The Extinction of American Popular Music

When I was a college teacher I never got much resistance from my students about what I taught.  They believed me, because I was talented as a musician.  Later in life when I was not teaching young people began to question and disagree with things I felt strongly about.  One was the definition of jazz.  As American music has regressed the traditional postulates of a quality music education have been cast aside.  America is fond these days of qualifying her own bullshit.  Just as historical periodicals threw in the towel for better sales, the rest of America has followed.  When Time magazine questions the validity of God on their front cover, we should know something is amiss.  I try to remember that the Holocaust was not really that long ago.  The murderous atrocities of Adolph Hitler still are lukewarm, and they are surrounding us each and every day.  Fascism is ensconced in American society and is being promulgated by the powers at be.  The powers at be in my realization are a younger generation of Americans that missed the school bus.  It seems they were exempt from developing a sound moral conscience, because the ethical standards by which America has stood and thrived have been compromised.  If you abolish Christianity then those ignorant are free to behave as they wish with no regard for their common man.  While I do believe there are such movements in play in our country, ignorance has become a metaphor for these compromised ideals.  Ignorance only can be the cause of the fall of music and television.  As I have begun watching and listening more critically, instead of getting angry I am getting disillusioned.  Music education always has been a liberal art, a collection of disciplines chosen by the ancient Greeks that were deemed crucial to a fulfilling human existence.  We have grown so far away from these liberal arts, that America bears little resemblance to her once glory.  We lead in very little these days.  I can't really think of anything in particular that can be attributed to American ingenuity.  What I have found is my cultural proclivities are matched only by other nationalities.  I find great comfort in the musical works of the Russians.  They, unlike music I hear in America, resonate with me as being vibrant, wise, and visionary.  The Russian Five while rebelling against Tchakovsky's nationalism sought to forge their own musical futures not by adhering to anachronistic dogma but by pushing the limits of music.  Similarly the Second Vienesse School, something of which I never hear about in America, pioneered a new kind of musical expression.  This expression represents an evolution of the human mind and spirit, something of which we know not in America.  We still are stuck in the doldrums of worthless pop fodder with no thought for a rebirth of a once former nation.  It is because we do not care.  I am not sure why everyone seems to have laid down their arms and surrendered. Unquestionably during the tenure of George W. Bush there was an avid campaign of fear and intimidation.  With a lack of emphasis and thus funding of public education, Americans have grown more and more ignorant.  With this ignorance has come a selfishness that belies rational understanding.  How can society expect to provide empathy to those desiring to be ignorant?  Luckily I have been shielded from this movement most of my life.  Only moving back to Fayetteville, North Carolina have I witnessed such an unsettling ignorance.  Just as many Republican pundits have campaigned upon, there is a large active faction of worthless Americans looking for handouts.  How does the city of Fayetteville respond?  It refuses to allow a new manufacturing plant to build here providing hundreds of sorely needed jobs.  Likewise many of the homeless shelters have been closed demanding these citizens live under bridges in the bitter cold.  I take pride in transporting my refuse to the city landfill.  It is like a little adventure having my pick up truck weighed and paying a few dollars to make the city cleaner.  Today the city requires personal vehicles pay a flat twenty dollar fee no matter what the content or quantity of their load.  Twenty dollars to pay to get rid of your garbage?  I refuse, and while I realize it is an attempt to truncate the line of cars at the dump, I do not agree.  That is fascist to charge citizens to unload their garbage.  We should be rewarded with a tax break for being conscientious.  Whether it is possible that the faction of gratuity seekers still is playing the slavery card I am not sure.  Racism like many ills of America have returned to blossom in this new ignorance.  It doesn't matter.  What seems to matter is the more intelligent and thus affluent intend to keep taking advantage of us.  Those with no intelligence are shit out of luck.  Music and television are not helping like they should be.  At their great height in American history both mediums transcended petty selfishness and sought to educate America.  It was demanded.  It was demanded by a generation of purveyors who now rapidly have died.  Journalists, sports commentators, television writers, directors, and musicians have disappeared at a startling rate, and there is no one left to take the reins.  It is frustrating to me because my entire life I have been prepared to take these reins, but there was not opportunity.  Today I feel still there is no opportunity, because opportunity is controlled by politics.  Not only have my mentors moved on to a better place, what is left is ignorance.  It is an ignorance so deep that it is in denial.  Most easily it can be personified by one questioning the definition of jazz music.  Most easily that severe ignorance is expecting there to be no vocation.  "Why must we study music or television to be good at it?  Let just change the rules and pitch it out there, and no one will notice the difference."  One only has to pay attention to a television program to see that there is no concept.  Again the ignorant would say anything goes.  "Why would we need a 'concept' to give our shit meaning?"  Consequently we have shit.  It is due time that the shit is flushed by those knowing the difference.  That is not a panel of celebrities feeling they are qualified to adjudicate musical juries.  That is not untrained actors feeling they are qualified to act.  That is not pretty faces and curvaceous bodies twerking on stage.  There are disciplines, disciplines of television and music production.  Just because the tools of production have been shrunk into a laptop computer does not product create.  One must study the lineage of production that  is your predecessor.  A thorough study of those that came before your own damn self is the first step to enlightenment.  This principle often is cited in criticism of contemporary classical music.  "Does the music refer to anything other than itself, or is it just self indulgent masturbation?"  The personal computer and the internet once groundbreaking  now have succumbed to the shallow capitalism of America.  Once a connected data base of academic institutions, the internet now nurtures prostitution, pornography, and sex trafficking.  Story telling is a lost American art form,  because we do not have time in our days to listen to the toils of others.  We struggle to survive and our existence reflects it.  We are at a low point in American history.  This new ignorance is the simple declaration that American jazz is anything.  If anything seems to work, then it is jazz.  If anything is jazz, than anything is Rock 'n' Roll.  Anything is R&B.  Anything is country music.  Anything is soul music.  Anything is Gospel music.  This anything, the epitome of ignorance, is "pop" music and reality television.  Just as I labored watching an American Sniper live his meager life, I labor watching ignorant faux celebrities trying to entertain.  It is a disgrace, but humiliation has become the new American entertainment.  I first hand was involved in the transformation.  While working professionally as a musician on cruise ships, I watched Karioke usurp live music.  It seems this newer generation of ignorant rather would humiliate themselves for fun rather that watch an artistic band.  Slowly the observation of this humiliation overtook musical quality in cruise shows.  The people no longer were interested in the music.  They just wanted to watch the performers struggle at their jobs, because it was tangible.  It was more tangible than television, because we musicians were paid professionals attempting to do our jobs.  Never have I seen television cameras placed inside a courtroom to observe as a skilled attorney litigates a case.  Never have I seen cameras placed in an operating room to observe a skilled surgeon.  We have been sold out, musicians.  Once an energetic driving force of humanity has been reduced to a few nondescript digital samples of analog waveforms and jungle drums.  They are not even good drums.