Count Basie's Pop Music

When I play a big band gig on piano, eventually and inevitably the director will ask me to play like Count Basie. Each time it happens I cringe a little bit, because I forget that playing piano in a big band has very little to do with jazz music. Although Count Basie is considered to be a jazz pianist, his big band was a dance ensemble. I did not know this when I was playing his music in college. We just enjoyed playing swing-oriented music in an ensemble that offered more freedom of expression than the traditional wind ensemble or orchestra. The jazz ensemble was appealing to us because you got to “cook” a little bit. You also got to “solo.” It seemed hip, hipper than the square classical music the other music students were studying to perform. In my undergraduate days I was ignorant of jazz music history. A good historical jazz education was difficult to come by in the early l980’s, especially at the undergraduate level. There were only about ten universities then that offered a D.M.A. or Phd. in jazz studies. It was said because the music was so young a significant enough amount had not passed to amass the relevant pedagogy. Jazz also was shunned because of the interconnected drug culture. The “Ivory Tower” didn’t understand that drug use did not necessarily thwart art. Jazz musicians I found out later used alcohol and drugs to help facilitate the euphoric personal expression necessary for the realization of quality jazz music. Although Miles Davis, one of jazz music’s iconic creators, created his voice from a mainly melancholic type of expression, swing music should be considered “happy” music. Miles changed this, and with his new direction he changed jazz music for good. If you need a diversion from the “happy” swing music Miles should be your choice. While it would be wrong and stereotypical to call all jazz happy music, swinging could and should be considered a happy musical style. Upon examination most music scholars probably would agree that to “jazz it up” is to bring a kind of happy personal feeling to the music. The perfect example of this dynamic is the piece “The St. Louis Blues March” performed by the Glen Miller Orchestra. Miller, after enlisting in the United States army, created the first successful military, commercial music reliant, propaganda music force in American history. While “nationalism” had been in place as a music tenet in many European countries, an American Tchaikovsky or Wagner hadn’t necessarily been discovered. Miller, in an ingenious conception, actualized a plan that satisfied many high profile demands. First he offered his services to the war effort like many young Americans were forced to do resulting from military conscription. Second he created a U.S.O.-type of internal troop moral building music machine. Third he advanced the art form of swing-oriented music. Fourth he cleverly advanced his own personal music career. All of this was accomplished utilizing swing-oriented music. Miller’s accomplishment alone proves the value of swing music, but also pigeonholes its own musical potential to “happy” music. Miles resulting musical commentary could be seen as a reaction to the preceding dance-oriented big band music. The outlawing of dance floors in clubs during the war did not help. A new type of music had to be created that of itself possessed the capability to keep listeners tuned in. That music was Bebop. Bebop was seminal in the development of jazz music, because by its own definition it was music solely for its artists and proponents. Bebop musicians relished the concept their music was not “for the man” and not for dancing. It was a strong individual reaction and evolution of civil liberties spurred by the slavery experience in America. The feeling of the blues developed in the fields of the American by slaves could be considered what brings soul to swing music. Similarly the early jazz musicians of Louisiana were familiar with the street funeral dirges inherent in New Orleans culture. The feeling of sadness was a crucial part of human expression and thus deserved to be preserved in jazz music. The funeral parade with their “Second Line” would sing the lament of death, and upon burial of the individual would celebrate their resurrection to heaven. How does Count Basie relate to this history? The definition of a jazz ensemble as a dance entity effects the freedom of rhythm. Because dancers demand a steady uncompromising “beat,” this requirement takes precedence over the individual musician’s personal expression. Count Basie’s orchestra with Freddie Greene as guitarist is the most obvious example of this limitation. While Basie’s arrangment are musically interesting in melody and harmony, the rhythmic concept that came to define them is historical “pop” music. A constant strum of quarter notes on the guitar of itself is not musically interesting. What it does do is satisfy the apparent need of the pop music patron, a simple, continual, rhythmic pulse providing a base for a melody. Consequently is it academically correct to call Basie’s music derivative? While they were doing all that they could to continue working, and resultantly were advancing big band music it should be noted that The Count Basie Orchestra was not the highest achievable example of swing-oriented big band music. It is the most popular because it was the most well-known.

Gays in the Military

The absurdity of placing the value of one’s sexuality above one’s career security can be exemplified by a UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate’s grievous mistake of “coming out” her senior year to senior ROTC officials. Almost at the completion of a full ROTC scholarship at one of America’s finest institution, this cadet had the bright idea that her sexual preference somehow became more important than her lifelong love of the military and her dream of becoming a military officer. What was she thinking? Often in adolescence where love is a primary part of an individual’s self-perception, selfish emotions drive achievement. Only later in life after educational and social maturation occur does the need to control one’s emotions with the mind become more important. It is possible this grievous mistake was necessary in beginning this process of development. American culture with its capitalist root does not help young people’s schooling on love and sex. Without the necessary (but often disdained) intervention of religion or education, there is naught left to assure young Americans can make an enlightened decision regarding their sexual definition. The task of separating one’s sexuality from the ranks while in America’s armed forces could seem overwhelming. For this reason “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was created and suggested by then Secretary of State Colin Powell to President Bill Clinton. It was a simple plan. It said that gay soldiers, if not in uniform, could not be persecuted if they attended gay bars or participated in gay rallies. It was a simple modest plan that promoted both humbleness and humility, a combination that took into consideration religions’ labeling of homosexuality as sodomy. Only without this contingency could homosexuality be considered moral. With the continuing surge of homosexuality in America whether coincidental or not, major institutions have taken pot shots at Christianity in the last few years. It seems the gay agenda has been put into place and a large populace still is attempting to gain its acceptance into mainstream American society. Why are homosexuals so concerned about defining a public platform with which to define themselves with an issue traditionally private and discreet? America itself has struggled with the commercialization of sexuality, and in most cases this actualization has proven a failure. America’s social conscious over decades decided to replace the sometimes bawdy and depraved and not-so-inconspicuous display of commercially available sex in Times Square in New York City. Who is to say it was a success? Disney and sex seem to be polar opposites. Was it appropriate that the Lion King replaced Linda Loveless? It can’t be mistaken that America has puritan roots, roots often that desire to be overlooked. If asked if Shaker, Amish, or Quaker customs would be acceptable to most modern Americans, unequivocally the answer would be no. It has been up to Larry Flynt to decide the dividing line between conservative and liberal sexuality in America. It is true America is based upon principles of freedom, and it is understandable that homosexuals are seeking asylum like many oppressed immigrants. “Give me your tired, your poor.” The difference here is a religious issue, one that must be mitigated by God. Literal translation of educational scriptures are anachronistic, so it is conceivable homosexuality may not buy you a ticket to hell. The reluctance to accept what traditionally has been perceived as immoral behavior into America’s mainstream is understandable. Its acceptance into the modern American military armed forces should be delayed until a greater understanding is achieved.

Pop Art

As much as I try to love “pop” music I can’t. After nine years of collegiate study in music and after two years of desperation studying the style and trying to recognize its financial contribution to American history, still I cannot love it. I’m sorry. There is nothing to love. “Pop” music is just that. What? Some people consider “pop” a shortening of the world “popular.” “Like, admired, or enjoyed by many people” could be an anthem for the world derivative defined as “having a value deriving from an underlying variable asset.” That is true in the sense of a pure music education. “Pop” music is nothing of itself. It only can be defined by other more tangible underlying musical ideas. Why then must “pop” music exist at all? The reason is simple. Music is an art form, and because music has become such a crucial part of the American ideal an easy way needed to be developed to realize it with no skill. “Pop” music is folk music, music for the folks. The interesting thing is the “folks” in America always seem more intelligent than expected when interviewed on television. Why then must we subject the folks to such inane music? The reason is simple. Money. Commercial music at one time in America was a high art form. In the l930’s through the year two thousand, viable music sound stages existed in film, television, and radio that gainfully employed high level musicians. These were predicated by a high degree of music education and performance skill. Music was operating as an art form, and hence the artistic ideal was part of film, television, and radio. That is not necessarily true today. Modern day music media companies are attempting to clone previous successful music vocations, but without the necessary education and experience producing music, their product is falling short. They are attempting to produce an art form without the meaning, feeling, or substance. It is a crutch. It is substituting for “education,” the process of attempting and failing, an immediate gratification without peering into one’s soul. If one sits in front of a computer all day and never makes an effort to talk to another human being, how can we consider ourselves a social nation? This has been the trend of this entire decade driven by technology that attempts to do just that, substitute a shallow seemingly pleasant mantra for what should be a “hard knocks” school of growing pains. It is soft-core porn. I prefer the hard-core kind where you get your hands dirty and experience a tactile and tangible reward or response from an effort driven by desire. Desire is what motivates, and it used to be what motivated musicians. It still might, but the desire for money is what is motivating commercial music houses today. With a lack of mainstream from which to draw inspiration, the commercial musical community eventually will have to return to the collegiate classroom to find its roots.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

Upon a casual reading of the definition of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in Wikipedia, it should be obvious to the most dense American the integrity of our nation’s fighting forces should be more important than an individual’s sexual preference. The depth of Wiki’s definition alone should mandate that a casual attachment of the Murphy Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would be shortsighted. While the repealing of relevant portions of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was supposed to be contingent upon the completion of a study by the Department of Defense on its effectiveness and long term ramifications, it appears the casual and immoral approach of American sexuality erroneously has been extrapolated to law making. A social issue that directly affects the national security of the United States demands a more in depth study, one that stealthly should not be attached to other legislation as “pork.” As America recognized the “Separation of Church and State” as a fundamental part of our Constitutional responsibility, the “Separation of the Military and Sexuality” should remain a humble and discreet process. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been corrupted. Absence of integrity out of sight of the eyes of authority both in the ranks and administration has bred abuse. Witchhunts were common attempting to segregate probable homosexuals from the mainstream of the military. This not only existed in the military, but America’s views on homosexuality are changing at the urging of television. It has become common in the last decade for the casual needs of pop culture to at least attempt to instill their value system in mainstream American education. With the lack of funding and emphasis on America’s public education, the value system of an undefined and unstudied contingency has crept into our consciousness. With the vacating of America’s middle classed manufacturing jobs little has been left to define a mainstream. The often contempt for Christianity in America has left a segregated, selfish, and undisciplined population that is bathing in a false security. A misrepresentative “pop” culture has created a soft and malleable bandaid attempting to cover the festering wounds of a continuing “Campaign of Fear and Intimidation.” Music, once a potent force of change in the expression of American ideals, has become a depressive narcotic anesthetizing America to the real soul moving vibrations necessary for a thriving economy. The mis-education continues. Amy Poehler’s comedic narrative last night on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live summed up the much-too-casual approach to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” While representing one interpretation of “Gays in the Military,” her conclusion fell horribly short of the possible long term socio-psychological effects of mainstreaming homosexuality in a traditional heterosexual protective fighting security force. It is true and apparent that being shipped to Afghanistan for several years risking your life for your country is not much of a reward for “Seeing someone’s pee pee in the shower.” Unfortunately that does not scratch the surface of the common practices of homosexuality in the military. Saccharin pop sensibilities once again are attempting to soften America’s once lofty and respectable ethical and moral values. Media continue to bathe what once was a stark, visceral, and educational process of socialization of young Americans with tepid, shallow, temporary sensory anesthesia. A more appropriate depiction of “Gays in the Military” would be one of the many gay military porn sites. In Fayetteville, North Carolina officers in the army actively recruited young enlistees to participate in their gay sex videos placed online for a profit. This type of abuse of authority and exploitation of a nurturing environment much more is representative of the probable corruptions of “Gays in the Military.” The repealing of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would open the door for such illicit and depraved sexual activity to continue. There once was a time when the mainstream in America clearly was defined and social, religious, cultural, political, and socio-economic habits were much more clear. We are living in an age of spin where our political parties, once defined and respectable organizations, have succumbed to the tribal barbarianism of the ethnic and religious sects of the Middle East. They lob fire bombs at each other while the diplomatic communicative processes that ensure any nation evolve shrink further away masked by convenient sound bites and iPhone text. While our starving economy needs Gross National Product, all of the convenient telecommunications products in the world cannot replace a traditional American “Readin’, Writin’, and Rithmatic” education. The influx of net technology into our schools has transformed the educational process into arch enemy number one. Many of America’s once tried and true virtues casually have been replaced by a non-proactive, complacent, and lethargic acceptance of original sin. We are weak as are gay men. If given a choice, if Islam Extremists invaded your town would you want gay men fighting for you? Pink sarongs, spiked heels, and wigs are no match for the bullets of angry Muslims






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Lay Off Obama!

It would be a near impossibility for one man to turn around the status of the badly tattered United States economy. The shortsighted need for immediate gratification, like an epidemic, is haunting President Barak Obama’s relatively new administration. It would be a grievous error to call it fledgling, because fledgling it is not. In stark contrast to its tabloid television media coverage, Obama’s administration systematically has been enacting legislation to turn the social and financial systems around in America. Many people have been confused by the serialization of those acts. Obama had no choice first to take the reins of the TARP bailout money. As much of the country demanded they quickly passed an economic stimulus package rightly that produced its own bastard political party. The “Tea Party” was begun, and there was nothing wrong with objecting to the “Porkulous.” The county as a whole still has no idea whether the emptying of America’s pocketbook at the expense of Wall Street was helpful. Have any jobs been created? It was a necessary gamble in an attempt to stabilize our economic infrastructure hoping and opting for employment in the future. In retrospect now we all know it was a heinous atrocity that was abused corporately like a Catholic alter boy. So was Communism.
His second overlooked, misunderstood, and erroneously politically disparaged legislation was “Universal Healthcare.” Again the need for the continuing gratification of the wealthy demands attention from Obama in response to his call for the coverage of America’s forty million uninsured citizens. As per the quintessential nature of Conservatism, why would the wealthy, privileged, and empowered want any change? They are afraid of a “restructuring” of Americas entitlement system, historically one that can serve the poor and middle class depending upon whether a democratic or republican administration is in power. The appropriate response to America’s wealthy comes from the movie “A Few Good Men.” Fundamentally we are supposed to fight for those who are not strong enough to fight for themselves. Unfortunately like the abuse of the TARP funds, this process itself becomes abused breeding yet another bastard entity, the lazy poor. They and the illegal immigrants who are taking advantage of America’s entitlements enrage republicans as they should. What is difficult is isolating the deserving undeveloped, overlooked, and underachieving Americans that need a leg up. It would stand to reason immigration reform is likely occurrence following the serial of Obama legislation.
It is wise to take a moment to digress and speak loudly that….. THE WAR IN IRAQ IS OVER! On time and as planned America’s troops are LEAVING IRAQ. This is huge news, but it is not surprising that America’s media has given it little attention. They are continuing the same pattern of partisan and republican partial reporting of Obama the wealthy desire. It clearly is media bias.
Without citing his entire presidential history, it is necessary to quell the minutia of America’s minority vocal demand that one man solve economic problems that began with the Clinton Presidency. While effective as a president the enacting of NAFTA and the repealing of The Glass-Steagall Act both were the founding of the economic crisis that festered during George W. Bush’s tenure as president. Obama merely stepped in at the worst possible moment, a probably reason why the first African-American was elected president. It would be nice if Christian America would “Give a brother a hand.”

Obama the Martyr

Despite the ongoing smear campaign by the Republican-led telecommunications industry, President Obama like a martyr continues to rebuild America’s socio-economic infrastructure after its decimation by the Bush Administration. It is a large task healing the weeping wounds left by the Bush Administration. Considering Americans have been left coldly in the lurch by industry, how are we expected to put food on the table and a roof over our heads? Starkly but not surprisingly America during the Bush regime became a country of the wealthy and privileged. The essence of our constitution was tainted by Bush’s greedy, egocentric, and unchristian legislation favoring only the rich. Now abstract tenants of the “American Dream” that citizens have enjoyed for decades have become a vapor evaporating vehemently and tenaciously resisting Allah’s Christian-like mantra. How could America’s constitution spiritually have been tainted, and right and good been made bad and evil? It was a formidable task, but one that the Bush Administration seems to have completed aptly. The hypocrisy is the media continues to paint the opposite picture. If Obama is the socialist how can we explain the government employed 60% of the population before his emergence into the Presidency? America always has been a socialist nation disguised by the desired and fought for privileges of capitalism. Someone has to fund capitalism, and it always has been the government. With Bush’s exit from the Presidency, he took that funding. Now America’s private citizens are left holding empty pocketbooks. It took a thief and Bush was a clever one. Just as he got the hell out of Dodge, he stuck his hand back in America’s purse and stole the bounty for his friends. It could have been the most controversial political act in the history of the nation. Anywhere else Bush would have been beheaded in the public square. Here in a politically correct nation of indoctrinated submission by a campaign of fear and intimidation, Americans have been threatened like vulnerable jews in Poland and squeezed inadvertently into their own private gas chambers. The question now is in spite of Obama’s heroic efforts to right the wrong, has America’s concept been maimed permanently? Can anyone even remember how America used to work? Is it conceivable America can ever return? How can the success of a country be left only on one man’s shoulders? If America quickly does not reinvigorate its educational system caring about its future leaders, the America we have always known will become a myth. Baby Boomers are not the fuel this country and this economy needs. America cannot afford to fund its privileged anymore. It has to begin anew with a grass roots effort to reinvigorate capitalism as it was meant to function, what products Americans need and the best domestic men provide them. China and India do not enter into the equation. The aristocracy hiding America’s lost fortune will not last forever.