The Emotional Muse, Help or Hindrance?

How exactly did my personal life come crashing down back in the day?  It was pretty simple, although when you are engaged in it you are not able to step back and objectively see what is happening to you.  The first half of my life I lived with my heart.  Back in the l980's the cultural dynamic in America supported such an existence.  Movies were about romance.  Music was about romance.  It was the expected protocol.  You looked for your soulmate.  You expected to be in love.  It was what we did in America.  I would learn years later living such a way actually can kill you.  When you come to expect all of those things from another person, suddenly when you do not have them you can fall apart.  Actually what happens is when you have a great deal of emotional and spiritual interaction with another person, when you lose the ability to be able to actualize those same feelings, depression occurs.  Depression is like a dark blanket of nonexistence.  It happens because of a human being's inability to feel emotion.  Now that's a predicament.  We are made human because of this ability to feel emotion, yet it is powerful enough to kill us.  It took me quite a long time to figure this out.  Among other things I suddenly did not have the outlet for sexual expression which for me at that time was intertwined with both my personal and artistic expression.  Really it all was the same thing.  It was nice while it lasted, but it didn't.  Having to contend with a sudden lack of sexual expression in addition to losing my once viable musical career created my personal wave of depression that last almost four years.  I was able to start a new phase of music by enrolling in the D.M.A program in composition at The Ohio State University.  It was difficult moving to Columbus, but I stuck it out.  To solve my depression dilemma I had to change myself.  I had to change my 80's type of romantic notions in lieu of something more relevant.  I discarded love as I had known in in a romantic capacity, and took control of my life.  From now on I got to chose what feelings I would feel.  This was a catharsis emotionally and musically.  This choice greatly augmented my compositional ability.  No longer did I harvest what I was feeling with no conscious control of it.  Now I would make myself feel the way I wanted.  Not to say I stopped harvesting positive emotion when it was available.  When I began composing again while working on ships, I used the close quarters of the ships and thus the crew to inspire me to write music.  I would find a woman with a positive vibration or aura an try to personify that in a piece of music.  Therefore I ended up with quite a few pieces named after women.  "Adrienne," "Ana," "Callifornia," "Erin," and more.  These spiritual vibrations were very important providing inspiration for each work.  I will never forget when studying with Dr. Dick Goodwin at the University of South Carolina how he scorned me for recognizing an inspiration as a viable basis for composition.  Without a concept how can one write anything?  Without a plan, an idea, or a desire what you write inevitably will be contrived as was some of his music.  Fervently but quietly I disagreed and continue writing music that had a deep emotional connection with myself.  Was this selfish, or was it Romantic as in the traditional definition of this style of European music?  Screw it. I was the composer, so I could do what I wanted.  That's part of the beauty of it. In a contemporary music program, one does not have to adhere to the rules of schooled composition or rather the methods of J.S. Bach.  Many people over the years have felt Bach's extreme piety was oppressive, and that is understandable.  Expressing the trials and tribulations of Jesus is lofty subject matter.  Many also never really understand the crucifixion of God's son Jesus was an example of humanity's ultimate sacrifice.  This was a sacrifice when compared to those of our own.  Having a concept in one's music is what makes it logical and therefore discernible by human beings.  There is an affective, spiritual, and emotional side of human beings that we completely do not control. Grappling with this quality which is professed by Jesus to make us more God-like is a life long's work.  It has been for me because without it, what would music be?  Boring.  At the same time it has been troublesome, especially when the emotional expression becomes anachronistic.  The world around us evolves as do we.  Therefore we constantly must monitor our emotional selves for controversy.  At times we much change.  What has become difficult for me is that several valid forms of music at which I excel rapidly are fading from America.  For this reason many jazz musicians see Paris, France as a more nurturing environment for their art.  This is aggravating to me.  Why should I have to move to a foreign country to pursue my music career?  Like your emotional psyche it seems we also can outgrow our countries.  The only logical conclusion I can draw about my musical output is that it is suited for film.  That is the only medium which openly allows and promotes the expression of deep feeling, except for traditional theater.  Of course poetry seeks to do the same thing, and often there is music involved.  

A.B.D or All But Dead?

Somehow I have been involved with academia most of my life.  Partly it is because both of my parents were teachers.  I'm not sure if I ever really wanted to become a teacher, but I pursued a music education degree because it was prudent.  Evidently back in the day it was clear that trying to
nurture an economically rewarding music career was dubious.  Completely I ignored this dogma eventually finding my way into a D.M.A. program in music composition.  Previous were the B.M.E. and a Masters in Jazz and Commercial Music, one of the first degrees of its kind in the late l980's.  Today I choose not to remember any of it, because along the way the truthfulness of the heartache and sorrow attached to pursuing a music career came to fruition.  I personally do not have any regrets for pursuing music.  It was my chosen path most probably by the Creator.  As a composer all I have had to do was open my heart, my ears, and eventually my mind to receive the breath of God as Beethoven said, or at least Beethoven as played by Ed Harris in the film "Copying Beethoven."  I believe him.  Music is the breath of God, or at least most of it.  Today it is the breath of evil as many conventional cultural aesthetics have become.  Specifically in America the intrinsic but not inherent building blocks of our artistic, intellectual, philosophical and spiritual beliefs have become corrupt.  How can I make the determination, me a lowly classical and jazz composer and performer?  Simply because I have the academic credentials to be able to assess such an opinion which correlates directly to nine years of collegiate music study.  At one time a degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill meant something. It did during my tenure.  Unfortunately with the appointment of former Chancellor Holden Thorp that academic standard collapsed along with the reputation of that once fine institution.  For me graduation from Chapel Hill was the most difficult thing I ever accomplished next to playing the piano in the orchestra on cruise ships.  My Masters degree was fun but not difficult.  I was hired as a G.T.A. or Graduate Teaching Associate, therefore I got a stipend and free tuition to teach a few courses.  One responsibility was directing the second jazz ensemble, which I did for two years.  When the Coordinator of Jazz Studies died from a brain tumor I was re-hired as an adjunct faculty member temporarily to cover for his absence.  In this capacity I taught private jazz piano lessons and a course in jazz improvisation.  Also I performed with the Left Bank Big Band, the University of South Carolina's top swing band both on piano and trumpet.  Because I do not have the opportunities to do such anymore, I choose not to remember this period of time.  Also losing that adjust faculty position to an Eastman graduate the next year turned my life upside down.  It did more than that.  After a rewarding seven years being involved in music at the academic level, I found myself playing in a wedding band in Columbia, South Carolina.  That was it.  The band I founded and led to win the semi-finals of the Hennessy Cognac jazz search featuring saxophonist Chris Potter no longer existed.  My connection to a university level music education program was severed.  My personal life came crashing down for a plethora of reasons, not all of which were my fault.  Never did I want to be a music star.   Always simply I have wanted to be able to use my music talents to their best ability satisfying my own soul at the same time.  Somehow today that has been curtailed.  I feel the aberration of the American's traditional value system is responsible.  Somehow the gifts I have been given by God feel wrong to me now.  When I indulge in music protocols that make me feel good and satisfy my spiritual longing, my environment makes me feel the opposite.  Now what used to satisfy me at these deep levels creates heartache and even depression.  It is about this process I am writing to try and discover its cause and nature.  I acutely have been aware of this cause for several years, but I am beginning to forget.  Thus I have begun to try and function that way I have traditionally my entire life until my father suffered a stroke and no longer could remember me as a musical ally.  Instead he began to view me as a severe threat to his own musical existence.  I became the enemy, and I am not sure to this day if that still is not the case.  My father turned 85 years old this week, and although he is unable to do anything for himself other than see and listen still his selfishness for his own happiness is pervasive.  He quietly, almost silently, intensely is bereaved at the loss of his musical expression.  So am I.  It would seem logical if what I am feeling really is what he is feeling.  I discovered this a few years ago and made a conscious decision NOT to pursue music when in close proximity to my parents.          It shielded me from the almost incapacitating grief I would feel at the loss of my own opportunities in the field of music.  As a wise man I deducted my personal opportunities would return at the appropriate time and the appropriate place.  Lately I have failed at following my own rule.  I have begun to think it is possible and okay for me to pursue my music interests without hindrance, resistance, or competition.  What it has caused me is acute disappointment.  I look around and see the rest of the world engaged in their processes, and I am not.  I am not composing.  I am not performing.  What I am doing is organizing the many parts of my life that have become scattered after working on cruise ships for over a decade.  Luckily or rather unluckily I almost have completed that process.  Now for the first time I am bored.  While I have access to most of my tools of music, I do not have a studio integrating them all.  They are spread around with no one work space.  While I am capable of being pragmatic about that, I have yet to come to terms with the realization my joy at making music is my father's grief at losing his.  This must be the reason why now I feel pain and anguish at the things once that provided me so much joy and fulfillment.  It is difficult.  It is difficult being 51 years old and single, not for loneliness but for the complete and utter lack of a personal support system for myself other than me.  I am and always have been a strong person, but not having a single person in this world that is willing to understand me is difficult.  With the inclusion of this "father" issue and its effects upon my musical vocation, my opportunities to be musically viable have shrunk to almost nothing.  Still I peck away at it knowing in the future these things will come back to me, but America is not making that easy.  It makes me angry the my vocation for music has become extinct.  Now I now exactly how the jazz musicians felt when their field of music was overtaken by Rock 'n' Roll.  What you have done and have been respected for for years suddenly now was not valued anymore by mainstream society.  Slowly this has happened to music in America.  Understandably it has happened before now, and I guess as it is supposed to.  Crooning music from the l940's no longer is fashionable today.  Neither is big band swing dance music.  Upon examination most of the more viable forms of American music have become extinct or at least dormant.  How is it that today in the year 2014 America has changed so much from her roots?  How is it we have gone from Dorothy Dandridge to Miley Cyrus being dry humped by Santa Claus?  This tendency only can be correlated to the lack of an effective educational system in America.  Our schools have failed by their misadministration by the government.  I think this misadministration has been purposeful simply to dumb down the American people.  Consequently we have not trained workforce even if we did possess the jobs to hire it.  We are a shite state of affairs.  Our entire nation continually has devolved during my lifetime robbing me of the opportunities my parents had.  America has fallen from grace as the pinnacle of freedom to the world.  We instead are a debacle of confusion, evil, and selfishness which contends Satan's return to earth all ready has occurred.  It is unnerving confronting that obstacle everyday.  How did I get this?

Is jazz Dead?

I awoke a few days ago asking myself the question why I did not seem to have a feeling of familiarity with my surroundings.  I looked around my room, and then the idea suddenly popped into my head.  I had spent many years of my life studying and playing jazz music, more specifically on the piano and the trumpet.  Jazz piano.  Then it dawned on me the feeling inherent in most jazz music was what was eluding me. Upon reflection it has been on the decline and most recently absent from most American music.  Is this what happens when jazz dies in the bottom of a liquor bottle?  I carried a torch for this music, until my wisdom said it no longer was prudent to waste my time trying to be a professional jazz pianist.  Of course I have been.  I have made a living from playing music in many styles including jazz, Afro-Cuban, R&B, Hip Hop, and Beach music.  It always has been in one's best interest to do more than one thing, as it is more likely you will gain employment from a variety of musical options.  Over the years jazz seems to have disappeared from my offerings.  Thus the feeling that accompanies jazz music has been absent.  Like any prudent person I merely have regrouped and persevered with very few questions why I had lost such an opportunity.  When I awoke on this particular day, I realized I personally did not want to lose this feeling.  It was a feeling I had had the majority of my life, and it had provided a feeling of comfort and familiarity in my surroundings.  As I think about where I am now, I realize there is zero reinforcement of the aesthetic of jazz music anywhere near me.  I do not see jazz on television like I once did.  When I turn on the local "jazz" radio station what I hear is pop fodder.  Then I asked myself why jazz piano provided this feeling.  Lately I have been pursuing the publishing of my own piano music but in a contemporary classic style.  I decided while working on ships that writing music that could be read and understood by any classically trained pianist was a more prudent option for its discovery than music holding a torch for an improvising group in a style that seems to have become dormant in America.  With jazz music one needs musicians that are trained in this highly specific artistic music.  It requires many skills which are developed over decades rather than years.  With contemporary classical music all of it can be read and understood by most any reading pianist.  It is this upon which I have become focused over the years discarding jazz and it accompanying feeling.  I realized on this particular day I did not have to lose the feeling of jazz, because America no longer seemed to be supporting it.  Then I asked myself the question how does jazz music need to be preserved and thus continually presented to America for its enjoyment.  Then I thought of regular classical music of course which itself is a misnomer.  What the populace calls classical music really is music from many different stylistic periods mostly from Europe and Russia.  They include the Baroque, Classic and High Classic, Romantic, and Twentieth Century among others.  Rarely do we get to hear music from the Medieval Period or the Renaissance.  Also rarely do we get to hear "New" music.  It became clear to me that this music has maintained the test of time because it professionally composed, professionally published, and professionally performed.  Above all it is supported by a populace which highly values it.  Then I asked myself why jazz does not have the same support.  Primarily it was because to perform jazz music, a unique skill set is necessary that is unrelated to the realization of classical music.  Often in our academic institutions which teach music, jazz and classical curriculums are separate because of this and this separation always has been a point of contention in music education.  I always felt it was exaggerated, because I myself was trained in classical piano but later became a jazz pianist.  There is room for both.  The grift is it takes many years to master both.  I am lucky I had spent the years necessary to study jazz performance including composition, arranging, and improvisation.  These things are second nature to me, but they now are dormant because I am not using them.  When I do indulge in the jazz process, now it seems very unsettling to me.  I feel like my inner most vulnerabilities are exposed to an untrusting environment.  Ironically when I play through the very piano music I am focusing upon now, the feelings I have expressed in it also seem extremely vulnerable.  Between these two musical aesthetics why do they both feel uncomfortable and inappropriate?  As a composer and artist my prudence immediately would say it is because it is time to move on to the next thing.  This would equate to a composer's next style period.  All prudent musicians and composers recognize this is necessary.  You constantly must be on the move to develop and expand.  My problem is why should I have to discard two extremely relevant forms of music which have become part of my soul?  It is because they are not being reinforced in my immediate environment.  Not only is jazz music and its representative feeling not being reinforced in America, my personal music, an expression of my thoughts and feelings also is not being represented.  It would seem I am up the creek without a paddle.  If I indulge in the music of my past, it seems discarded by America.  It I indulge in the music I have created to reinforce myself, it also is unsupported.  In other words America does not seem to "get" either one and their representative feelings.  What?  When faced with the choice I turn back to classical music, because it is being reinforced somewhere.  The great masterworks of the past still seem to be revered and played somewhere either on FM radio or in concert halls.  Jazz music on the other hand has fallen by the wayside, probably because the musicians needed to perform it affectively no longer exist.  I have seen the seminal jazz musicians die off one at a time, and it always has been painful to me.  With the passing of each inherently I knew America would be losing a particular jazz aesthetic, since our academic institutions no longer seem to be supporting them.  Instead another kind of music has thrived.  It should be called folk music, although that would be a disservice to the traditional category of folk music that once was an extremely communicative and viable art form in America.  This newer folk music rather would be defined as, "Being able to be performed by the folk, folk meaning uneducated musically."  Accessible.  Basic. Not inspired.  America's once viable commercial music market has been transformed from one of art to one of folk.  Like karaoke it has begun to indulge the listener's ego rather than his affective and intellectual side.  I cannot upon reflection understand how this has happened other than to see America for what it has become.  Capitalist.  I realized on that day I awoke jazz piano immediately is satisfying.  Unlike some classical music the listener almost immediately can feel something the construct of jazz music.  The earthy sound of an old piano, an acoustic bass, a breathy tenor saxophone, and a very specialized jazz trap set have the unique ability to move listeners almost with its timbres alone.  Put America's Popular Songbook upon it and you have a viable music force with which to be reckoned.  The problem is corporate America does not want this.  They also do not want this power to move listeners and therefore minds and souls to be invested in Rock 'n' Roll.  They want to be able to produce music and control it themselves.  This has proven to be an iconic failure of America's founding institutions, and it will continue until something changes. Corporate America does not want the music industry to possess the power to change minds.  My solution has been to hunker down and continue on my musical path incognito.  I do and will do musically what is necessary to me without the recognition of corporate America or the listening public.  It feels strange and uncomfortable waking up without the comfort I have had my entire life.  Go figure.

The Affordable Care Bubble?

When past president Bill Clinton ran for president in the early l990's, I supported him.  For every American to be able to own their on home seemed like a reasonable and desirable campaign promise.  Unfortunately over two decades later the real socio-economic ramifications of that promise have come full circle.  In short that promise almost instantaneously created the "Housing Bubble."  A good natured promise to help Americans was manipulated by the wealthy to further create their own wealth.  How did a campaign promise become such a thing?  It was the reason his wife Hillary Clinton was not able to pass universal health coverage during his presidency.  Unfortunately ideas generated for the betterment of Americans must be well thought out protocols and procedures for implementation through either private are governmental business structures.  With this in mind it is remarkable to me that our first African-American president was able to accomplish such a thing.  I tried to read through the legislation today, although it only was a representative document published for public use.  It was not the real law, as itself stated.  At almost one thousand pages I passed, like most people.  My common sense says to me that one's income will determine the amount of a governmental subsidy available to purchase health coverage either private or sponsored by the government.  As I looked over the comprehensive list of plans one thing came to mind.  It seemed as if I would be paying premiums monthly while still paying my own health care costs.  Why?  The deductibles were so large that the average person needing few  doctor visits or prescriptions never would get past it.  They would be paying out of their own pocket until something chronic occurred or until there was a medical crisis.  I do understand this is the way insurance works.  The healthy pay for the sick.  It is a calculated risk.  I'm not sure this is the best way to take care of Americans.  It seems this is a way to make both the medical establishment and their accompanying pharmaceutical companies rich.  Other countries that offer affordable health care often pay for and by the individual service of a doctor or clinic.  The prices without the intervention of "Big Insurance" are reasonable and represent the actual service and equipment used.  That is not the way of the United States.  When I was uninsured and  passed a kidney stone for the first time, I learned this lesson.  Later when I did so again, I learned that it did not take a five thousand dollar visit to the Emergency Room to handle this inconvenient biological function.  It took one shot of Demerol, a day off work, and as much bottled water as I could drink.  The trumped up drug fees, the MRI fee, the doctor's bill, and the ER bill not really were helping me cope with what I now understand as a routine malady.  They were padding their own pockets.  Protocols such as this are what have founded sub-cultural processes in America.  If our own intended systems honestly do not look after us, Americans must turn elsewhere.  This solely is the basis for the drug trade in America.  If people no longer feel good because their environment has become polluted, they must resort to some type of anodyne to replace this once available ability to feel good or normal.  Why people feel abnormal is put on them.  No one in America including our governmental systems will be accountable the massive amount of pollution being created by corporate giants.  Getting back to past President Bill Clinton for a moment, one of his implemented policies is a metaphor for such irresponsibility.  On one hand he claimed to balance the federal budget with this idea, subsequently he created single-handedly what seems to be today our most viable American commodity, wireless communications.  Is/was this a good idea?  If you are an adolescent that is dependent upon their Droid, Blackberry, or Smart Phone, I guess the answer is yes.  Certainly it is for Apple, Verizon and the others.  Contrarily as the Housing Bubble proved, these ideas implemented and corrupted over time can be devastating to our country.  Who knew when President Clinton pledged that each and every American should and would be able to own their on home, the "Establishment" would begin a process of making themselves rich happily by providing such a service.  Real estate prices doubled overnight, the tried and true vetting process for offering credit was discarded, and Wall Street brokers began pooling and selling these high risk mortgages as hedge funds for their own huge economic rewards.  Over time the trend could not sustain itself, because it not was based upon sound economic philosophy.  It was corrupted for the gain of a few wealthy elite.  Unfortunately all of that money once in active circulation in our economy now sits idle in Swiss and Grand Cayman bank accounts.  The holders of this cash refuse to reinvest it back in the economy of America, because we have no tangible gross national product.  The era of moving money around and making money from money is over.  The country is left searching for our socioeconomic and philosophic roots.  Fortunately the wireless communication's bubble seems not to exist, so other than the rapid decline of Apple at Steve Job's absence there will not be much fall out with the loss of the glorified "Walkie Talkie."  On the other hand there is a remarkable similarity between Bill Clinton's past presidential election promise and the Affordable Care Act.  By requiring each and every American to purchase health coverage, it is plausible and quite probable without the proper governmental oversight the medical establishment and its accompanying insurance industry also will corrupt the system for their own gain.  Because all ready our system of health coverage is cumbersome, excessive, and constructed for the good of the establishment rather than the American people, why would this force suddenly change?  I feel this is the major concern of the opponents of "Obamacare."  It is a valid worry.  All ready we have seen the ramifications of the legislation.  Policies are either being cancelled or the premiums raised.  Why?  Secondly with an American economy in shambles from three overseas wars under past president George W. Bush, whence do these subsidies come?  Shortly after being elected president, Ronald Reagan lowered the federal income tax percentage for the highest earning sector.  Previous to his presidency the federal tax on the highest earning tax bracket was seventy percent.  SEVENTY PERCENT.  That meant the wealthy were supporting the country.  Now the same wealthy Americans, instead of re-investing their now surplus capital back into the American economy, are sitting on it.  In what do they have to invest?  That is the question.  Health care?

'Obamacare' or 'Nigger?'

With the constant decline of quality of American news media, still it is difficult to understand why this media seems only to pander to the adolescent age group.  "Obamacare?"  How can a federal law enacted by America's first African-American president be reduced to a pseudonym?  While it is understandable there is much contention over the law between political parties, how is it that America has reduced this misunderstanding to sheer mudslinging?  "Obamacare?"  That word in my eyes is synonymous with "Nigger."  The same cultural class that would choose to use such a demeaning racial slur thus must be responsible for the coining of the term "Obamacare?"  Is it that they are too lazy or disrespectful to take the time to try to understand the legislation?  This is becoming increasingly more difficult in light of our currently constantly declining new media.  While "spin" is not a new concept and possibly has been a component of the White House for decades, misreporting of the news has become commonplace.  Lying in fact has become commonplace.  One only has to watch right wing television news to see this in full effect.  It seems the need for immediate gratification has usurped the tried and true practice in news reporting of checking and double checking your multiple sources.  This deficiency almost has curtailed my following of the news on the internet, not to mention that there is a stark absence of any positive news.  It seems local newspapers also have fallen prey to this more tabloid type of reporting.  Is social networking responsible for this downfall?  Is it that adolescent disposable income is the only income available to the remnants of America's gross national product?
Who can argue that America's youth are and have been food for America's established economic powers?  It is despicable.  "Obamacare?"  We as a nation are too ignorant to say the phrase, "Healthcare dot gov.?"  Keywords, soundbites, or hash tags are abbreviations for an adolescent America that do not have time to form a paragraph.  The fees on their cell phones are too expensive to allow a complete expression of thought.  Did we as a populace choose to live this truncated existence uttering phrases of incoherence?  It is comedic, but it should not be.  What should become clear is we as a nation have regressed on all fronts to a superficial existence of the wealthy preying on the children of America.  While there should be and has been a process of social networking via media, it cannot replace the true mechanisms of American society.  The internet if anyone will recall originally was a connecting of academic data bases to share data on the development of the atomic bomb.  Scholarly or educational information was the basis of the internet, not social networking.  This is how I learned at The Ohio State University, yet it is difficult for me to remember.  Having not been affiliated with an academic institution for over a decade, it is unnerving to have become at the mercy of commercial America.  I remember when using the Apple Macintosh computer, if you took the time to learn the operating system you could have control of your machine.  This included software bundling, software updates, and networking.  Never would your computer take it upon itself to download an update without your consent.  This concept while novel to trustworthy computers has opened the door to spyware and other malicious programs meant to steal or destroy your information.  What is it we are so busy doing to have forgotten how to take the time to learn our systems?  Is it because manufacturers do not want us to learn them, because then we would become content with them and not buy the next newest thing?  As NPR has reported recently the richest ten percent of Americans are earning ninety percent of our income.  There has become no middle class.  All I can say is eventually America will fall prey to the same governmental ills as other older nations.  We in our generation somehow have sidestepped the tumultuous uprising of Americans against unfair government or social rule.  All I can say is it seems like due time.  Better pick up a hoe or an axe.