Jazz Music and Its Necessity

For all intents and purposes I was forced to put my jazz skills on a shelf in the closet.  I have engaged most of my adult life with the jazz aesthetic.  Today I am not sure why.  I know without a doubt that jazz music is dead.  It is dead because the genius's that created it have become extinct.  Dinosaurs became extinct, but not for the same reasons.  The jazz sensibility still today is one of the most tangible, intelligent, spiritual, and artistic endeavors of this earth, yet is too is going the way of the dinosaur.  Why?  Is it because it is mammoth, violent, and cold-hearted?  On the contrary jazz is one of the most humane processes the world ever has known.  I am sure it has existed in many forms throughout history.  With a bit of study the strict boundaries of Western classical music easily are disrupted, and elements of jazz can be found centuries ago.  The most obvious one is "Figured Bass" which existed during the Baroque Era.  Composers of this day would write a "chord symbol" over the top of a root note on a continuo part expecting the harpsichord player to "realize" the chord from intellect.  They had to calculate the note intervals from the written numbers (example:  inversions of the dominant seventh chord, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2) and realize the correct chord in lieu of the composer writing a specific voicing. In essence this is what the jazz musician does relying upon this nomenclature to realize complex music without the need of reading dense "clumps of grapes" on the gig.  It is a short cut, but not an undermining.  The process of realizing jazz harmony in such a way equally is as challenging as performing the most virtuosic concerto.    Not only must the jazz improvisor know enough to realize the correct harmony from these chord symbols, he them must on the spot create a musical and expressive melody over them.  That means choosing notes not only that fit into the specific chords but notes that will act as passing tones in between.  Varying intervals must be used for variety and interest, space must be left for breath, and a story must be told with tension and release.  Rhythm is of key importance, because in addition to all of these tasks the musical performance must swing.  Ouch.  I do not know too many people that are capable of this, and the ones that could are dead.  It was not that long ago with the passing of these truly great jazz purveyors that an aberrant form of jazz snuck its way into the public's eye.  Because jazz is intelligent music and a certain knowledge is required to understand it, easily "pop" infiltrated the jazz world quickly disguising the true feeling of swing.  For this reason it highly is unlikely real jazz will experience a renaissance anytime soon.  No one seems to understand the difference.  Each and every day I listen to jazz performances on the radio, and they are nothing more than "pop" covers of jazz tunes.  I believe, because great artistry is required to understand and perform jazz music, that this is the world's feeble attempt at re-creating the legacies of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Dizzy Gillispie.  These are huge shoes to fill.  In America's current climate of immaturity there are not many platforms available to pitch America's one and only true art form.  For me when the scales tipped too far in the "pop" direction, and I began to be criticized for being able to play real swing, I stopped.  Why would any artist choose to be chastised for their artistic ability?  We could ask Jesus this question, because it was this phenomenon that defined his word.  Often good is labeled as evil.  Certainly I alone do not harbor the strength of Jesus, and therefore the desire and need to fight for the longevity of jazz music.  I rather would be congratulated on my skills and rushed off to the next well-paying gig.  Disappointingly real swing has been replaced with a phony.  "Pop" will continue to masquerade as jazz until it dies.  As for the necessity of jazz in my life, it is the one thing that has driven me to excel as a musical performer.  While I appreciate many styles of music, and I was trained in the classical genre, the visceral aspects of jazz are what demand higher levels of performance.  I have had no desire to perform any kind of music recently.  What's the point?  The point is that when I sit down at the piano or the organ, I have nothing to say.  I begin to doubt my abilities, because the voice always that has driven me to play jazz is absent.  It is simple.  Why would any artist choose to be chastised for their artistic ability?  I would just choose to be thanked for my efforts.  Why is it my generation has inherited the survival or extinction of the human condition?  Is it not enough just to stomach the disappointment of living in the remnants of America?  It is not enough to watch as Baby Boomers live off of their children destined to inherit nothing?  My generation is out of luck.  No one watched out for us.  No one thought it important to hand over the reins empowering the next generation of America.  That is why we are failing as a country.  If I intend to empower myself again musically it is becoming evident that I once again will have to embrace the jazz aesthetic.  In spite of all of the crooning, the smoothing, and masquerading, and the downright lying, I will have to pick up the torch.  I can't tell if it burns.  

A Debt of Self Gratitude

I feel a substantial amount of responsibility to be accountable for my harmonic offerings in the contemporary classical music field.  This was not my sentiment a few years ago.  It is a line to toe.  It is the future hanging in the balance.  The pursuits of one's own selfish needs versus the development of an art form, now that is a predicament.  I gave up my own selfish pursuits years ago beginning with women.  Still I love them and sex.  I just can't make myself grovel in ignorance of music or women.  Before self deprecating first understand that you are or are not surrounded by assholes.  Sigmund Freud.  Fully I understand that I am, assholes of a major proportion.  I understand also that I am surrounded by the holy grail of the vagina, the all-knowing, all-understanding, all-empowering pleasure unit that seems to deserve the reverence of God.  (at least in the American South.)   I am not sure ever I have met any vagina that felt it was "all that."  I have not.  Never have I been slain by such a device.  I'm not sure ever I have wanted such a thing.  Once I did, or at least I got used to it being slain by vagina.  (Translation:  the woman does the work.)  Fairly it is easy to get spoiled by such an occurrence.  It not was until twenty years later, I realized it was more fulfilling to do the work one's self.  (Rather I would do the work rather than being worked.)  It seems the American South is all about the "getting worked."  Her people daily are worked in the culo.  I don't like it much.  I used to feel a substantial amount of responsibility to be accountable for my harmonic offerings in the contemporary classical music field.  I do feel a certain debt to be accountable for my doctoral dissertation material.  I am.  I wrote it.  I conceived it.  It is mine.  Why should I have to defend it?  That is the path of American academia.  As a rebel I resisted and erased some of my "chord symbols" (i.e. harmonic analysis)  above the written notes of my piano pieces.  I decided it was the responsibility of the next generation of music theorists to decipher my newly conceived harmonic system.  It as of yet not has been invented.  Who would believe such a thing?  No one.  Still, I have the bounty of work.  Each day I feel a small amount more of responsibility to publish a treatise of the method of my composition.  With the current states of affairs of the Conditions of America, it wholly is unlikely anyone ever will understand or appreciate my musical offerings.  Like a stiff academic trumpet dick up my ass, I feel compelled to make the fat lady sing.  I must expose my genius, not that I consider my aesthetic so advanced.  It is a natural and artistic evolution of history's music.  It seems that I only am capable of synthesizing these disparate temporal concepts.  (Don't get it really)  Is John Adams the only still living American composer?  I have no real desire to rub salt into a wound.  I only want to advance the art of music composition and thus the human condition.  We are staid, again.  We are stuck.  We are vacuumed into a black hole of human selfishness.  Why really must the needs of the LGBY community usurp the awareness of God?  It only is selfish.  When did one's sexual choice suddenly negate the human condition's responsibility of worshipping God?  To make an aberrant sexual choice's platform  grounds of existence is beyond me.  Only is this may I ask the thing that defines you?  Only is your personal sexuality the one thing that makes you whole?  Is there no other philosophical, spiritual, or intellectual platform that satisfies you?  Only is it the love of your mate?  Indeed while this is important to human survival, it is not its root.  To believe only one's selfish needs are necessary for human existence is a grievous mistake in the eyes of God.   I know that my personal offerings are paramount to musical evolution, yet I resist making them more important than my everyday life.  Delusions of grandeur are a mental illness, and yet there are times when great men must call upon their trump card.  It is with great humility and reluctance I summon the energy to tout my wares.  My harmonic concepts are evolutionary, not for genius but for lack of competition.  There is no interest in what I have sought.  Still these concepts are important to mankind.  They push and at times break the boundaries of human sensibility.  Living once again in the American South this is a stretch.  To evolve one must push the envelope.  One must call out the status quo and demand acknowledgment.  Really that means evolution by force.  Damn it, I am tired of this shite.  Really?  I guess this is the definition of being a leader, not a politician.  

The Three Doc's or the Three Stooges?

Once again I found myself back at Fayetteville's Botanical Garden Friday evening "on the lawn" concert series.  Once again it was advertised as a concert by the Fayetteville Symphony.  Once again only three out of the seven members of the performing group actually were members of the Fayetteville Symphony.  Once again it should have been billed as "Friends of the Fayetteville Symphony."  All of that said I had an inkling about what may transpire.  I was wrong.  It was an all together different group than last week's tribute to Dave Brubeck led by the symphony's pianist Dr. Scott Marosek.  I had forgotten that a pianist with an orchestra does not get to perform that often.  The same applies to the both the brass and percussion sections.  It wholly is reliant upon what era literature the symphony performs.  I was trying to wrap my head around why the first trumpeter with the orchestra had any interest in being involved with a jazz concert.  It turns out it was gratuitous.  Dr. Timothy Altman was not the leader of the group.  Neither was Dr. Larry Wells.  Neither was Dr. Dean Olah.  That is three doctors in one jazz group, or was it really Three Stooges?  I think the leader of the concert was The Moonlighter's Orchestra Terry Blalock on woodwinds.  It seems the drummer and vocalist was from the Midwest.  That is a long way to travel for a two set gig in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Again as with the last concert on this series I was a bit confused.  I was not confused about its content, because instinctively I all ready knew for what I was in store.  Jazz is dead in America.  The feeling of swing long has been usurped by the feeling of "pop."  Without once again arguing this personal musical point, only I can say is that real jazz swing is connected to the soul.  Each and every note conveyed is a direct result of a gumbo of feelings, thoughts, and ideas.  More resolvedly the improvisors solo is spontaneous composition.  At the level to which the art from of jazz has evolved, it really is an experience non other than anything in world.  Ironically it does in abstract ways resemble the sport and art of skateboarding.  The process is similar.  Timing is crucial.  Balance is necessary.  "Carving lines" is important.  Responding extemporaneously is paramount.  This is why real jazz is not heard that much anymore.  We are living in a time that does not promote the general mental and physical health of humanity to create such a thing in real time.  There is too much distraction.  I was interested to hear how this ensemble would tackle such a challenge.  I was interested to see how the principal trumpeter of a symphony would fare in the jazz idiom.  More hauntingly I wondered why there was an interest in adopting such a challenge.  I think for the most part I overthought the process.  It seems musicians in this area are trying to earn money.  They are scrambling.  I don't quite see how three doctors would have much interest in playing a little two hour set at a country club.  As usual I felt very uncomfortable at the concert.  While my mother and I were more prudent in choosing our sitting neighbors, a local member of the classical community and her husband sat right next to me.  Because I knew I would not pallet the music well, again I felt like a big black cloud.  (It is difficult for an artist to disguise their true reactions to their own chosen art.)  I tried.  I listened.  I did not judge.  Although I am a collegiately trained jazz trumpeter and pianist, and have been working as a professional for twenty years, I was open minded.  As a professional jazz musician I have certain standards I cannot change.  Why is this?  It is because to learn to play jazz music, it takes years and years of study.  It is like religion.  Its principles are deep, far reaching, and often difficult.  Why are they difficult?  They are difficult because they break stretch the boundaries of the human condition.  Jazz is much more than a music.  It is a spirit.  With such clout brings a mantra that cannot be altered.  Certain crucial axioms must exist for jazz to flourish.  This means in no way can jazz stoop to the superficial levels of pop music, yet it has.  This concert was a swing-oriented affair with a rhythm section and four horns.  There were written arrangements, and these were more specific for the vocal charts.  Like any cruise ship gig they encompass the standard musical repertoire appealing to the masses.  There is "Rat Pack" material.  Luckily these seminal arrangement by Quincy Jones, Nelson Riddle and others are timeless.  If they are played reasonably well always they will satisfy.  Small group "head" arrangements are a horse of a different color.  When trying to play small group jazz, this is when the axioms of jazz come into play.  There are rules of protocol, rules that were well known by Miles Davis and his bands.  Small group jazz is not a "jam" session.  There are strict rules of form and behavior on the bandstand.  These things are what make jazz jazz.  At their deepest level they are metaphors for human life.  It took me many years of study to amass this code.  The group for the most part adhered to many of the standards of a good jazz performance.  No one instrumentalist plays too long, they divide the solos up, and they attempt to end a song the same way.  (Sometimes this fails, but popular culture attributes this to showmanship.)  They really are not interested in a polished product.  This is a difficult pill for me to swallow.  Having studied jazz music for for over fifteen years, it is difficult to watch a group who really have no fundamental understanding of "how" to play jazz.  Orchestral players are competent musicians and instrumentalist.  They play in time, with a good sound, and with musical taste.  They read notes written by a composer in often transcendent compositions.  Jazz musicians compose spontaneously at the gig.  They embody the same musical principles of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Revel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and others.  The study of this music is what made Miles Davis such an effective and iconic band leader.  As a fan of Sly and the Family Stone and Jimmi Hendrix, also he was a fan of Penderecki.  The bottom line is this.  Jazz is an intellectual music form.  There are many music forms in existence today that are not.  The majority of these forms are not artistic.  They are utilitarian.  By intellectual I mean that one simply cannot play jazz with a smile, a desire, and some showmanship.  To play jazz really a theoretical understanding of harmony is necessary.  Not only must a song's chord changes be known intimately, the scales that are actualized over these passing chord changes must be known intimately.  This is how an improvisor knows which notes to play in a solo.  While one's ear is a guide in the process, is is subordinate to the cognitive knowledge of "knowing" the musical theory of a particular song.  This particular group did a reasonable job of bringing off the concert, but it hugely was frustrating to me to watch how politics completely negated the necessary process of jazz improvisation.  It was strange once again to have a concert billed under a member of the Fayetteville Symphony, and have it actualized as someone else's group.  Without being blunt this is a misrepresentation.  Tim Altman while a substantial trumpeter had nothing to do with this gig.  He played some lead trumpet on the charts.  Rarely he played an improvised solo.  All I can think is the gig must be paying heaps to attempt such an amalgamation.  I was required to support the players in an very unrealistic way.  Anywhere in America where you go hear jazz, the politics of an area do not dictate how an audience member is required to behave.  I actually resent being engaged by the group's leaders as a second grader in an elementary school workshop.  I feel no responsibility to boost the egos of orchestra members who have no true ability to understand the process of jazz improvisation.  While I will watch and support their efforts, I cannot make myself lie in public.  I can't clap for improvised solos that sound like beginners.  Especially I cannot clap for improvised solos that sound like beginners that are being purveyed by doctors of music.  It just rubs salt into my wound.  Finally I cannot stroke the egos of college level professors who also hold full time jobs with the Fayetteville Symphony.  It feels too much like corporate monopoly.  What is most distasteful of all if watching these men pull the wool over the eyes of the listeners with immature references to behaviors that are a part of the jazz soul.  Being capable of drinking half a bottle of bourbon in one sitting and improvising an authentic jazz solo, jokes about "adult beverages" and "drinking after the gig" miss the base for me.  For the jazz musicians who are part of America's historical lineage, many were heroin addicts or alcoholics.  It was much too serious of an issue to joke about casually on the bandstand.  To me at least they were not funny.  It was not funny in the least to see a cotillion club attempt to get blasted in public.  Never in all of my years of experience with authentic jazz music has this behavior been witnessed.  Never has a jazz musician stooped to the level of the informal banter of Frank Sinatra.  That is because often they relied upon alcohol as a known and necessary aid to the art of self expression.  Why would anyone find it necessary to joke about the need to eat, shit, or fuck?  We do it because we have to.  Jazz on the other hand is something we think about at a very high level and respect almost as much as the Creator.  That is because art forms in a nutshell are a refection of Him.  They are the quintessential axioms of life.  It is disheartening to watch it.  It was disheartening to watch America's only true art form depicted as such causal selfish musical folly.  It was disheartening to watch human beings empower themselves selfishly with falsehoods.  It happens everyday in North Carolina, and her people are so ignorant they do not know the difference.  While I have no desire to disparage the musicians,  I leave their concert with a more conflicted conscience.  While fully I am capable of representing its artistry authentically, this concert with complete and total deliberation quelled my desire to try to expose its quackery.  It seems you can't ever change the cultural biases of the American South.  We have been hiding in our plantation homes shielded by cotton fields for too long.  Why would we ever want to keep pace with the rest of the world and evolve?  

There are Postulates and There are Axioms

There are postulates and there are axioms.  Johnny Carson was an axiom.  Jay Leno was a postulate.  David Letterman is an axiom.  Jimmy Fallon is an axiom.  Conan O'Brien used to be an axiom.  With the return of his sidekick, now he is a postulate.  Jimmy Fallon is teetering on the brink of becoming a postulate, because of his choice to fill the shoes of host of "The Tonight Show."  You can't always mix postulates and axioms.  Things work in certain places.  They don't work other places.  Jimmy Fallon's infectious talent worked well on "Late Night."  Just as David Letterman began in a small studio with underground-type material, trying to transition this format to mainstream TV is difficult.  Those are big shoes to fill.  Jay Leno was a postulate.  He lacked many of Johnny's defining characteristics.  I am not sure how he became the host of the Tonight Show.  Now he is richer than God.  "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" was an axiom, until it had to move to Fox.  With the disappearance of its catchy theme, the reappearance of a tired Andy Richter, and a bland and unmusical space Conan is now a postulate.  It is not really working.  Jimmy Fallon is doing a much better job of transitioning, because his move was a promotion.  It was wise to take "The Roots" with him.  It would have not worked without them.  Still the sheer responsibility of having to interview those chosen by the network or producer instead of running the show is a challenge.  He is making the best of it.  No one will be able to fill David Letterman's shoes.  His retirement will be a huge loss to the craft of television as will be the loss of Craig Ferguson.  In light of all the late night shuffling, Seth Meyers is doing well as Fallon's replacement.  While a little singular in approach, he is passionate and energetic.  Conan needs to understand that without certain production values, the show is not the same.  Bad audio, a bad set, and the return of Richter feels like a live radio show.  Sometimes it makes it and often it does not, because that Conan energy is not translating accurately to Fox.  American institutions are disappearing at a startling pace.  Some are worthy of preservation at all cost.  

AM and FM? Still Viable Today

Today was the day for me to finish installing our home's aerial antenna system.  In the kitchen our Bose Radio receives its FM signal from the aerial antenna on the roof attached to the chimney.  Its audio quality highly is improved.  In our den the stereo receiver receives its FM signal from the aerial antenna on the roof attached to the chimney.  Last but not least, my stereo, my out-of-date Luxman receiver which was damaged by a lightning strike, receives its FM signal from?  It used to be from the aerial antenna on the roof attached to the chimney.  Then we had our attic ventilation fan repaired.  Jose was not all to happy to see my coaxial cable coming in the bell housing of this non-operational fan.  He requested I remove it, and I did.  Temporarily I fed it back in through my window with the air conditioner.  There was a small open hole in the wood surround.   (Weeks in the past)  I awoke to the sound of rain in the middle of the night.  While this is not unusual and also rather pleasant, I could hear a, "Drip, drip, drip."  Whence was the coming?  A day later I discovered the rug in the middle of my bedroom was damp, but only in the middle.  There was no apparent leak in the ceiling.  I figured I had spilled a bottle of water there.  A few days later, I find more water in the middle of the rug.  I had to solve the mystery, and I did (after inventing the internet.)  The water was traveling down this coaxial cable transecting my bedroom feeding my out-of-date Luxman receiver with its FM signal.  The hole in the wood surround almost was twice the size as the cable, because its plug had strain relief around it.  Once you got the plug through, the cable diameter was half its size.  The water merrily coagulated on the cable outdoors and swam like overzealous sperm into the middle of my bedroom, where they impregnated my wool rug.  Drats!  I solved it and promptly plugged the hole with a dowel rod and wood filler.  Alas many weeks with no FM signal from the aerial antenna on the roof attached to the chimney.  Today was the day.  "This is the girl."  Note from director:  "You're not shutting down my movie! (at least not before I bash your windshield with my golf clubs and pour a can of latex paint into my whore of a wife's jewelry box.)  This got me a punch in the mouth from Miley Cyrus' dad.  Today was the day.  Two ladders had to be retrieved from locked cache on the side of the house, one for the scuttle inside into the attic, and the other for access to the roof.  One soffit vent had to be removed and a fish tape used to snake the coaxial cable into the attic.  It took two tries and a little improvisation from inside an insulation-filled cavity.  Luckily the hole in the 2x4 of the wall all ready was drilled from a previous cable TV connection.  Feed the cable down into the hole, cut a hole in the wall for the electrical box, attach the cable to the faceplate, and stick it in.  It almost was too easy intellectually, but I sweated up my clothes as usual and had to change.  In the past each day I arise from bed I push the buttons on my two stereo receivers. The Luxman receives the FM signal, because strangely the AM and FM busses were not damaged by the lightening strike.  I take the pre-amp out of the Luxman and run it into one of the Tape Monitors of my Kenwood receiver.  This way I get the high fidelity of the Luxman sound and the utility of the Kenwood's multiple inputs.  As I sit listening to my result I only can wish that WCPE would play some peppier music.  When the radio interference lessens, when airplanes land, when helicopters chill, and that FM signal freely can ebb and flow, it will be glorious.  

The Cameraman Has the D.T.'s

"For God's sakes man!  Put down that camera and take a drink.  Your hands are shaking so badly, you can't keep the camera still."  

Note from Director:  "Film from an insect's perspective.  Flinch a lot.  Move nervously.  Operate at warp speed.  Relinquish any human quality whatsoever."

Note from Lighting Designer:  "Lighting a human face from below creates a demonic effect.  Why would the director shoot from this angle?"  

Note from Producer:  "We are trying to produce a demonic effect in a completely normal scene.  It makes the inane dribble more interesting.  Who cares if it doesn't make sense?"  

Modern day television.  

Note from Director:  "The cast can't have any talent, so we must make what they are doing and saying interesting somehow."  

Notes from Cast Members:  "Can't you just attach the camera to a tripod, and let us create the drama?  That's how it was done in the old days."  

Note from the Asshole who created this aesthetic:  "I will die soon, and then television can regain its artistic integrity.  After all we are just insects anyway buzzing around."  

It bothers me when I want to watch a television program, but I can't because it gives me motion sickness.  The world around me all ready is spinning.  The earth is spinning.  Politicians are spinning.  Washing machines are spinning.  I don't need for my TV programs to spin.  I need them to sit still like good little boys and girls and say their lines and make their marks.  Give the cameraman some Ritalin, or better yet give him another drink.  He needs it.  

The Instability of our Financial Systems

The financial systems in America have been taking a beating.  Seminal corruptions have occurred not only from greed, but from irresponsibility.  It is amazing our country still is liquid and alive.  It is time to take a good look at what could transpire in our country.  If Russian hackers have been able to penetrate the systems of Target, Home Depot, and J.P. Morgan, it will not be long before other systems fall.  These will include those of our state and federal governments.  Our banks all ready have failed, but if they do again how with a 16 trillion dollar debt will the FDIC pay back tax payers lost dollars?  We all ready have had a Great Depression. With the failing of the North American Free Trade Agreement we have witnessed the collapse of the Mexican peso.  I smell a second crisis not far in the future.  It would be as easy as dipping one's hand into America's coffer and handing it to Wall Street cronies on the eve of your departure from the American presidency.  You could allot the rest of the TARP funds to the incoming President, and let him take the heat for supporting a Tea-Party-creating "Stimulus."  It would be easy for Russian hackers to infiltrate our banking systems and simply drain our money away.  The federal government simply then could cry wolf.  Then again, do we as Americans even have any money?  I guess the answer really is, "No."  The wealth in the world certainly is not held in American banks.  That would be stupid.  They are sheltered in Grand Cayman and Switzerland.  I guess they are immune from such a cyber attack.  It wouldn't be such a strain for the federal government to reimburse its citizens in case of such a crisis.  Do we really trust these banks?  My bank of which I have had the same account for thirty three years, recently was fined eighteen billion dollars by America's Justice Department.  That does not instill a sense of security in me.  It has been common in history to loose everything.  Is that really an option?  Do we have the financial security in America to assure this will not happen?  We were happy enough to bail out American car manufacturers, but they for the most part made good and repaid their loans.  How will the American people do it?  We don't make cars.  We don't sell hedge funds.  We are not investment bankers.  If our hard-earned money is squandered or stolen by Russian cyber hackers, what will happen?  It would be a surprising shite state affairs.  With this in mind is is easy to understand Doomsday Preppers.  I don't necessarily mean the television program.  Mark Pitcavage has been monitoring extremist militias in America for years through his Military Watchdog website.  (now archived)  These particular individuals it seems no longer are of interest to the news media.  They are so selective in what they chose to report.  It has become to be what the news media decides is newsworthy, not what is of relevance to the citizens of America.  Tabloid Television.  Reality Newspaper.  Edward R. Murrow would turn over in his grave at the understanding of the American media.  Investigative reporting would need a linear approach.  It would take place over a longer period of time.  It would remain relevant.  It would be tenacious in exposing truth about American practices.  It would provide some if not all of the stability we need to re-establish a Mainstream America.  With adolescent gossip shows lobbing shit at each other and politicians, how will reality ever become known?  They are enjoying the game too much just like every other red-necked, college-football-watching, bury-your-head-in-the-sand do nothing. Of what possible interest is the Conditions of America, because all of Saul Alinsky's conditions have been met.  We have achieved a social state.  Our freedoms are gone.  The opinion of the working man is irrelevant.  Our futures are balancing on eggshells.  Who will take the fall, really?  The elite few will take their place in underground asylums, and the rest of us will fight it out tooth and nail, hand to hand, for the very survival of the human race.  It is not far in the future.  It is a bleak prospect.  We all ready have ruined the planet.  Imagine having to live off of the ruined earth.  The good thing is with Armageddon, maybe between the final fight of good versus evil and The Judgement Day, we could turn off the furnaces.  The airplanes and jets would cease to fly, the diesel trains would coast to a halt, cars would run out of gas, and we could live in peace for just a short time.  It could be glorious.  

A Disposable Society: America

       American community organizer and writer Saul Alinsky had his own bucket list for the creation of a social state.  While I disagree with the fundamental negative connotation of "social state," what he surmised is interesting.  Here are the eight levels:

1.  Control healthcare and you control the people.
2.  Increase the poverty level as high as possible, because the poor are more easily controlled. 
3.  Increase debt to an unsustainable level.  This way you can 
raise taxes and thus produce more poverty.
4.  Remove the ability to defend one's self.  (The right to bear arms) That way a police state can be created.  
5.  Relying upon welfare, take control of each and every aspect
of people's lives.  (food, housing, and income)  
6.  Take control of what children learn in school.
7.  Remove the belief in God from the government and schools.
8.  Create class warfare between the rich and poor.  

      While this list is not quite as accurate as Mr. Alinky's original, it creates a certain amount of doubt in the American mind.  At least it should.  Instinctively I have observed these things happening in the United States.  While at times I have lamented about being born into the wrong generation, now it seems as if my generation is the only one capable of seeing such changes take place.  The Baby Boomers lived in their own bubble.  That almost is extinct.  They got theirs for them.  Gen. X was not left with much except baggy blue jeans and flannel shirts.  They did create a viable form of commercial music that today vehemently is ignored.  Who wants to hear about the angst of their youth?  Certainly no one that is interested in their well being.  We have proven that.  On the second try with less resistance from Grunge music, which had a substantial financial message, America was able to allocate the true functionality of her youth.  "We exploit them."  When the fight of Gen. X waned, it was easier to convince each child in America that they needed a "portable communication device."  When I was a kid we had Walkie Talkies.  They were available at the local Sears and Robuck store.  While they had telescoping antennas they did function worth a damn.  Two cans and a piece of string did better.  (I wish the television commercial that is using this set up as a prop, would reinforce that the string has to be pulled taught for it to vibrate properly and carry sound in the can amplifiers.)  Cell phones in their short history have gone through very discreet phases of development.  I never could hear on one, so without the aid of an earpiece I chose not to use it.  I still don't.  My income can't substantiate a wireless communication device with a base price tag of $600.00 and a rental fee of $50.00 a month.  That is a lot of clams.  I can think of better things to do to occupy my time, such as compose music.  The cell phone can wait.  The bottom line is the cell phone is an entertainment device.  There is novelty in its use.  Given the quality of an AT&T ground line and its modest price, I saw no reason to change for the sake of popularity.  The campaign was effective, and the virus spread.  Cellular phones could be the only truly mainstream item in existence in America.  Music is not uniting anyone, nor are mass shootings.  What I am wondering is when and why America became a "do or die" situation.  When did we become disposable?  When did we become so "attention deficit" that we can't remember what came before today?  I believe this rule should be added to Mr. Alinksy's bucket list.  

9.  Take away the human being's mind's ability to concentrate and   
      thus think.  (Create Attention Deficit Disorder)  

At the same time we could throw in a few other maladies that would alter the effectiveness of a properly functioning mind.
  
What I truly am questioning is how we became an "intangible" nation.  What I truly am questioning is how we became a "disposable" nation.   My only answer can be that this ideal has come from television broadcasting.  Television in America drastically has changed.  Why does it concern me?  It concerns me because I always have enjoyed watching late night television, that is as an adult.  When I was a child I enjoyed watching at the normal times, cartoons on Saturday morning, and prime time in the evenings.  These days I only can stomach late night television and that too has taken a dive.  Without criticizing bad writing, I want to focus on the approach of today's TV.  First and foremost the amount of time allotted to commercials it seems as just the same as programming material.  When I channel surf in the wee hours of the night and find a good movie, I have to sit through five minutes of commercials each five minutes before being able to see the end of the movie.  It is nerve wracking.  Usually I give up.  I do this at other times as well.  It seems to me that if you dissuade your viewer from staying on the same network, you are missing the boat.  Isn't the goal to keep viewers?  This could of course could work toward the advantage of other networks, since you will flip through them.  Unfortunately it is likely that at any given time, if your surf through say seventy one basic cable channels there only will be commercials showing.  This happens to me often.  I find at a given moment no programming at all, only a barrage of unrelated, unartistic, pop-oriented advertisements that annoy me.  There has been but one exception, the commercial for J.G. Wentworth that uses real opera singers in a bus actually singing the ad's message.  Because it is so rare I get choked up watching it.  It harkens back to the time in my life when I was pursuing music full time.  I was working on the D.M.A. in Composition.  Then and only then was immersing one's self in the artistry of Western music copacetic.  Here in America what's the point?  We don't understand the music anyway.  The Baby Boomers and their sensibilities are almost extinct.  What is left?  It is a scary thought.  Dare I say Miley Cyrus?  Justin Bieber?  Is this what the youth of America understand today as music?   What I long for in my life is a sense of line.  A sense of line recognizes recent history, relies upon education, and maintains a sense of leverage in life.  It is not disposable.  Why should it be?  When did the state of the human being become tossing them away like dirty paper cups?  Television invented this concept.  Possibly in competition with the internet's interactive nature, television needed a new direction.  Why not use "Newspeak?"  George Orwell all ready invented it in "1984."  Why not say, "To hell with the truth.  Let's just lob out random lies and cover the reactions of the American public."  To an extent we still are in this modus operandi.  What I long for is a sense of line in life.  I long for a time when life is not sensational.  It is average and ordinary.  I long for a time when through the philosophy of Zen, we are able to quiet ourselves and our minds from the superfluous overstimulation of modern society allowing our own ideals to come to fruition.  This is what I attempt each and every day, and I fail.  The phrenetic pace of television is not helpful, nor is its scare tactics.  While fully I believe the grass roots survival programming is relevant, trying to scare the viewing populace with grotesque imagery is childish.  We have the cellular phone to blame for this.  Without it many of the disturbing photos and videos would not be in circulation.  It is in extremely bad taste that television media is broadcasting some of this programming.  Tangibility.  Tangibility to me is knowing and understanding what is around you each and every day.  I feel I may be the exception to the rule, because having returned to my "home" town after years working in the cruise industry, I have no security.  Things have been cemented into place for decades, and they are not changing.  I am operating on the fringes, and in no way do I have any desire to penetrate the perimeter.  It is oppressive.  It is staid.  It is boring.  It is uncreative.  I should say, "It is conservative."  It seems like we are operating on a virginal landscape.  Is it not well-known that most things all ready have been accomplished in our world.  I know this because I can remember.  I can remember the hundreds of television shows made and broadcast in the 70's and 80's that are better than what we see today.  It is because they contained social commentary about the Conditions of America.  They were reinforced each week over years.  Nothing was going to change tomorrow.  There were no terrorists.  There was a Cold War, a war that was fought intellectually.  Today we have been dragged back into the trenches fighting day to day for our sole survival, and it is tiring.  It is a ploy.  It is a plan.  It is an approach being implemented to weaken America, and we are complying.  In my view television is responsible for the largest part of this campaign, and Rupert Murdoch certainly has something to do with it.  Back in the day you could look forward to watching "Fat Albert" toe the line of modern racism with a soundtrack by Quincy Jones.  Today we watch crime scenes.  I don't much like it.  

We No Longer are Free

Freedom in America has gone out with the tide.  In its wake are 70,000 dead fish on the banks of the Ohio River.  Of course the drinking water drawn from this source is safe to drink for humans.  How could fish and humans be the same?  There is coal ash still in the Dan River in North Carolina.  Of course the drinking water drawn from this source is safe to drink for humans.  "Silkwood" ring a bell?  Freedom in America has gone out with the tide.  What does that really mean?  What that really means is no one gives a rat's ass about the common man in America.  Freedom has gone out with the tide.  Do you really believe anyone has got your back?  Let's get rid of drinkable tap water and sell Americans bottled water instead.  Let's take every conceivable earned American freedom, abolish it, and sell it back to the American people for a profit.  Capitalism.  Gotta love it.  Where has this breakdown occurred?  Who is it that is supposed to look out for this common man?  That pattern has ebbed and flowed in American history.  Most quintessentially Franklin Delano Roosevelt possibly best represents this entity.  Is that the sole responsibility of America's president?  It seems this leader bears a variety of responsibilities.  He is the Commander and Chief.  Being the highest ranking officer of America's military doesn't necessarily mean they have the best interest of the common man in mind.  We would hope so.  In the definition of Capitalism is there anywhere that states we as citizens and patriots are required to give a rat's ass about our neighbors?  I think not.  That language is reserved for religious dogma.  "Love thy neighbor as thyself."  It seems to me Socialism [sic] encompasses such an ideal.  "Socialist!"  Rednecked Republican Americans wield this term vivaciously against current President Obama.  In reality this contingency is redefining the American populace, or perhaps just clarifying that the populace doesn't care about their fellow man.  What would be the benefit of that?  Oh, is it perhaps that Capitalism doesn't work unless citizens spend money?  (Like now.)  Since the "Financial Crisis" (or rather the fleecing of the American people by Wall Street) Americans have not had enough excess cash really to spend.  Why is this?  It is because all of that money swiped with hedge funds is sitting idle in banks.  The unreliable media is reporting that the super wealthy are too tired to spend the money.  Thus it sits idle in banks both domestic and afar.  Capitalism only works if money flows through the system.  Workers must earn, and then they must spend.  The "capital" freely flows between parties.  Hoarding money like junk is a perilous plight.  It sits stagnant like a pile of garbage.  Mold and algae will grow on it until it deteriorates into nothingness.  Enter "Economic Crisis of No Previous Proportions" in American history.  
Is it possible we could experience a second "Great Depression" in America?  Of course.  Of course that water is safe to drink.  If the economy (i.e. commercial banking) collapses, what will happen to all of that hedge fund money?  If it is not worth anything, could it still maintain its value?  Is it better to vent it now when money is needed rather than let it deteriorate in stuffy vaults?  There is a half life to each and every element.  Money could be considered an element in terms of Capitalism, since it is the most necessary ingredient.  What if it had a half life like an element?  What if it over time and devolution said money became unimportant?  After all it is not doing anything worthy.  It is sitting in a dusty vault unused.  If anarchy erupts in America and the markets collapse, than this money will be rendered worthless.  It has happened before.  Then what will become valuable?  Goods?  Services?  Food?  Energy?  Skills?  Possibly the things that were deemed valuable when building a nation would become valuable.  America.  If all of that Wall Street-controlled money is not allocated to re-build America in the wake of her rape, what will happen?  The rapist will go to jail for eternity and never be allowed to provide restitution.   They will burn in hell fire forever.  Wouldn't it be better to restore the American system of Capitalism by re-inventing it?  I believe so.    

Living the American Musical Dream in Academia

I was lucky enough in my life to have experienced college teaching at two universities.  Three of those years were as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and one year was as an adjunct jazz faculty member at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.  I will admit it was the holy grail of music jobs.  You commanded respect. You got to play music. You enjoyed a small amount of celebrity, or at least I did.  It is difficult to remember, because I never wanted to be a music star.  I was a college teacher.  When I began to write my own fusion jazz music and employed Chris Potter as our saxophonist, the group Quintessence began to enjoy a certain amount of notoriety.  Mainly it was because we won the semi-finals of the Hennesy Cognac Jazz Search.  I rented a cargo van and we trucked down to New Orleans with a trailer in tow to perform at the Storyville nightclub.  Doc Severinsen was one of the judges.  Largely responsible for our win were two female fans who happened to be girlfriends of members of the band.  They came with us on the trip.  I remember it was a trying time, and the logistics of moving our gear to the French Quarter was somewhat of a hassle.  I didn't enjoy any of it.  Evidently everyone else did, and surprisingly to me when we performed these two women went nuts for our show.  It was infectious, and Doc was smitten with the energy of the two attractive blondes.  I was grateful for the experience, but I did not know that success would change my life in the near future.  I was not teaching at USC at that time, but I was making a living playing music in Columbia.  I used this time wisely after I was passed over for the full-time position of jazz faculty member.  I spent two complete years studying the recorded history of jazz music with the help of local record store "Papa Jazz."  I had a friend who had completed the same degree as me, and he knew everything.  We became friends, and together we listened to most of the great "sides."  My jazz piano playing developed as it should have, and I produced my first recording called "Crystal Raindrops."  It was copyrighted in l991, and other than a treasure trove of underground internet videos  that have surfaced of Mr. Potter playing in "Pugs" at Five Points, I believe this could be considered to be his first professional studio recording.  Some day I will release it along with twelve CD's I have produced, much of my own original music.  As I mentioned earlier, I had no desire to be a jazz star.  I was a college teacher, or at least I was at one point.  Possibly out of necessity I found myself trying to be something I wasn't.  Shortly after I was passed over for the full time professorship, Lee and I broke up.  It was a nasty affair that ended badly.  Never did I get closure on the break up until decades later when I decided it was time to heal the wound.  The problem became suddenly I found it necessary to try to be something I wasn't, because the clout from my teaching position was gone.  Suddenly the support I had had from students and friends disappeared.  It was like I was dropped off of a cliff, and to boot I had been branded the bad guy from my ex spouse.  Desperately and without dignity I groveled in front of her and with my musical career.  Needless to say it was over on both fronts.  I continued to play music for a short time, but after realizing the height of my musical career had become being in a wedding band, I decided to move back home.  The year that came next was the worst of my life.  After this year of continuing to play my original fusion jazz music in North Carolina, I applied to the doctoral program at Ohio State University.  After being accepted I hauled myself and my belongings five hundred miles to Cowtown where I set out on a new and different musical journey.  Still being a music star was not in my consciousness.  I knew that being a jazz pianist was no vehicle to such a thing.  Instead I focused on developing as a musician.  I wrote jazz-oriented music for several years also while developing a classical style.  When the threat of the General Exams got closer, I had to shelve my jazz inclinations and focus on contemporary classical music.  As always I continued to play as a keyboardist both because I enjoyed it and because I could make money.  Never did I aspire to be a "music star."  What I did aspire to was what I feel most composers do.  I aspired to have my music available to the public.  Because much of the music industry is convoluted and is connected to large sums of money, it seems to me now that not many venues exist for marketing music at a grass roots level.  Why must it be that the music business is a "Do or die" scenario?  To this day it is perplexing to me.  Like any other profession musical skill is compounded over time.  With study, practise, and knowledge comes a better degree of musicianship.  For me it is like water.  I have played music my entire life.  It was in the genes.  The idea of having to pimp myself or my wares to a rabid public is repugnant.  There is no way I in any way ever will allow the integrity of my music to be judged on a panel of a American reality television show.  I have come to realize the public no longer is the proper litmus test for quality music.  For the most part they are musically illiterate.  That creates a great deal of tension in my life, because with a catalog of music rather vast where am I to use it?  This brings up an issue that has become disturbing to me.  As I reflect now I remember that I had an opinion about it before now.  I had to abandon this sentiment, because it had caused me great pain in my life.  My dedication to the field of music teaching was shattered when the job for which I seemingly was preened was given to a musical celebrity.  I experienced first hand the disappointment and reality of politics.  It was a difficult axe to bear in my heart.  I learned how the political game worked.  Academia in particular was a ruthless shark.  They take for themselves what they want, and cast the rest aside.  I saw how connections, friends, and networks decided who got the job, not who was most qualified.  It is the responsibility of the university to recruit students into their programs with flashy resumes, impressive biographies, and politics.  It didn't really seem to matter if the job really was going to be done.  It didn't, and to this day it seems to not to matter if students are being taught well in college.  It was a common anecdote that, "If you can't teach, teach teachers."  After being out of academic for for than twenty years, that brutal reality has beset itself upon me again.  It is as difficult a pill to swallow now as it was two decades ago.  The jobs in academia often are a popularity context.  Especially the music-oriented professorships, because they entail performance, are steeped in pretense and ego.  Please understand my sentiment about his is not sour grapes.  I have no desire whatsoever to exist in this vacuum.  In fact I have no desire to pursue music at all, because America as a country is not capable of understanding or feeling it.  I fight with this notion each and every day.  The things that always have motivated me to write and perform music are absent.  Instead I am back in the same black hole I escaped years ago by traveling to Columbus.  What exactly am I talking about?  I am talking about a contingency of musicians who seem not to know the roots of their music.  They are living in the same bubble of musical idolatry I did in the late l980's.  I have learned my lesson.  If the aesthetic of music is powerful enough to kill you, then I am not doing it.  Since I have left Columbus many many musicians I have known and worked with are dead.  It has been an enigma to me.  What possibly could be going on with musicians in Cowtown?  The reality is possibly once there was a nurturing, caring, loving environment which appreciated music.  I played in it for many years.  Then I realized this reality only was a bubble.  If you laid your musical heart out on the line, as America has devolved you could be slain.  Several musician colleagues  have committed suicide.  Others have died inexplicably.  In most of the instances their deaths are cloaked in secrecy.  What I want to suggest is that life in America should not be a matter of life and death.  While certainly it has been at certain points in history, we evolved as a country to provide a certain amount security and comfort to our citizens.  The War on Terror and the blatant Campaign of Fear and Intimidation by television as a whole is seeking to uproot this national security.  Many prolific jazz musicians were poor.  Because they were poor did not mean that they had to behave in a desperate way.  With education, knowledge, and thus wisdom men and women can learn to live in respect and harmony with the Creator no matter how poor.  As with music I never will ever put human existence up against a love and desire for musical fulfillment.  Music can satisfy deep human emotional needs, but the reliance upon these needs being met also can kill you.  It is better to take a step back and regain one's perspective when music is your only goal.