Ladies and Gentlemen, Wynton has Left the Building!

Wynton was on Charlie Rose the other night. Most people know Wynton, so you don’t have to use his last name, Marsalis. Wyton comes from a whole family of musicians. Ellis, his father, is a pianist. Most people know Branford, because he lead the tonight show band for a while. I think there is a brother/trombone player in there too. Wynton has carried a reputation for a while of being a bigot and a jazz snob, but in light of occasional shortsighted comments, he has been a quality purveyor of jazz music. We need to see more of him. We need to hear more jazz music. I agree with what Wynton was saying, and it was astonishing to me Charlie Rose was defending the cultural influences of Rap and Hip/Hop music. I don’t have anything against Hip/Hop. Hip/Hop is or was modern culture, and it swings just like traditional jazz music. I played in an “old school” R&B/Hip Hop band for two years before working cruise ships, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. There is meat in that music, but Wynton was right saying the music is no longer being produced by the people that are consuming it. Business has stepped in and is attempting to exploit the genre. As a result Hip/Hop has died a superficial death. Punk rockers will tell you, “Rage Against the Machine,” or rebelliousness against the mainstream is what makes music unique and good. When Greenday signed with a major record label, their following thought they had sold out. For a while Greenday was a joke, until they tried to resurrect themselves with the album American Idiot. Who are these people on VH-1 spouting vitriol against the integrity of American Idiot, Rick James, hair bands and others? What credibility, just like Simon, do they have in trying to judge American popular music? I would like to see these musical credentials sometime. I think nine years of collegiate music study are enough to merit some musical judging. I don’t think daddy’s money buying a TV station is qualification enough to become a news anchor, an actor, or a talk show host. That is why I don’t watch Carson Daily, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson or Jay Leno. To me these men have no soul. Craig Ferguson appears to have ridden the boat to America with visions of lollipops and roses in his glasses. He is too happy for me, like a spoiled child that has never seen bad times. I can’t watch that. Dave, on the other hand, before he came a reincarnate Ed Sullivan, I could watch. Dave has a sardonic sense of humor that comes from growing up in Ohio. When I moved from North Carolina to Ohio for the firsts time, it took over four years to acclimate to the Midwest. The people and culture were different, and at first I didn’t like it. Over time and with some resistance I dropped my southern roots and became a Midwesterner. I found Ohians to be much more deeply rooted in reality than anyone in the South. Southern gentility has a place, and many people prefer it. I learned because of what I have been through, southern gentility is not reality. No one in his world gives you anything, so adopting an “I’m okay, you’re okay,” attitude is self defeating. It takes a little hard core Yankee New York attitude to make it in this dog eat dog world. That kind of reality once was reflected in both Rap and Hip/Hop music. Because of 9/11 no one knows what reality is anymore. I don’t think most Americans want to wake up everyday and think, “My life today is battling some invisible, Muslim, terrorist that wants to take my life.” Maybe we as a country are in denial over our current state of culture. Battling our own domestic machine is at least familiar to us. Our country has always done that. The hippies, with the use of drugs, are a prominent example of anti-mainstream behavior. I personally don’t think drugs should have anything to do with it. I was somewhat dismayed to learn that the “Electric Cool-Aid Acid Test,” was all about drug culture. Being a jazz musician myself, I know for certain one does not need drugs to become accomplished in a particular art form. I found out first hand marijuana is bad, because it contributed to a miniature nervous breakdown I had years ago. I said to myself, “I will never smoke pot again,” and I haven’t. The beauty of Hip/Hop was it came from the “hood.” Poor, urban, often gang-related youth felt a need to express themselves. The digital sampler had a big influence on the sound of this music. The early machines had poor digital to analog converters that produced a grainy sound that became popular. Low bit or low sample rates were almost analog-like and were very expressive. Over time the almost crass high end chink of the sampled hi hat and the low-pitched droning kick drum provided the framework upon which most Hip/Hop was built. It has not been that long ago that making music was about collecting good equipment. The sound of the equipment was the sound of your music. This was a fun process, and local used music stores were a musician’s paradise when configuring a small studio in your home. It could be computer-based music production has had a negative effect on Hip/Hop. Originally many Hip/Hop producers used an Akai drum pad controller to program their beats. This instrument was a digital drum machine with pads on the top that could be played live to simulate a good drum feel. When the computer took over complete production of the music, the human element was lost and Hip/Hop quickly lost its expressive soul. Pop has continued with this trend and many of the bands we hear today do not show any awareness of previous live styles of playing. The original appeal of Hip/Hop was the beat or groove, and without this the music dies. Let’s thank Wynton for pointing that out.