To Open Pandora's Box or Live in a Fantasy

Several things were on my mind today when I rose to a diesel locomotive in my bed.  It has been there each day this week beginning on Monday.  I should do as the rest of the neighbors do, and, "Get the hell out of Dodge."  Isn't this an infringement of some civil liberty?  You may be wondering how a diesel locomotive actually could be 'in my bed.'  It is accomplished the same way the "Taos Hum" finds its way into your bed.  Its sound and electromagnetic vibration are carried long distances on the infrasound produced by its diesel engine.  Each and every diesel engine produces such a thing, because of the 'firing rate' of its cylinders.  This by product, although the audible sound of the engine is disturbing to many, is more of an invasive nuisance.  Why?  The answer is simple.  An infrasound wave by definition is a low frequency sound wave whose wave length is so long, it ceases to produce audible sound to the human ears.  Because we can't hear it does not mean it does not exists which is proven by the existence of both electricity and electromagnetic waves.  It is unclear to me with society's understanding that Gamma wave radiation (nuclear radiation) is the most dangerous to human beings, why the effect of these lower frequencies are ignored.  Likewise understanding that ultrasound can and has been used as a form of non-lethal weapon by producing liquifying of an opponents solid waste, how can these  pervasive and omnipresent low frequency sound waves be ignored?  They can no longer and for good reason.  A thorough study of them will prove they alone are responsible for many of the aberrations in human behavior that have occurred in the last two and a half decades.  I have written about this before and have learned how to both bury my head in the sand and grow a tough skin.  One does have to live in this world.  While occasionally the transient condition of a cruise ship did provide shelter from this prominent industrial pollution, often it did not.  In the Mediterranean Sea infrasound was prolific as were electromagnetic waves.  Jokingly our sound technicians on the boat would blame the nuclear submarines just below the surface of the water.  I believe them.  Likewise as ships  traveled down the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, the wireless microphones in out theater would pick up radio waves at certain points in strong number.  Invisible electricity is everywhere and especially with the proliferation of the telecommunications industry.  Cell phone towers are everywhere.  Why it is misunderstood that a microwave being produced by an oven, a radio transmitter, or a cell phone tower still is a microwave is beyond me.  Heat.  Like many of the ailments I wrote about previously, Global Warming has been swept under the carpet again.  The need for electricity, one component of an electromagnetic wave, has trumped the world's concern over air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.  Coal is cheap.  Not only that there only is ONE industry capable of hauling this bulky heavy product.  It is a major contract.  My thoughts this morning were related to this discourse, and how unseeingly they were connected to my consciousness and artistic aesthetic.  I am lucky enough over the course of time to have been able to study different disciplines of music performance and composition.  I began with jazz and ended in contemporary classical.  While I enjoyed both for various reasons, the choice between the two has become more difficult.  Why?  There are many reasons I rather would not have to contemplate, but I do.  This is because I live in "The Condition of America."  First and foremost jazz is dead.  It no longer is valued as  America's only true art form.  Some say it died in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.  I say it has died at the bequest of the rail industry.  Many non-musicans may not know that the most successful commercial music, the music that has "become a hit," often uses a 'tempo' relating to or being a ratio of the infrasound waves created by the diesel engine.  While this machine has been indispensable to the growth of modern society, also it has been detrimental.  Music that usurps this negative influence is empowered, because it seems to be able to change the human condition, at least for the short term.  Simply it makes us feel good.  True jazz music also seeks to make us feel.  That is why disk jockeys say you don't really need to be able to understand its possible complexity.  Only do you need to be able to "feel" the music and its message.  Today this process has been diluted by the commercial music industry.  A television infomercials tell us, the decades of the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's all produced powerful socially relevant music.  There was a message that needed to be told.  Today music is superficial masturbation.  It has nothing to do with art.  I assume it is earning capital for some faction of America, but I am not interested in it.  I still am interested in jazz, but it has gotten difficult.  Why?  The answer is because the feeling that drove much of jazz music no longer is supported or even present in America.  The Marsalis Clan stated this.  They had to change musical style to continue to be viable in the American music scene.  I personally as a jazz performer and composer feel this is an atrocity.  Miles Davis would have called it, "Selling out to the man."  Dizzy Gillespie did it.  The more popular Rock 'n' Roll genre founds its way into traditional big band music changing its intent.  Is it because this attitude, this philosophy, this direction of society no longer is relevant?  I can't imagine this to be true.  How could have have changed so much in a few short decades?  It is true it seems.  I hold the torch for jazz music, but now it causes me pain and anguish because its message is not understood.  When something is misunderstood it can become alienated and then impertinent.  The masses have the power to eradicate it form social consciousness just as they are attempting to do with religion.  It is disheartening.  Like Miles Davis I found a way to keep my musical proclivities valid and earnest.  When I realized jazz was dead, I changed to contemporary classical music. There were two merits in this decision.  One was any classical-trained reading pianist could play this music.  There was no need for improvisation or the realization of chord symbols.  Anyone reading pianist could actualize the music.  The lost art of jazz no longer was necessary for the realization of my personal music.  The second merit was it allowed me to continue to use my mind creatively in the field of music.  While once jazz improvisation accomplished this process, rarely did I have the opportunity to do it.  When I did I became the enemy, because I learned from the masters of jazz.  I learned "that" feeling that produced "that swing."  After all Duke Ellington said, "It don't mean a thing....."  Miles also said it.  You either have it or you don't.  I didn't always have it, but I continued to work on it until I did.  Ironically that didn't present itself until I was in my mid thirties.  Patience is a virtue.  After being persecuted for my gift time and time again, I made a conscious decision to put jazz on a shelf in the closet.  It still would be there if and when I wanted it.  I began to write contemporary classical music for the piano.  Today still I am drawn between these two musical disciplines.  Part of me is saying continue to nurture my performing skill in commercial music including jazz.  Part of me says, "I have been down this path before, in this area, and to no avail.  Ditch it."  I have no desire to re-live past memories including the complete void of musical opportunity in my community.  How can you be successful in your chosen vocation is there is no opportunity?  You can't.  Composing music for one's personal intellectual and spiritual gratification should be immune from the scrutiny of society, but it is not.  Why?  It is a simple situation of Nature verses Nurture.  We live in a combination of our experiences and our environment.  I am torn between my instinctual musical desires, and what I have learned.  The dilemma presents itself each and every day.  I can choose to indulge in the beauty of classical music, or I can realize living in a dream with rose colored glasses will be fruitless.  Not fruitless in terms of a body of work, but fruitless in terms of monetary reward.  Also the exact same conundrum exists for this music as does jazz.  The beauty of traditional classical music is not reinforced in modern society, nor is the message of jazz.  Neither art forms are in any way related to commercial America.  It is difficult as an educated adult to chose either discipline, because they both will prove to be worthless monetarily.  Ouch.  Ouch again.  Ouch.  Ouch.  I understand now fully how jazz musicians of the 1950's and 1960's felt when their jobs became extinct. Somehow society decided what these musicians offered no longer was relevant to American society.  I hear what disk jockeys are calling jazz on the radio.  Still musicians are involved with it.  Insultingly to me it is not jazz, because I know.  It has become pop, and still to this day I am not sure if its purveyors even are aware that they are not performing jazz.  They use its structures, and they exploit its stage.  They fail in every way of presenting its message.  It is sickening.  At times I, "Butch it up and put a cork in it," and decide that I am going to continue producing jazz music with its original emotional intent.  What happens?  My emotions are assaulted greatly by the invisible giant of infrasound.  It hinders jazz music on multiple levels.  First with a low frequency "standing wave" in your performance space of recording studio, you are not going to be able to hear audible music to the extent which is necessary for an artistic realization.  Upper frequencies are obscured.  Lower frequencies are stymied.  Middle frequencies are muddied.  It is a mess.  Not only can you not hear adequately, you have a sound wave more akin to barometric or seismic pressure actually inhibiting the accurate formation of artistically meant sound waves.  If an infrasound wave is oscillating at 1/2 or 2 Hertz constantly, creating a differing fraction of movement in the air becomes much more difficult.  That is why music that has sustained the test of time consciously or subconsciously has accommodated this phenomenon.  The most accessible style of music that exhibits this intent is Hip Hop.  Hip Hop, with its extremely powerful almost droning bass content, seeks to nullify the very presence of disturbing infrasound waves  produced by diesel engines.  That is why it was popular.  It accomplished this feat and was successful in making human beings actually feel good.  That was iconic.  Somewhere down the line not only did many of the gangster creators of this music die, the powers at be decided this music no longer was going to have financial power in America.  Pop was born.  A soulless, rhythmically impotent,  shallow entertainment became the norm for American popular music.  Tin Pan Alley must be turning over in its grave.