Idiot Television

The renaissance of the music industry never will happen until we get the trash television off the air.  I can't watch prime time television.  Maybe it's because I am an adult.  Maybe it's because I am a musician.  First I was a pianist.  My father was a jazz stylist on piano as well as being an exemplary band director.  He sang tenor in the Episcopal choir exercising his skill in sight singing each and every week.  He played all of the instruments and taught them.  I wanted to play the piano, because of my father and his musical talent.  He was an exemplary musician.  Not many of them exist anymore.  Another generation of talented musicians, and I mean authentic musicians, have left this earth.  They are shoes too large to fill.  They are shoes too large to fill, because today we have no realization of the depth of the field of music and no connection with its star purveyors.  The same thing has occurred in American history, but I never lived through it.  I didn't experience the death of jazz music at the behest of rock 'n' roll.  I read about jazz musicians dying in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.  I did experience the decline of the "rock star," but today many of those bands still tour.  Through the Billboard Top 100 I was able to experience the connection between early country music and swing.  None of these things while impactful upon American popular culture can compare to the decline of the jazz artist.  This decline of the jazz artist has effected every aspect of the commercial music industry.  Jazz musicians by nature are more intelligent than other musicians.  Classically trained musicians are similar, but there exists a feud between them.  I'm not sure if this feud still exists today.  I would think not, because jazz music has experienced a slow death.  Jazz and its significance to American culture has been downplayed to prop up what has become a hollow shell of American popular music.  It is simple.  As I sit here at my Macintosh computer and listen to AM Gold 1969, it is remarkably apparent that a once thriving music industry has been reduced to rubble.  As it is simple, there is a simple explanation.  Talent once used to provide the musical product.  Talent, an often misunderstood term, bridged all musical gaps, provided a tangible meaningful musical product, and ensured commercial success.  How?  Talent is artistry.  Artistry, another often misunderstood term, means a thing of such quality and integrity it stands the test of time.  In today's America we do not use such terms.  Honor.  Code. Loyalty.  I am not talking about the Marine Corp.  I am talking about the field of music.  Not only am I talking about the field of music, I am talking about artistry.  I am talking about music done at the level of art.  There was a time in American history not that long ago where a majority of the music was artistic.  It was the one thing that ensured its commercial success.  Today the hollow shell of our music industry relies upon spin and hype to market itself.  I cannot even use the worlds market and sell interchangeably, because this industry is not the same as it was a decade ago.  It like the rest of America no longer is honest and sincere.  Maybe it is passé to be such things.  Maybe with the existence of ISIL, ISIS, and beheadings it is naive to produce music of Christian integrity.  Maybe such terrorism demands that we adopt a reflective barbaric and uncompassionate attitude towards life.  The world will not sustain if we do.  Honesty of expression is the only element that can transcend evil.  It is possible the generation of the millennium don't question these issues.  They know no better.  Time/Life in particular have not made America's musical history an available commodity.  Once we heard this songbook for free reinforced every day on our radios.  It was a large part of our existence.  This no longer is true.  There are many reasons why.  One is today no one has much to say about things.  The last musical artist I can remember who had something to say and thus sing about was Jewel.  Whenever country music sold out that was the last straw for the music industry.  The one discipline of the music industry which remained true to themselves for so long gave up the fight.  It no longer was in vogue to be sad about your life's experiences.  Instead we just party like there's no tomorrow.  The world can't survive if humanity choses this option.  There is a bit of melancholy involved, because it is obvious today's wanna be pop stars have no inclination even to understand what their job is.  They are clueless.  Without a viable academic music education the resources are just no available anymore.  As an academically-trained musician systematically I have collected a catalog of pedagogical materials including recordings of music.  While my recorded anthology is far from complete, it covers most of what would be pop musicians should hear to even attempt their chosen vocation.  When I feel musically unsatisfied which is most of the time, I appreciate what I have.  Upon sampling from it this evening, it starkly is apparent that we are at yet another juncture.  The "voice" is dead.  The renaissance of the music industry never will happen until we get the trash television off the air.  It is not possible to replace an art form with hopes and dreams.