Tight Ass Music

My soundtrack for blogging tonight is Marvin Gaye's "What's Going on?"  Always I have understood how influential this recording is, but like some other major genres of American music, I missed the bus.  I didn't get the Beatles, until I was in my mid 30's.  I was not interested in them in my youth, because I was taking formal classical piano lessons.  My father was a jazz pianist and a band director.  His aesthetic of music was pretty specific.  He used the "Block Hands" George Shearing style of piano approach, and it was not until a year ago I realized what this was.  Shirley Scott also plays this way, and she is a righteous organist.  Of all of the jazz organists she knocked me out the most with her authoritative right hand harmonizing the melody with five fingers and the melody in an octave.  She mostly had a bass player on the session, so bass did not demand her consciousness.  She was no "pick up" organist, and she knew the songs cold and clinical.  Perfection of melody like reading from sheet music.  Perhaps she had a photographic memory.  Miles Davis did.  That would help.  This is boring musical fodder, but my brain is tired.  About what did I want to verbalize?  After profusely complaining about the hot humid weather in December, it got cold again.  While this kind of dreary cold is reminiscent of Cowtown (Columbus, Ohio), it is normal for winter.  We must accept it.  I am finding the Marvin Gaye a little cheesy, but okay.  With the flick of a button it is cold again.  How long will it last?  They are predicting warm for Christmas, and this is fucked up.  Well, actually it is not here.  Usually it is 70 degrees on Christmas day, and I hate it.  When you lose your winter culture, snow and its accompanying activities, you lose some of life.  It is important the winter months for many reasons.  As for politics I hope the jury begins to deliberate for Ghislaine Maxwell.  I find it humorous that her first name begins with "jizz," and that is no coincidence.  They were sex traffickers of the highest order, and it is disgusting and criminal this exploitation of young women.  It is a huge temptation, but the notion you can demand sex for money from children is evil.  The only way they got away with it was that the women rationalized their crimes by getting paid.  It was a manipulative scheme, almost as seamy as Trump stealing a presidential election from Hillary Clinton.  As for Chris Noth there is such a thing as a statute of limitations.  Just because he gets a resurrected TV career doesn't mean you can slander him.  You should have reported him to the authorities twenty years ago, when it was a crime.  Now it is just hearsay.  You're a day late and a dollar short.  I am not digging the Marvin Gaye.  I know it is great, but the sterility of the Motown concept bother me.  Barry Gordy and his crew borrowed from authentic R&B music and glamorized it.  It was watered down for white radio.  That is genius, but it does not sit well with me this concept.  It is empty of the raw emotion found in original American soul music.  It is an illusion, but the catalog has stood the test of time.  They are memorable songs, which have become the landscape of America for many souls.  I prefer James Brown, and his grooves.  The "Pop" influence in the Motown concept is real and strong, and it is different than original jazz and blues influenced R&B.  It doesn't really swing.  All the years I had to play Motown music on keyboards, I played it the way I felt it.  Then I went on ships and found out quickly their concept of "Pop" has zero swingability.  Carnival and its major arranger Nick Thorp embrace soulful music, and its substance is great.  The European cruise lines miss the point or rather the American music thing.  It is a shame, but then again not everyone swings.  They would rather hold their tight asshole closed.