The Testicles of America

It was inevitable my recent researching of the history of American jazz music would lead to modern popular music.  I don't purport to know anything, because still I am assimilating the knowledge.  I have moments of clarity, when you forget what you've studied, and it comes back to you in real time for real reason.  Most of these realizations are common sense, and on the fringe I have known most of them.  An example is the importance of Louis Armstrong in the development of jazz in America.  A century is a long time.  Before Youtube, never would we have been privy to his image on film or television.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to spot influences of American popular culture in real life.  That is because now we live on the internet.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I have learned you can't live with your head buried in the sand.  You can't live down the rabbit hole of Youtube, because when you pop back up you will be hit with a shit storm of reality.  Covid 19.  Racial Unrest.  Violence.  Anarchy.  America finds herself at a tenuous juncture, and we do not yet know the outcome.  Will our democracy survive?  Will right wing nuts take over the country claiming all for their own?  Trump needs to be eliminated from this picture.  With his absence from public consciousness, quickly his insurgency will dissipate.  We are being manipulated, and we know not what we do.  It has been a challenging few years, but that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  I have continued to learn possibly some of the more important lessons of life.  I don't have much control over what happens.  You have to adapt and improvise.  The continual conundrum is, "Where is music headed?"  Louis Armstrong was very important in many ways to the development of jazz music.  Specifically he was America's first jazz vocalist which begs an explanation of "Swing Singing" in general.  Like many things in life, jazz becomes a dichotomy along racial lines.  There was sophisticated swing music in white circles outside of what became known as jass or jazz.  This word itself is a conundrum.  This word, like "classical,"  should be changed.  The white music best could be represented by Paul Whiteman, a sophisticated composer, arranger, and band leader.  He was not a racist, but his ensemble was employed by white society.  "Swing Singing," unlike jazz, doesn't take liberties with the melody or its phrasing.  It is ensemble music sung specifically in time and performed from written notation.  It is different from oratorio and cantata,  because it is secular.  Secondly it actually swings.  What is "Swing?"  So many questions, and I don't have the time.  Ella's early years with Chick Webb are a perfect example of "Swing Singing."  The vocal is part of the ensemble, and as such most successful working "Big Band's" had vocalists in the front line.  They even had small ensembles of singers.  Frank Sinatra got his start this way singing with the Pied Pipers with the Tommy Dorsey band.  America doesn't and never has gotten to hear much of this music, and it is very sophisticated.  Paul Whiteman's arrangements along with Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman were extremely well crafted, forward thinking, modern swing music.  The music was so polished, elegant, and effective it can be startling to hear.  The best analogy is to consider what other music was flourishing in the 1920's in classical music circles.  There is your answer, and there is the dichotomy.  (not lobotomy, although sometimes if feels like this trying to synthesize this music history)  These arrangements were radio ready, picture perfect, American popular songs.  Radio has much to do with it.  America has lost this very important and influential medium.  The internet does not suffice, although it makes up for it in other ways.  The immediate digital transfer of audible music via the internet is indispensable, but it negates much of the feeling of the music.  The intent of the music largely is lost and so is our culture.  We are not experiencing the kind of things once we did.  In fact we are a pallid shadow of what once was real America.  I am trying my best to mitigate this reverse metamorphosis, this retrograde devolution into ignorance.  It has been purposeful and most likely it has been instigated by the same enemies of our nation.   Cancel culture is an operative active process.  With the assembling of the Star Link (Skynet) network of low orbit satellites, we are on a path of global domination.  How can one individual businessman receive permission to launch such as an atrocity?  We are talking about the world's sky, not just America.  Did Elon Musk canvass and solicit permission from each nation to put satellites in their sovereign airspace?  This was Trump.  Trump did this, and this was the impetus for his "Space Force."   Does America know about our Space Force?  What we do know is there are little rocket ships flying into space now all the time, and America knows little about it.  The armed serviced are involved hence "Space Force."  The base is in southern Florida on the east coast, a previous Air Force base once I stumbled upon while tracking air traffic.  This is not a good idea one private citizen owning and controlling a network of low orbiting satellites with four phased array antennas each.  Discuss amongst yourselves.  Global warming.  Not only can they flick the switch at HAARP on consignment to heat the earth's ionosphere, now we have a new space heater.  Bathe the entire world in microwave emissions!  How about "pulsed" microwave emissions.  How about creating the "Havana Syndrome?"  What United States regulatory agency is watching what he is doing?  The EPA?  The FCC?  No one.  One man is building this global network, and Donald Trump gave him permission.  Am I wrong?  I don't think Joe Biden would approve.  Does he?  "Swing Singing," like many other musical devices, is sophisticated and important but not for the siege.  The siege seeks an inhuman existence.  If we are to understand human existence, then we must accommodate the presence of God as our creator.  Who could be so selfish to think man is the greatest example of mother nature?  We so miserably have failed, we are  not deserving to kiss God's coat tails. Man instead has become a mockery of God, and because of this He weeps.  There still is time.  Jazz singing is a different thing all together, and it allows the paraphrasing of the melody or improvising around it.  In my humble musical opinion this is jazz singing's greatest contribution to music.  Of course these vocalists are using the dedicated work of Tin Pan Alley composers.  The songs they sing are no fluke.  At the turn of the century music became important to urban America fueled by the availability of upright pianos.  Americans were able to purchase pianos for their parlors, and they wanted American music to play.  The European classical tradition didn't represent the hustle and bustle of American life.  This American process, this way of life is represented in jazz music.  Louis became America's first real jazz singer or popular vocalist, because before him and aside from "Swing Singing" in an ensemble, his predecessor was Enrico Caruso, an Italian operatic tenor who sold millions of 78 records.  The vocal stylings of Louis Armstrong are a far cry from Enrico Caruso.  It would be an interesting comparison, the gravel of Satchmo with the mellifluous tones of a lyric tenor.  This juxtaposition is not unique in that the world sometimes changes gears on a dime.  That has happened in America.  What was a prolific and elevated cultural existence, which itself fueled our economy for decades, suddenly was shut down  because of Napster and Steve Jobs.  We cannot blame these two men for the eventual digital proliferation of music via the internet.  Who shall we blame for the death of American popular music because of the demise of traditional radio?  There was nothing wrong, and there is nothing wrong with the radio medium.  It requires money for investment and upkeep.  There is a transmitter sitting at Fayetteville State University ourchased by UNC - Chapel Hill.  Now it is a "mirrow" of their talk radio format.  I can think of no other disservice to American society than the proliferation of talk radio.  Garrison Keeler would have something to say about it.  Watch the film "Prairie Home Companion," and you will understand what radio once was.  The decision to flood the airwaves with extraneous airborne electricity was predicted many times as the "Electronic Age."  Both radio and CD have been rendered impotent, but no one will say it.  Compact Discs are obsolete, because there is so much vibration in the air from corporate pollution the machines no longer track correctly.  Now a hard drive is required.  Is this correct?  Radio no longer could function efficiently, because there is so much aberrant airborne electrical activity.  Oh, the cell phone industry.  Bill Clinton made this decision.  Was it correct to shift our economy to wireless communications rendering American radio impotent?  Louis Armstrong also defines the "feel" or swing of jazz music.  His rhythmic feel or loose and swinging groove is why he is important.   His sister in time is Billie Holiday.  Their feel almost is interchangeable.  As America's first jazz vocalist, Louis's ability to improvise was what was most important.  While "Early Jass" was notated ensemble music, a huge misnomer in jazz history, eventually those playing it committed it to memory including the musicians of James Reese Europe.  They fleeced white society into believing they music magically flowed through the black consciousness!  Louis Armstrong could craft a melody from scratch based upon the original written notes rendered by a Tin Pan Alley composer.  He did this in real time in the moment along with Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Anita O'Day.  These vocalists were sublime in their ability to weave original interpretations through an existent melody.  Many times how they sang a song was better than the original.  Certainly and most of the time it was different.  These paraphrases ultimately were the roots of instrumental improvisation later to come.  This is why jazz vocal music is important, and I didn't know it until now.  The marvel of early jazz musicians was their virtuosic technique.  Bix Beiderbecke not only played lead trumpet in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, he also played the "choruses."  Easily and adeptly he was able to switch between playing "straight" in an ensemble and expressing himself individually in a solo.  I have exhausted my jazz curiosity for the time being, so the next stage is from the more popular American styles.  I didn't pay much attention to this music growing up, because I was trained classically on piano.  My father played jazz.  This music didn't resonate with me as a white, conservative, Episcopalian male.  I heard some live music, but what was available was jazz.  I missed R&B, Funk, and Rock.  Yesterday was an archival of Kool and the Gang, The Ohio Players, the GAP Band, the Average White Band, Sly and the Family Stone, and Prince.  Mind blown, because what I have come to know and play myself has roots in this music.  I arrived at it from the fringes of Hip Hop and Soul.  The flipping of the switch in America, the dismantling of American born culture, was the death of Hip Hop.  Perhaps they killed themselves, because you can't sample or track from the grave.  Perhaps "Niggers With Attitude" spent their course, and America was ready for something else.  Nashville was ready with its permutation of pop and country, and Shania was their first offering.  We have yet to recover the testicles of America.