that others don't. For example in Blue by Joni Michelle right after she sings, "I love you" she puts in the chord changes and a few notes that suggest the melody from My Old Man from the same album. I chose that example because Joni's music is so well known that I think with just a bit of effort most anyone can hear it. Its fairly obvious that I'd guess some who don't have great musical depth might have heard it.

    Here's another example much more obscure. Bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was at a baseball game and heard a vendor walking through the crowd shouting his product, "Salt Peanuts, Salt Peanuts." The rhythm of the phrase caught his fancy and he wrote a song using it. As I was listening to Love in an Elevator by Aerosmith in the middle of the guitar solo they sing, "Going down" Then they play the riff from Salt Peanuts. Not the words, just the melody, "peanuts, salt peanuts salt peanuts." I think you get the sexual allusion they're making.

    No doubt in my mind that someone in Aerosmith listens to jazz enough to know that relatively unfamous, even by jazz standards, song by Dizzy. I'm sure that anyone who really knows bebop jazz would hear it too. It happens all the time in both jazz and rock and roll. Many, I'd bet most, of the greatest rock musicians are listening to jazz and classical music even though they might not have the chops to play those forms of music.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 03/18/2014 - 3:01am

    .
    MILES
    .
    We knew him as Miles, the Black Prince of style,
    his nature fit jazz to a tee. Laid back and cool,
    a low threshold for fools, he set the tone
    of what a jazzman should be.
    *
    Short on words, and unperturbed, about
    what the people thought;
    frozen in time, drenched in the sublime,
    of the passion his sweet horn had wrought.
    *
    Solemn to the bone, distant and torn,
    even Trane could scarcely get in;
    I can still hear the tone of that genius who mourned,
    that precious note that he couldn't
    quite bend.

    Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

    Reflections on the Stanley Crouch, Mtume Debate on Modern Jazz

    But the fact is, there’s a very simple way of resolving this debate over the relative merit of this so-called "new thing" over what I'll simply call conventional progressive jazz. Much like with good parenting, you can measure quality by what quality produces. So we can easily measure the relative quality of the two eras by measuring the quality of what the two respective eras have produced. Where is today’s equivalent of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, or Jackie McLean? And where are today’s jazz standards, like 'So What,' 'Round Midnite,' 'Moody’s Mood for love,' 'Impressions' or 'A Night in Tunisias?' I’ll tell you where - they don't exist.
    .
    The great jazz standards of the past are no longer being produced because the towering jazz giants who produced them have become all but a thing of the past. I can’t think of one person of the stature of Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, or Jackie McLean that’s been produced in over thirty years, and there’s a good reason for that - the quality of the music that’s been produced over the past thirty years is not conducive to producing people of that stature and creative ability. That in itself should close the case on this debate.
    .

    But now let’s look at how young some of the old-school giants of jazz were when they reached their musical maturity. Charlie Christian, the father of the modern jazz guitar - died at 25. Charlie parker - died at 34. Clifford Brown - died at 25. Booker Littler - died at 23. Paul Chambers - died at 33. Fat Navarro - died at 26. So John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy were relatively old men when they died - John Coltrane died at 41, and Eric Dolphy at 36. So many of the giants of the past made their mark on the world and moved on long before many of today’s musicians have even gotten all of their scales together. And there’s a reason for that - because in the past young musicians were held to a much higher standard, and exposed to a far superior quality of music, and musicianship.

    .

    The musicians of the Bebop and Hard Bop eras understood from the outset that they weren’t going to get rich playing the music that they loved, so they sought to validate themselves through excellence, while many of today’s musicians are in a hurry to learn their chromatic scale so they can run out and achieve wealth and fame - they figure they can learn to play in Gb Maj while they're on the road. Then they get out and play distorted chord progressions, add a thunderous beat and loud electronic distortion to camouflage their limitations, and label it as "The New Thang." Thereafter, they slap one another on the back as brilliant, and dismiss those of us who recognize it as noise as being "out of touch."
    .
    So the bottom line is, many of the so-called musical "revolutionaries" never took the time to learn what jazz is really about. Jazz is more than just another form of music, and it's not just fun-n-games. Jazz is also a way of life. There’s a political component to it - a way of thinking that reflects a unique way of viewing reality. So jazz purists are not simply upset over a modified beat and the introduction of electronics, they're also upset over the caving in to mediocrity and the abandonment of the political principles and qualities that jazz represents.
    .
    After all, one of the greatest contributions that jazz has made to the black community is informing the world that we're not the frivolous and thoughtless people in which we'd previously been portrayed. The harmonic complexity of bebop served to bring the dazzling intellectual capacity of black people to the world stage. So naturally, jazz purist are both reluctant and hostile to going back to the people-pleasin' days of what is essentially a musical form of Steppin'-Fetchism.
    .
    Jazz has traditionally been the cultural anthem of social revolutionaries - both Black and White - who are willing to fight the good fight. Thus, jazz purists resent the mongrelization and surrender of those principles in lieu of "Can we all just get along?" To them, that represents the selling of our principles. That's why the word "commercialism" is looked upon with such disdain by those of us who have come to be known as jazz purists. We're not merely fighting to defend our right to be snobs. We're fighting to defend excellence from sliding down the slippery slope of corporate profit and mediocrity; we're fighting for a way of life, and we're fighting a political battle against the dumbing down of America as a whole. Our fight is an essential part of our jazz tradition. It's expected of us, because that's what jazz is all about - pushing the envelop, and never caving in to convention.
    .
    So you can’t just put a funky beat behind noise and call it jazz, because once you go frivolous, the spirit of jazz has been abandoned. While jazz does kick up it's heels on occasion, it's a very serious form of music that’s designed to appeal to the mind, not just the ass. For that reason, a logical and organized structure is essential to its character. Without that, and it’s arrogantly distinctive swagger, it's not jazz - Period.

    Click below for the entire article:

    http://wattree.blogspot.com/2012/07/relections-on-stanley-crouch-mtume.html


    by Wattree on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 1:28am

    What ever. Purists like you or Wynton Marsalis seem to think the development of jazz stopped with Be Bop. If that was how Bird and Gillespie thought there would be no Be Bop. Its not like they were listening to some swing and Bird said, "Yo  Diz, You know what music I want to play for the rest of my life? Dixieland, let's play some dixieland, Diz."

    I love traditional jazz from Earl Hines and Armstrong to Dizzy and Bird but I think John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Jean Luc Ponty and others are easily the equal of their predecessors as both composers and musicians. If you think that all those of the jazz rock fusion era did was add a funky beat and electronic distortion to roll up and down a chromatic scale you just haven't paid attention, as is so common with purists.

     

     


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 5:32pm

    I think it was Duke Ellington who said, "If it sounds good, it is good." What other criterion could possibly count? It sounds good, but it isn't good?

    I think Marsalis's beef with the post-Bitches Brew Miles, and fusion in general, is the lack of a blues foundation to the music.

    (I don't know if this is, in fact, true or in what way it might be true, but I'm pretty sure it's what he's said. Maybe he means an insufficient connection to blues.)

    So, the 50s and 60s, cool and hard bop and Coltrane, would be fine by him. Not sure where he puts Ornette Coleman.

    I myself am partial to a blues foundation and had trouble listening to Miles starting with Bitches Brew. That said, I have been blown away by Jaco Pastorius and may circle around and listen to fusion 30 years after the fact.

    There's a young sax player who caused a stir recently by posting: "Fuck Wayne Shorter," basically for the reasons, I think, adduced by Marsalis, namely a lack of musicianship, technique.


    by Peter Schwartz on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 8:06pm

    I don't think in terms of good or not. Some music has greater depth, sophistication, and complexity than other music. Some people are drawn to that and other prefer simpler music.

    I think Marsalis wants to stop jazz at a period were it could be more commercially successful. More power to him. I don't have any issue with musicians who want to play the jazz of the 50's. I doubt that Dizzy was pissed that some musicians in the 50's were playing the jazz of the 10's and 20's, Dixieland. Some people still play Dixieland today. Doesn't bother me at all. Though generally I think the quality was better when played by the greats of the era rather than those reaching back in time.

    My problem is with those who clearly are clueless about the music who just want to criticize. Its just absolutely false to claim that fusion is just a funky beat, distortion to hide poor musicianship, and running up the chromatic scale. People like that just want to insult and to anyone who has listened to the music they reveal themselves as fools.

    Here's Spain covered by fusion guitarist Al Dimeola, John McLaughlin who has played almost every modern style of jazz from Be Bop to avangrade but is mostly know for his fusion albums with his Mahavishnu Orchestra, and flamenco guitarist Paco De Lacia. Some might find this hard to listen to without a keyboard and bass constantly reminding them what the harmony is. Spain, a jazz fusion composition written by a jazz fusion musician prefromed by two jazz fusion guitarists. Lack of musicianship and technique?

    You might notice that they just cover Spain by Corea without including the bit of the theme from Concierto de Aranjuez. Its not uncommon to leave off the brief intro by Rodrigo when covering Spain

     

     

     


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 11:14pm

    This is beautiful...and guitar isn't my favorite instrument.

    Unless I misunderstand you, though, the jazz prior to fusion was very uncommercial.

    I would bet that, outside of the jazz world, hardly anyone knew who Miles was before he started playing fusion. Bebop STILL isn't commercially successful.

    So maybe you're saying that Marsalis objected to the fusion artists having huge commercial success relative to earlier players. Maybe he thinks of them as sell-outs.

    Could be...but I find these arguments silly. They take time and attention away from just listening.


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 12:27pm

    Here's a listing of Miles Davis' top chart appearances - highest pre-fusion was #59 in 1962

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081227021434AAb0f5r

    Sounds like Miles didn't much like playing music from earlier eras - once he'd moved on, that was it. Interesting I hadn't realized he did some tracks for Johnny Rotten/Lydon's PIL before he died - the tracks didn't make final release, but seems like Davis took his last recording period very seriously, not just a Salvador Dali signing blank canvases.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 1:03pm

    In talking about his previous work, Miles was famous for saying (I think this is true): "That was then; this is now."

    "Once he'd moved, that was it," is my view of it, too. He wasn't interested in rehashing where he'd been. He was always searching for what was next for him.

    When I was young, my parents took my brother and me to see Miles at the Village Vanguard. This would have been in the 1960s.

    At the time anyway, the Vanguard was a long, narrow-ish room with the stage at one end and the bar at the back and all the tables in between.

    At one point, the noise from the back had risen, and he just stopped playing, glared toward the back, and hissed into the microphone until things quieted down. One of his sidemen arrived late, and he drew back as if to hit the guy right there on stage.

    He was a very serious guy as far as I could tell...until the end.


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 9:14pm

    Peter, the denigration of art is not silly. We're being dumbed-down as a nation, and there's nothing silly about hat either. And by the way, Wynton is to jazz what Pat Boone was to hard rock, or Sammy Davis Jr, was to rhythm and blues.


    by Wattree on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 1:10pm

    Eric, I have a feeling that you and I track virtually 100% on the jazz we like and the jazz we don't like. For a long time, I didn't consider fusion to be jazz at all.

    More like "shmazz."

    But there's no question that Miles began his career during a very fertile period in jazz, the 1940s. He may not have had the chops for bebop, but he pioneered "cool" jazz in the 1950s and then, in the 1960s, a modal form of jazz with those legendary quartets.

    In fact, his groups were the spawning ground for some of the greats of the modern era: John Coltrane, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and so on. I'm not saying these people were "nothing" before they joined his groups, but he kinda sorta discovered them and brought them into the public view.

    In short, Miles was the real thing. Not only a great player, but a great artist, someone who kept searching for deeper and as yet undiscovered musical expression.

    How then do you explain his turn toward fusion, perhaps, even, his creation or co-creation of fusion? Did he simply get tired of watching the Beatles make all that money when he was making a middle or upper middle-class living?

    In your view, did he just sell out to make a buck?


    by Peter Schwartz on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 9:06pm

    The fact is, Miles started having problems with his chops so he went into retirement. But he loved music so much that he wanted to get back into the game, so being the genius that he was, he simply INVENTED a form of music that he could play. Then we had a generation of musicians who came along behind him, who didn’t have a vision of their own, that built an entire musical movement based on what Miles created to accommodate his old age and disability.
    .
    And finally, Mtume justified this "new music" by saying that it inspired young people who weren’t previously into jazz. But the fact is, art is NEVER suppose to lower itself to accommodate the tastes of the lowest common denominator of the people. Art is suppose to raise the consciousness of the people up to it. That’s why it’s called art.
     

    .
    .

    But the fact is, there’s a very simple way of resolving this debate over the relative merit of this so-called "new thing" over what I'll simply call conventional progressive jazz.  Much like with good parenting, you can measure quality by what quality produces. So we can easily measure the relative quality of the two eras by measuring the quality of what the two respective eras have produced. Where is today’s equivalent of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, or Jackie McLean?  And where are today’s jazz standards, like 'So What,' 'Round Midnite,' 'Moody’s Mood for love,' 'Impressions' or 'A Night in Tunisias?' I’ll tell you where - they don't exist.
    .
    The great jazz standards of the past are no longer being produced because the towering jazz giants who produced them have become all but a thing of the past. I can’t think of one person of the stature of Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, or Jackie McLean that’s been produced in over thirty years, and there’s a good reason for that - the quality of the music that’s been produced over the past thirty years is not conducive to producing people of that stature and creative ability. That in itself should close the case on this debate.
    .
     

    But now let’s look at how young some of the old-school giants of jazz were when they reached their musical maturity. Charlie Christian, the father of the modern jazz guitar - died at 25. Charlie parker - died at 34. Clifford Brown - died at 25. Booker Littler - died at 23. Paul Chambers - died at 33. Fat Navarro - died at 26. So John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy were relatively old men when they died - John Coltrane died at 41, and Eric Dolphy at 36. So many of the giants of the past made their mark on the world and moved on long before many of today’s musicians have even gotten all of their scales together. And there’s a reason for that - because in the past young musicians were held to a much higher standard, and exposed to a far superior quality of music, and musicianship.
    .
    The Jazz Crusaders as young up-and-comers
    .

    The musicians of the Bebop and Hard Bop eras understood from the outset that they weren’t going to get rich playing the music that they loved, so they sought to validate themselves through excellence, while many of today’s musicians are in a hurry to learn their chromatic scale so they can run out and achieve wealth and fame - they figure they can learn to play in Gb Maj while they're on the road. Then they get out and play distorted chord progressions, add a thunderous beat and loud electronic distortion to camouflage their limitations, and label it as "The New Thang." Thereafter, they slap one another on the back as brilliant, and dismiss those of us who recognize it as noise as being "out of touch."


    by Wattree on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 1:01am

    Not to play "gotcha" here at all...

    But then do you agree that what Miles did, Bitches Brew on, was good, valid, interesting jazz, propelled by his artistic genius?

    (Some have argued, I think, that Miles never had many chops to begin with...)

    Just to shift gears a bit, you bring up an area I wanted to broach in one of your other posts a while back.

    The differences between then and now...

    Back then, a young musician had a relatively large number of places, clubs, where he could go to hone his playing and learn from accomplished elders. As I read their biographies, many did study in their earliest years, but then had a lot of places they could go to practice without having to appear at Carnegie Hall or at some other big venue. And in those small, somewhat informal venues, they could learn from the top guys in the field and make their own share of mistakes and "bad" music.

    To some degree, I would agree, this was because jazz, and its offspring, the American Songbook, was America's popular music. R&B and blues had not crossed over. And rock was still-unborn.

    And...and...the technology of music distribution...radio...records...were at a stage where the opportunities for folks to make a lot of money were limited. Yes, there were stars, but the "mass" in "mass entertainment" was still relatively small compared to our population.

    Now, all of this has changed. Still most musicians don't make any money, but the opportunities are greater and the potential rewards are astronomically greater. Rock, R&B, and the blues changed what people considered to be "America's music." And many hundreds of thousands of kids--I think--were inspired to become rock, soul, R&B, blues musicians in ways that just never happened with jazz back in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. And they had more dough to buy instruments, however bad they were.

    And you can play decent rock, and even breakthrough rock, knowing only a few chords and making up for the rest with attitude and showmanship. Witness the whole punk and grunge thing. You can't really do that with jazz. So rock has spawned great masses of musicians in ways jazz never could and still can't. And those amateur musicians want to hear music they can appreciate and aspire to play.

    Admittedly, I'm speculating here a good bit, but hear me out.

    So, "the main thing" moved from jazz and its offspring to rock and its associates. The old jazz clubs, the breeding grounds of those greats you mentioned, disappeared and have never come back in numbers and, more importantly, no longer serve as incubators of talent. The new jazz clubs, such as they are, aren't places where young folks can bring their instruments and hope for a chance to sit in with a great player. Not that I've seen at least, and I used to go to fair number of them in D.C. A little bit, but not like it was before (at least as I've read). Headliners, if you want to call them that, want you, the audience, to hear and pay them. They do bring along young musicians--Dizzy used to do that at Blues Alley--but that's more about giving a young musician exposure.

    But...but...other avenues have developed. For example, there are many more schools where you can go to learn to play, e.g., Berklee and almost any college or university with a music program of any size. Admittedly, these are academic settings, but they are filled with kids who aim to be serious musicians.

    So here's where I might disagree with you: These kids KNOW their scales. They hone their technique to a fine edge. They know more about music, in many cases, than the older guys who were great musicians, but perhaps not as well educated in a formal sense. Or, to be more cautious, they know more about music than the average jazz musician back in the day. I think your judgment that these kids don't know their scales is wrong.

    (That said, you're probably right about the great masses of guitar players and drummers spawned by the rock tidal wave. But even here, as we hear on this thread, there are great, great guitar players and drummers.)

    So here's what I think: Where have all the Jackie Mcleans gone? They probably went into some species of "rock," which is now "America's music," if not by right, then by economic might. If they went into jazz, then they are beavering away in a field of music that is economically a "poor relation" to rock and its offspring.

    The great flowering of academic jazz programs has given many more kids the opportunity to learn the music. However, the lack of informal breeding grounds, the clubs, where young players could learn directly from the greats on the stand--and not in "master classes"--has probably robbed the music of some of its creativity and urgent necessity.

    The greats of yore made music because something inside them drove them to make music. It was a very hard road, and they were driven to go down it without the brakes, airbags, crash-tested equipment society now offers. Not knowing your scales meant humiliation on the bandstand and in front of your betters who would kick you off, not a D on a final exam. So if you survived it, and especially if you thrived in it, you were probably really, really, really good and driven to be good. And even then, only a handful of players became Jackie Mcleans. Most were journeymen at most.

    So the answer to the question--"where are today's Jackie Mcleans?"-- is this: The economic, musical, and social scene changed. It's not the fault of the kids coming up: They're just responding to the world they live in, just as everyone does and has always done. I'm sure if Coleman Hawkins had had the opportunity to make the money Mick Jagger makes, he would have jumped at it.

    There's also probably something here about the desegregation of America. While segregation is clearly an evil, it probably gave black musicians the "opportunity" to develop their music in a "purer" setting, where they could follow the prompting of their own inner musical voice. Take from the white musical world what they wanted but without having to respond to people who didn't "get" what they were doing or didn't approve of what they were doing.

    Going beyond racial segregation, technology has "integrated" the whole world. Musicians and everyone else are listening and being exposed to a MUCH greater range of music. And musicians, like all artists, are integrating what they hear and like into their own music, whether it comes from Hawaii, Africa, or Thailand. This is what artists do and should do. They break people out of their "ghettoes"; they don't create new ones. In short, everyone is borrowing from everyone else.

    Anyway, lots of speculation on my part here...and some reading...

     


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 8:08am

    Short answer: Fishbone. Incl Trombone Shorty, et al.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 9:58am

    Yes, peter, but great speculation, though. I book need to be written exploring those issues, and I could see myself writing it. I'm going to save this comment. Thanks, Peter.


    by Wattree on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 10:21am

    You're welcome, Eric. There's a book I read a while back that explores some of this. I'll try to find it and pass the title on to you.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 1:04pm

    Steven Tyler can play most anything, quite well (harmonica is exceptional)... his father was a classical pianist and from this bit, well-acquainted with jazz as well - 

    my dad worked at a lodge where stevie and his music teacher dad did jazz in the summer. steve played drums. this would have been like '64-65. my dad said steve's dad was always reining his son in from playing rock n roll.

    And from another:

    Steven Tyler

    Tyler played in both the concert and marching bands at Roosevelt High School in New York. According to his autobiography, he plays (deep breath) harmonica, hammered dulcimer, piano, drums, percussion, moroccas, guitar, mandolin, violin, flute, mellotron, bass guitar, accordion, saxophone and trumpet. —Jeff Royer
     

    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 8:18am

    I don't read much about rock musician's lives but I'm not surprised to hear it. The jazz influence in Aerosmith is unmistakable. Just as its clear that whoever writes the music for Queen has tremendous amounts of classical training in music theory. The ability of the band members to sing those complex harmonies leads me to believe most of Queen is classically trained.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 4:37pm

    I'd rephrase "classically trained" to "influenced". Mercury had piano lessons and a weird childhood/background, but I'd say his drive and native vocal abilities were more important than any education.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 8:13pm

    You could be right. I listen to a lot of rock, but as I said I don't read much about rock music or musicians. I'm more focused on jazz and classical. If he wrote those harmonies in songs like Someone to Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, etc. without any study in music theory its absolutely amazing. But some people do seem to be born with astonishing natural abilities, especially in the rhelm of music.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 8:37pm

    Actually, with Mercury I listened to very early Queen (1st 3 albums - "Old King Rat" being my favorite song for a while), but didn't like much after & didn't follow them - get most of my info from Wikipedia (thus Mercury being a Gujarati Persian who grew up in Zanzibar?), and developed a better respect for their later work post-humously.

    I do recall a college friend went tripping to a Queen concert and came away amazed and fearful of just how much crowd control Mercury had.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 1:27pm

    BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE 

    Ramona, you write with such imagination and insight I'm surprised that you don't get it. Jazz is much like writing. The only difference is jazz musicians write their essays in emotion rather than words. Look at how much better I could paint a portrait of my mother's friend, the beautiful Teresa, than I would have ever been able to do in words. Sometimes people ask me what do I consider myself first, a writer, or a musician. Itell them that it's all an extension of the same thing - my need to express what's going on inside of me. When I have an issue that I can express intellectually and support, I write an essay. When I can't support the issue with factual evidence, I use poetry to express my intuition. But when I want to express an emotion that I can't put into words, like the pain of betrayal, or how my mother's friend, Teresa, made me feel as a child when I looked upon her beauty and absolute perfection, I rely on music to express that emotion, and the only music that gives me all of the tools and emotional hues to express the range of my emotions is jazz, because it mimics emotion. It was especially designed to do that, because it allowed Black people to express their pain, anger, love, or sorrow to one another in a language that was nonverbal. it's almost like being bilingual.          
     

     
    TIME PASSES BUT BEAUTY NEVER FADES
    .
    I’d Like to Dedicate This to Teresa.
    She was a Friend of My Mother’s,
    And a Ravishing Latin Beauty -
    The Most Beautiful Woman I’d Ever Seem.
    She’d Be In her 80's Now,
    And Young People Probably Pass her on The Street And
    Think, "Little Old Lady," Without Ever Knowing . . .
    But I Remember,
    And "Cha Cha" Is Still A Ravishing Beauty 
    In My Mind’s Eye,
    And She'll Continue to Dance
    As Long As I'm Alive.
    So Dance On, Sweet Princess.
              Dance On . . .

    .
     

     

    by Wattree on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 7:52am

    Ramona, now here's the very same tune, but expressing a different emotion. This time it's expressing a sort of "in your face, I got this" kind of  competent defiance. Jazz musicians love this mode, because it thumbs it's nose at society. It's sort of our way of telling society to "Take your Black inferiority theories and shove 'em." 


    by Wattree on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 8:38am

    Yeah, I'm sure that when white pianist and composer Chick Corea wrote this tune he was thinking "Take your Black inferiority theories and shove 'em." Then he went on playing the jazz/rock fusion he is most famous for and most often plays. You know, "The New Thang." that as a jazz purist you disparaged above.

    Spain, like many of Corea's compositions, has become a jazz standard equal to Round Midnight, A Night in Tunisia, or any other jazz standard from the more traditional years. You know, one of many great jazz standards from a "New Thang" jazz musician that you claim don't exist.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 3:23pm

    Ocean-Kat,

    .

    First, Chick Corea, didn't write "Spain." The tune is actually called "Concierto de Aranjuez," and it was written by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo in 1939 - two years before Chick Corea was even born - and Miles Davis recorded it with Gil Evans in his "Sketches of Spain" album in 1959. At that time Chick Corea was still a kid. He didn’t even begin his professional career until the sixties. And secondly, I wasn’t talking about the tune itself; if you'd go back and read carefully, you'd find that I was discussing the musician’s MODE of performance, and I was very specific in pointing out that they were merely using the tune to reflect that mode.

    Third, the only reason we even know who Chick Corea is, is because he played with Miles Davis. Every musician who ever stepped on the stage or recorded with Miles Davis, became instantly famous the very next day. And "Fusion" (or bastard jazz) is a form of music that Miles Created in order to come out of retirement. Miles started having health problems, and problems with his chops, so he went into retirement. But he loved music so much that he wanted to get back into the game, so being the genius that he was, he simply INVENTED a form of music that he could still play. Thereafter,  the generation of musicians who came along behind him, who didn’t have a vision of their own, built an entire musical movement based on what Miles created to accommodate his old age and disability, and that's what we're suffering under today.

    And finally, Ocean-Kat, effective reading, research, and making sure you have the facts straight are very important whenever you decide to challenge another person. But even if you forget that rule of thumb, whenever you challenge another person’s facts, you should do it gingerly rather than sarcastically, because if you’re wrong, you’re going to make yourself look like a fool every time.

     

     

     

     


    by Wattree on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 6:52pm

    Spain was written by Chick Corea. As an introduction to the song he used a brief bit of the main theme from one of movements from Concierto de Aranjuez. Except for that brief intro the vast majority of the song was written by Corea.  You can hear the song Spain by Corea behind all the inprovs, not the melody in the intro by Rodrigo. No version of the Concierto de Aranjuez include the song Spain. That's why you'll see the use of the two different names.

    You're simply wrong. Like so many purists who like to spend their time critiquing music rather than listening and learning about it you're apparently ignorant about any jazz after Be Bop.

    99% of your post is wrong. But this, "effective reading, research, and making sure you have the facts straight are very important whenever you decide to challenge another person" And this, " if you’re wrong, you’re going to make yourself look like a fool every time" are very true and you should reread it several times and put it into practice.

    I think you experienced discrimination as a black child in school and as a result you project those feelings onto most everything you see. Its a terrible thing that so many black children were made to feel stupid in school and terrible that that prejudice still continues to this day. But you're a grown man with many accomplishments. Isn't it time you moved beyond that childhood discrimination


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 11:58pm

    Just an aside here. If discrimination is still alive,  one can move beyond childhood grievances, but still have to deal with what is occurring today. We have a GOP economic guru stating that Black people are lazy and quoting a person who suggests low IQs may be a core reason for the ills of the Black community.

    A recant morning call-in show on C-SPAN focused on the one year anniversary of the GOP's post-election autopsy report.Most Republican callers repeated the mantra that the GOP had the economic cures for the Black community.Every Black caller to the segment mentioned the GOP's program of voter suppression.I believe that the majority of Black people have gotten over childhood slights. They are dealing with the hear and now.

    Slights continue when one looks at the music industry. There was a recent furor when a White rap duo won an award over Kendrick Lamar considered by many to be the superior artist. Opinions on music are strong.Race does color some opinions. Was it race that colored the selection of the White duo? Was it race that causes Black hip hop artists and Black fans to question the awards committee selection?

     

     


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 12:22am

    Voter suppression is an important issue. But I think its a mistake to fight voter ID and in the end we will  lose. When people 40 or 50 years old have to show an ID to buy a six pack of beer we'll never convince them its discriminatory or unfair to require an ID to vote. I'm 56 years old and bald and I get asked for my ID when I buy alcohol. Republicans hide voter suppression tactics like lessening or eliminating early voting, voting hours, and mail in ballots behind voter ID laws that the majority of people see as reasonable. Better to do community outreach to get voters an ID and change laws to make it easier to get an ID. Then focus efforts on the voter suppression tactics where we can win.


    by ocean-kat on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 1:03am

    If you are being carded, you must be a very young looking bald guy. I belong to a wine tasting club, and frequent a variety of wine shops. I never get carded. Does yoour experience trump mine? You may not feel that the GOP voter suppression efforts are not worth fighting about, a significant portion of the Black community differs with your opinion. Republican attorney generals and legislatures are also limiting polling places in urban areas to make sure "lazy" voters can't vote. They are also limiting weekend voting so that "lazy" voters who lose money when they take time off from work to vote. "We" are losing when we refuse to acknowledge the outrageous attack that is under way. The actions are racist. The racist actions are not childhood slights, but current assaults. The Moral Mondays protests in North Carolina are multi-racial. Some realize the true scope of the GOP plan to keep people from voting, others do not.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 7:27am

    Here is some voter ID info from Iowa that may indicated voters in general may not support the practice. A Wisconsin GOP state Senator admits embarrassment because of the unconstitutional voter ID plans.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 7:47am

    No, the habits across America trump your experience.

    15 seconds on Google brings up:

    Texas Alcohol Board: Age Verification / Checking IDs

    Company Policies

    Some retailers in Texas have policies requiring that customers provide proof of age for all alcoholic beverage purchases, regardless of the age of the customer.

    Here you can check out a thread on WalMart carding everyone in a group buying alcohol, even if over 50, WalMart being a pretty large retailer -but certainly not alone in this policy - http://www.topix.com/forum/com/wmt/TIKAGEABQA4ASQ772

    Indiana dropped off the carding-50-year-olds list only 3 years ago:
     
     
                      May 13, 2011 3:45 pm  • 

    INDIANAPOLIS | Hoosiers who look more than 40 years old will no longer be required by state law to produce identification before purchasing alcohol.

    Etc, etc.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 8:48am

    You are predictable when it comes to these issues. If you paid attention, I pointed out experiences in Iowa and Wisconsin that went against voter ID. Indiana found it ridiculous to card 50-year olds purchasing alcohol. Indiana agrees with me. Thanks for the moral support.

    If you look at the customer responses to your link about Walmart's policy, you will note that most found the policy ridiculous. Many stated that they would not shop at the store again. Thanks for providing a link that supports that Walmart customers of legal age are as upset about showing ID to purchasing alcohol as legal voters are about having arbitrary ID rules imposed by a state.

    I take that you agree with the meme put out by the GOP that the goal of voter ID is to prevent voter fraud? Do you also agree that a practice of not allowing college ID as a means of voter verification? Is limiting weekend voting and removing polling stations from urban neighborhoods meeting your approval?

    Isn't the basic goal of the GOP's voter suppression effort to keep Democratic Party voters from expressing their opinions.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 9:34am

    BTW, Walmart does not come to mind when I am shopping for wine.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 9:45am

    First of all, I agree with you on the voter ID laws. That said, I'm going to talk about the far less relevant alcohol ID experiences you and PP are talking about. I, a 43-year old who could possibly pass for a 33-year old, almost never get carded. My brother, a 46-year old who doesn't take as good care of himself, announced on Facebook that he must be looking old because he wasn't carded, which is a brand new experience to him (i.e., his experience is that he is always carded, except for that one time). I should add that my brother buys far more alcohol than I do.

    So, my brother and I have very different experiences. Why is that? Well, one reason might be that he lives in Atlanta and I live in Charlottesville (I honestly have no idea if that is relevant). Another possible explanation (and this aligns with your example) is that my brother is more likely to buy alcohol from someplace like Walmart (i.e., cheap) whereas I'm more likely to buy a more expensive bottle of wine from Whole Foods. (Not incredibly expensive, but on the order of $40-50.)

    Note that I'm completely ruling out the possibility that I just look older than him, so don't even suggest it, OK?


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 10:49am

    I do admit that I'd take it as a complement if I did get carded while shopping for alcohol smiley


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 11:09am

    I didn't say I approved of carding 50-year-olds - I simply noted it's pretty common. This was re: OceanKat's "When people 40 or 50 years old have to show an ID to buy a six pack of beer we'll never convince them its discriminatory or unfair to require an ID to vote. " and your comeback "does your experience trump mine?"

    Many many people don't think it's ridiculous to show ID to vote - especially post-9/11 when you now need ID to do a lot of things where it wasn't required before. OK's comment refers to this issue not being a good focus of energy - the logic behind it isn't very convincing in our culture, which makes for a lot of extra work getting support, vs. issues that are much clearer.


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 11:19am

    You are welcome to your opinion. The fact is that courts in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  disagree with you. The Indiana judge who wrote the majority opinion affirming Indiana's voter ID law now admits that he made an error. The GOP has engineered a snipe hunt for voter fraud. Yes, we are in a post-911 world. No, terrorists are not voting en masse to defraud our system of elections. The bigger problem is getting people out to vote.

    The fight against voter suppression is not myopic that is why the fight has also been against limiting voting days. The Moral Mondays movement is directed against multiple targets. The leadership understands what it is doing. Ohio Progressives are pushing a Voter's Bill of Rights.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 12:56pm

    The Indiana judge who wrote the majority opinion affirming Indiana's voter ID law now admits that he made an error

    Yeah, well Sandra Day O'Connor regrets the botched Supreme Court ruling in 2000 - does that change Bush's presidency or take back the Iraq War or 9/11?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 1:20pm

    It says that upon reflection he realizes that he made an error. The rationale for voter ID was voter fraud.  There is no massive systemic voter fraud. Limiting weekend voting and polling places does not prevent voter fraud. Let's just call the case of voter fraud what it is, voter suppression. 

    I made my initial comment based on a statement that Wattree should get over childhood slights. I brought up voter suppression as a reason people still feel racism, despite their station in life. The idea of having to show forms of ID not previously required is an abomination. Many Blacks want the crap to stop. The ID is seen as part and parcel with suppressing the vote. It is a personal affront. I understand that those on the periphery may not understand the anger about the changes.

    The bottom line is that the fight will continue,


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 2:54pm

    You keep acting like I don't understand. I'm just following OceanKat's observation that however much IDs are used to discriminate and suppress votes, proclaiming voters should be able to vote without any ID is a tough sell among rational people when you need ID to rent a movie, get your mail, buy a beer, enter many buildings, buy a gun, etc.

    There is no constitutional right to voting without ID. If judges and voters respond to pleas tha the net result is vote suppression, fine - but it's a difficult argument to say that requires no ID check, rather than some other sane solution.

    And that's the last I'll say on this.


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 5:11pm

    See below. 


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 5:48pm

    A PUBLIC STATEMENT TO ALL THOSE WHO ASSUME I'VE BEEN WOUNDED AS A RESULT OF THE BLACK EXPERIENCE:
    .
    Ocean-Kat, you said,

    "I think you experienced discrimination as a black child in school and as a result you project those feelings onto most everything you see. Its a terrible thing that so many black children were made to feel stupid in school and terrible that prejudice still continues to this day. But you're a grown man with many accomplishments. Isn't it time you moved beyond that childhood discrimination."

    Kat, you’re laboring under a grossly erroneous assumption here. Yes, I’ve felt anger and frustration over the stupidity of bigots. But I've NEVER felt any resentment or any other affects from the discriminatory traditions in this country other than a sense of profound superiority due to a lifelong recognition of the childishness and transparent insecurity from which it stems.

    So I’m not the least bit bitter as a result of my background and experiences. On the contrary, I'm of the opinion that adversity has made me more, rather than less, so I wouldn't trade in my hood rat background to be the son of a billionaire, because it made me, me, and I'm convinced that most educated Black people of my generation feel that way - though, they might not let you know it.

    I view the Black experience in America from the perspective of a detached human being observing the social interactions of an ant farm. While I don't like seeing people hurt or injured, every since childhood I have ALWAYS found the insecurity of bigots both fascination, and very instructive. It gives me an insight into people that I doubt you have. For example, I often observe (with great amusement) the lingering vestiges of cultural hubris here, among White people of good will, who would never consciously engage in bigotry or discrimination. Your naively erroneous assumption of how I think, and why, is an example of that, and it’s laughable. You’ve been watching too much television and/or reading too much pop psychology, my man.

    There’s only one Wattree family in America. EVERYBODY with the last name Wattree is related to me. We immigrated to the United States from France, as an intact Black Family, during the time that the French abolitionists, Edouard Laboulaye, and sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, conceived and sculpted the Statue of Liberty (Did you know that Lady Liberty was a freed slave, and has broken shackles at her feet?).

    When my family arrived and settled in Minden, Louisiana (after the civil war), my great, great, uncle, Richard Wattree, established the Wattree School to educate free Black people, and he was responsible for educating many of the heads of some of the most prominent Black families in the state of Louisiana (and since we are a one-of-a-kind family, that can be easily researched on the net; simply go to Google and enter "Wattree School"), and since that time the professionals in my family have been dedicated to the education of Black people in one way or another. My daughter, Kaiumeka Wattree-Jackson, is currently a human relations specialist for her alma mater and the regional vice president of a college and university employees’ union, and many other Wattrees are scattered across this country teaching everything from kindergarten children through high school, to working in positions of university administration. My son is a senior special agent with the Department of Justice, dedicated to eradicating drugs and street crime in America’s inner cities. So your inane assumption of the way I view the world and reality is just that - inane, presumptuous, and simplistic.

    My woman is a public person, so she used to hate it when I referred to myself in my writings as a hood rat. So I wrote this poem to her to explain how I feel about my background. Now, she not only understands, but she approves. You see, Barack Obama is not the aberration that many people think. People like myself, Barack Obama, and many others, are hybrids, and as we continue to grow in numbers, we’re going to become something to be reckoned with. You might get some insight from this:

    The Hood Rat

    I’m sure you know that I love you;
    You’re everything that I need.
    You fit the bill of all my desires,
    a perfect match for all of my dreams.
    You’re everything I’ve always craved,
    that luscious vision from across the tracks;
    that delicate flower,
    just beyond my grasp, and
    now here you are at last.
    *
    But what you ask is foreign to me;
    You need something that I'm not.
    You said, if I'd tweak my nature, just a bit,
    you’ll give everything you’ve got.
    *
    But that "tweak" you need is who I am;
    It's my essence, can't you see?
    You want to abolish the hood rat from my life,
    the very thing that makes me, me.
    *
    While a hood rat may seem trite to you,
    a hood rat’s what you see;
    So forget about what the other’s say -
    here’s what it means to me:
    *
    I’ve been brutally dragged through the pits of Hell,
    yet, managed to survive,
    well educated and fully functional,
    when I came out the other side.
    *
    I scrounged the lessons taught at Harvard,
    because knowledge, I found, was free;
    But Harvard can't teach the lessons I've learn -
    that knowledge is unique to me.
    *
    While they've heard the sounds of a mournful Trane,
    and Miles moaning in the night,
    not against the backdrop of hunger and pain,
    or injustice, hatred, and blight.
    *
    Yet, these are the things you want me to purge,
    and spurn the life I’ve led.
    Well, I’m sorry sweet thing, as much as I love you,
    the soul of a hood rat is my edge.

    A PUBLIC STATEMENT TO ALL THOSE WHO ASSUME I'VE BEEN WOUNDED AS A RESULT OF THE BLACK EXPERIENCE: . Ocean-Kat, you said, "I think you experienced discrimination as a black child in school and as a result you project those feelings onto most everything you see. Its a terrible thing that so many black children were made to feel stupid in school and terrible that prejudice still continues to this day. But you're a grown man with many accomplishments. Isn't it time you moved beyond that childhood discrimination." Kat, you’re laboring under a grossly erroneous assumption here. Yes, I’ve felt anger and frustration over the stupidity of bigots. But I've NEVER felt any resentment or any other affects from the discriminatory traditions in this country other than a sense of profound superiority due to a lifelong recognition of the childishness and transparent insecurity from which it stems. So I’m not the least bit bitter as a result of my background and experiences. On the contrary, I'm of the opinion that adversity has made me more, rather than less, so I wouldn't trade in my hood rat background to be the son of a billionaire, because it made me, me, and I'm convinced that most educated Black people of my generation feel that way - though, they might not let you know it. I view the Black experience in America from the perspective of a detached human being observing the social interactions of an ant farm. While I don't like seeing people hurt or injured, every since childhood I have ALWAYS found the insecurity of bigots both fascination, and very instructive. It gives me an insight into people that I doubt you have. For example, I often observe (with great amusement) the lingering vestiges of cultural hubris here, among White people of good will, who would never consciously engage in bigotry or discrimination. Your naively erroneous assumption of how I think, and why, is an example of that, and it’s laughable. You’ve been watching too much television and/or reading too much pop psychology, my man. There’s only one Wattree family in America. EVERYBODY with the last name Wattree is related to me. We immigrated to the United States from France, as an intact Black Family, during the time that the French abolitionists, Edouard Laboulaye, and sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, conceived and sculpted the Statue of Liberty (Did you know that Lady Liberty was a freed slave, and has broken shackles at her feet?). When my family arrived and settled in Minden, Louisiana (after the civil war), my great, great, uncle, Richard Wattree, established the Wattree School to educate free Black people, and he was responsible for educating many of the heads of some of the most prominent Black families in the state of Louisiana (and since we are a one-of-a-kind family, that can be easily researched on the net; simply go to Google and enter "Wattree School"), and since that time the professionals in my family have been dedicated to the education of Black people in one way or another. My daughter, Kaiumeka Wattree-Jackson, is currently a human relations specialist for her alma mater and the regional vice president of a college and university employees’ union, and many other Wattrees are scattered across this country teaching everything from kindergarten children through high school, to working in positions of university administration. My son is a senior special agent with the Department of Justice, dedicated to eradicating drugs and street crime in America’s inner cities. So your inane assumption of the way I view the world and reality is just that - inane, presumptuous, and simplistic. My woman is a public person, so she used to hate it when I referred to myself in my writings as a hood rat. So I wrote this poem to her to explain how I feel about my background. Now, she not only understands, but she approves. You see, Barack Obama is not the aberration that many people think. People like myself, Barack Obama, and many others, are hybrids, and as we continue to grow in numbers, we’re going to become something to be reckoned with. You might get some insight from this: The Hood Rat I’m sure you know that I love you; You’re everything that I need. You fit the bill of all my desires, a perfect match for all of my dreams. You’re everything I’ve always craved, that luscious vision from across the tracks; that delicate flower, just beyond my grasp, and now here you are at last. * But what you ask is foreign to me; You need something that I'm not. You said, if I'd tweak my nature, just a bit, you’ll give everything you’ve got. * But that "tweak" you need is who I am; It's my essence, can't you see? You want to abolish the hood rat from my life, the very thing that makes me, me. * While a hood rat may seem trite to you, a hood rat’s what you see; So forget about what the other’s say - here’s what it means to me: * I’ve been brutally dragged through the pits of Hell, yet, managed to survive, well educated and fully functional, when I came out the other side. * I scrounged the lessons taught at Harvard, because knowledge, I found, was free; But Harvard can't teach the lessons I've learn - that knowledge is unique to me. * While they've heard the sounds of a mournful Trane, and Miles moaning in the night, not against the backdrop of hunger and pain, or injustice, hatred, and blight. * Yet, these are the things you want me to purge, and spurn the life I’ve led. Well, I’m sorry sweet thing, as much as I love you, the soul of a hood rat is my edge.

     


    by Wattree on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 7:24pm

    And "Fusion" (or bastard jazz) is a form of music that Miles Created in order to come out of retirement. Miles started having health problems, and problems with his chops, so he went into retirement. 

    Fusion is a form of music that came out of Miles' experiments with Herbie Hancock (who he'd played with since 1964) and others around 1967-1968, as electric music became more and more popular, In A Silent Way arguably being the most outstanding disk of the period, though Miles In The Sky and Filles De Kilimanjaro  preceded, while Bitches Brew arguably was more influential in launching Weather Report, Return To Forever and other Davis band spinoffs (my favorite of this period being Tribute To Jack Johnson).

    Miles certainly wasn't retired at this point, when he was only 42, and it's much more likely he and Hancock were simply influenced by the music of the time, including people he knew like Sly, James Brown & Hendrix, just as Hendrix was very excited about playing with Rahsaan Roland Kirk:

    Volume 2: Roland Kirk Live With The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Fillmore East, New York, June 19, 1968

    Corea had a reasonable career going by the time he started playing with Miles in 1968, and while this certainly gave him a huge boost, it's quite likely he would have been somewhat successful and known even without this teamup - such as Corea's solo recordings, exploring Latin music and jazz, and other interesting artistic directions.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 3:28am

    Charles  Limb an ENT M.D. at John Hopkins University  is studying the neuroscience of jazz improvisation. He was a recent guest on NPR's Science Fridays. There are changes in the frontal cortex and the midbrain. The regions that manifest inhibition are suppressed during improvisation. It is a fascinating area of study.


    by rmrd0000 on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 8:44am

    Thanks so much!  I've skimmed the article but I'm on my way out.  I'll look at it more closely when I get back.  Very interesting.


    by Ramona on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 10:45am

    That is fascinating, RN. I'm going to have to read that, because sometimes when I'm playing my sax I go into a zone where it seems like it's playing itself, and I become a part of the audience. It's like I know I'm suppose to be playing the notes of one chord, but my fingers decide that they're going to play something completely different, and I find myself listening and waiting to find out how they're going to resolve the conflict and make it mesh, and they ALWAYS  do. Then when I'm practicing, I'll try to remember it so I can make it conscious part of my musical vocabulary, and I can't remember how it was done. It's fascinating!!! The human mind is amazing.


    by Wattree on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 8:28am

    Here's a nice video showing the revival powers of music - this guy in particular was an old jazz fan, so I imagine the connection worked better for him, but music & sound do touch a different place in our cognition than other senses.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 3:40am

    I'll tell a few music anecdotes and try to work in some of the things brought to my mind by the ongoing jazz discussions. The special part of our psyches touched by music and what creates a great experience have long interested me.
     I do not dislike Bluegrass but I do not like it enough to by an album and choose it to listen to. That said, I have rolled quietly down Engineer Pass on a bike into Telluride Colorado during their festival beginning to warm up. Descending into a giant amphitheater as the far off music slowly builds in volume and clarity and then and then sitting and listening as the performances extended late into the night. It was terrific and much was because of the setting but a very significant part of the experience was the great crowd energy and the feedback from that to the energy of the performers. [Energy is important in Bluegrass where the musicians take a good song and see how fast they can play it.] I still do not own a Bluegrass album but would make a great effort to have that same musical experience again.
    Setting and the energy in a live performance make so much difference. The right place to watch a memorable Grand Funk Railroad concert turned out to be standing on the back of my chair like several thousand other people were doing.
     Now for a jazz story. Sometime in the early seventies I got a call from a friend whom I hadn't seen in five or six years. He said he was playing with a group that was doing a show in Austin and would be in Dallas the next Saturday and I should come check it out. I said sure and asked the name of the group. I had never heard of them so I asked what kind of music. Just funk, he said, a term which was meaningless to me as an actual description of music.  
     I went and arrived just as they were taking the stage in the small club which was packed with maybe a hundred people. The intro was made and that was the first I knew that I was about to spend the evening listening to jazz. I was sorely tempted to leave and find a nearby honky tonk  or rock and roll club where It would at least sound like all the musicians were playing the same song.wink I could come back later. I decided to stay and the band started and it was soon evident that the crowd loved what they were hearing but to me it was discordant noise for the most part. The performance went long and then a long encore. The crowd loved every second and I just wished it was easier to get a beer.
     After the show I met up with my friend and we went out back to the parking lot with the rest of the band and shot the breeze for a while and caught up on things. After a bit a guy, I think their manager, came out and announced some good news. Billboard [I think] had just released some ratings and their album was somewhere in the fifties as I recall but with a bullet. Everyone was excited.  I asked the name of the album and got some strange stares and my buddy said it was called "Headhunters".  I had never heard of it and have never again listened to it.
     I then went with Herby Hancock and three others including my friend to breakfast for about three or four hours. One thing that came up was a discussion about crowd energy. They all agreed that that night was special and that the crowd had pumped them up for a great performance. It turned out that that crowd was mostly from North Texas State's jazz program and included the semi-famous "One O'clock Lab Band". They were perfectly primed for a great event.
     I think arguments about one type of music being "better  than another are ridiculous and I say that from the experience of arguing the issue. After all, anyone coming of age in the sixties had musician friends and among them were probably some musical genre snobs. I saw a great performance by Willy Nelson once when he was between incarnations and not particularly popular. It was before country got cool enough for a rock fan to listen to it. He was dressed like a hippy guru at the time, had not yet reverted to country style dress, but his music was great in that very small club. My jazz snob friend, not the same person as above, couldn't imagine why I bothered to make the drive.
     I have had some intense musical experiences, some that felt mystical, and I don't think the experience is demeaned by the psychic augmentation that was sometimes a part of creating that experience.
     I think Ramona and I could have become jazz fans in other circumstances but we lived the circumstances that surrounded us. Right now, circumstances say I have to go to work rather than spend the time trying to make this comment a bit more coherent. Not a particularly fun task awaiting but at least I know I will have some good tunes to listen to on the drive.
     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 03/24/2014 - 11:32am

    There is a post above on a thread offshoot that implies that ID is required to purchase a gun so that requiring  ID to vote should follow. 

    I just wanted to point out that ID is not required in 39 states in order to purchase an gun. President Clinton noted that is shouldn't be easier to purchase a gun than it is to vote.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 03/23/2014 - 5:53pm

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