The Orchestra That No Longer are There

Yesterday I ventured into the woods for the first time in many weeks.  (I don't like being heckled by the neighborhood children.)  There only is one really, but the experience was enough to cut short their enjoyment.  If a child is stupid enough to yell taunts at a stranger in the woods carrying a chainsaw.  Well you get the picture.  That is not a very smart drink of water.  I realized this later, but then working in the woods is my therapy.  I used to enjoy working in the woods, cutting trees, pulling vines, and trimming brush.  It was more visceral than working in your yard.  It is a bit Boy Scout.  It is a bit military.  It is a bit "man."  Working in the woods many men do in the American South.  I'll bet they do it everywhere in America.  I'll also bet many men who do this may be considered "Radical Militants" by their communities.  They are not, and neither am I.  I just am not a pussy.  I like wielding an ax.  I also like swinging it into an aberrant rotten tree blocking my trails. An ax is and always has been a useful tool, but useful tools today in America are smart phones, Bluetooth speakers, and ?  An ax is "Old School."  Geez, we are getting so ignorant, naive, and pubescent in America it will not be long until our entire historical culture may be lost.  I'll call it Generation Pussy.  Kids todays are pussies.  It seems the people in my neighborhood are afraid of "the guy in the woods with the chainsaw."  Is it that uncommon to see a man cutting fallen trees in a patch of woods in a neighborhood?  These kids have overactive imaginations, because they life they live is pathetic.  It is pathetic, because systematically we as a nation have purposely neglected the upbringing of our youth.  Instead we have capitalized upon them.  We have exploited them.  We have indoctrinated them with wuss.  It is the America America has become, and it sucks.  Each day I read the news in the Fayetteville Observer or online the same unconscionable theme appears.  How is the state government in North Carolina taking advantage of her citizens?  First what must be jar-headed Republican politicians re-draw the boundaries of voting districts to favor themselves thinking no one will notice.  A federal court noticed and not only demanded a fair and unbiased redrawing of the boundaries again, but rescheduled the election for this November.  All politicians elected with the new boundaries must be voted for again.  I could go on.  Those property owners whose real estate was taken with imminent domain for the building of I-295 have not been paid.  The DOT under McCrory's watch built an impressive entrance to Fort Bragg, the home of Ground Forces Command, and took the property of incumbent residents without paying them!  It took Yarborough a class action lawsuit to make the state fess up their money.  Meanwhile if you see fit to carry your refuse to the city dump, you will pay $20.00 for the privilege of dropping it off there.  You are not rewarded for cleaning your property.  You are penalized with a fee, while you drive your vehicle up a dirt mound and unload your garbage yourself.  I would say the state of North Carolina is in dire financial straights.  What's new?  These practices have crept into government and corporate government since George W.  We are a scourge of a nation.  While I can laugh off these scenarios like I laugh off the condemnations of our newly-elected Commander and Chief, I can't laugh off the recent performance in Chapel Hill of Wynton's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.  How can I say what I am going to say without getting sued for defamation?  Tell the truth, brother, and only two percent of the American population even know what jazz is.  Swing Wynton called it at their Saturday evening performance at Memorial Hall.  I first heard the band Spyro Gyra at Memorial Hall in l981.  It was the most enjoyable concert I have ever seen next to the Turtle Island String Quartet.  I had an instinct, that I would not enjoy this ensemble, because anything that has risen to the ranks of "Lincoln Center" must be contemptuous.  How could jazz, a music that rose from the brothels of New Orleans, be heralded by Lincoln Center?  There is a chasm between orchestral music and jazz, while there should not be.  It is an accurate metaphor for the chasm between the Left and Right in America today.   I will elaborate.  Jazz never has been mainstream music in America.  It is considered to have been popular during World War ll.  With the doldrums of war upon us, regular American folk liked to escape reality by dancing to the Glenn Miller orchestra.  The Jitterbug and the Lindy Hop were appropriate vehicles for adolescent sexual tension.  Them internets are fucking up.  While teeny-boppers did dance to swing music back in the day, Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor always have prevailed as chosen artists for lackluster conformist Americans.  Jazz after all was considered "devil music" by the Nazi's.  Anything that represented freedom of expression and individualism during the Nazi occupation of Germany was outlawed.  It is called Communism.  Unbelievable we are experiencing a similar oppression in what now has become America.  I bristle at the notion of calling America American anymore, because we are not the same country we have been.  We are not the same country we have been, because how can the eldest statesman of jazz champion an ensemble that consciously does not at least try to swing?   Wynton Marsalis, the most known and respected jazz artist of our century sat at the helm of an orchestra that knowingly played the "pop" rhythmic style rather than traditional swing.  (and he called it swing)  This is a prickly pear, and one about which I have blogged for years.  Ninety-nine percent of American won't be able to tell the different.  To boot those ninety-nine percent are to whom the Marsalis band is kowtowing.  Jazz is dead in America, and Wynton voiced that publicly.  He said if you wanted to continue to work in the field of jazz, you better do what the people want.  Hence "Pop."  What's the difference?  How actually can you play swing in pop style?  It is not that easy by the looks of the players in the Lincoln Center Ensemble.  None of them moved.  None of them grooved.  None of them show an ounce of rhythm in their bodies as they played this so-called jazz music.  I never have seen anything like it.  It felt like I was sitting at the most square, white boy, classical recital in history.  They were afraid, uptight, and not having fun.  In addition when it became apparent that it was obvious the band was not swinging, they attempted to Uncle Tom an impression that they were.  Can anyone believe I am saying the name Wynton Marsalis and Uncle Tom in the same sentence?  Miles wouldn't have it.  He refused to "Uncle Tom."  His turning his back to the audience when leading the band lead to heartfelt outcries that he was insensitive the needs and desires of the audience.  This band abandoned the key concept of swing music, and watered down their music for the ignorant populace that has become America.  I won't explain it again.  Pop is not swing, although cruise ship and Broadway bands including the SNL band continue to mock the religion of music with a practice that is sacrilege.  I may be no Adjunct Faculty at North Carolina Central University, but I can look at a rhythm section and tell how they are playing.  They are not playing.