The Removal of the Destroyer

Still I am pecking away at my cumulative history of American Popular Music.  It is too broad in scope, like the history of Western music, to reasonably absorb all of it.  I didn't know this before I embarked on this journey.  It did begin with just Jass, and my study of Jazz acutely exposed to me how broad this music is.  Here is an example, if you were trying to teach Jazz History to college freshman.  First, there are many styles or genres of what we call jazz.  Most are very different from one another, so trying to find a thread between them is difficult.  It is a life long task, but I am getting closer.  In talking about "styles" of Jazz, which of itself is taboo, the easiest way to present it is to just expose the students to examples of this music being played in their own context.  If we only have audio recordings, it is very difficult to put a timeline on Jazz music.  Visual performances, like American Popular Music, are much more telling and communicative.  It is and was the purpose of this music, for you to experience it first hand and not through an iPod.  While the miniaturization of music play back systems have created convenience for users and economical affordability, older methods of music listening are more efficient.  I'll say that again.  Youtube has revolutionized music history with its breadth of information, footage, and history.  College level music classes have been retooled, because most everything of importance is available at the touch of a mouse on the internet.  Experiencing the music in its historical context is more important, and that means full body contact.  Hearing little audio bytes through earbuds is a spayed and neutered process of experiencing music.  It is not unlike the modern day state of sexuality in the United States.  We have strayed so far from the Creator's purpose, we have lost the essence of much of humanity.  I refuse to accept a woman's berating of a man, because he shows romantic or sexual interest.  We are directly in that time, a unique and unusual time when male predators are the headlines.  It is gross, unconscionable, and embarrassing that some of our most beloved American figures are sexual offenders and pedophiles.  That Bill Cosby would drug mostly white women seeking career advancement and sexually abuse them in front of his wife is criminal.  The list is long, so it has been a common practice in American society that influential powerful men feel they deserve sexual favors for free.  That we continue to dethrone American Presidents because of sexual impropriety is archaic.  When compared to enlightened nations, American beliefs and subsequent behaviors are primitive, often brutal, and violent.  We like to fight, but it seems we don't really like to f--k.  We have spent the last decade (someone) trying to confuse our children into not knowing and understanding their own gender and sexual identity.  Inasmuch as I do not disdain homosexuality, upon consistent reflection and observation I have found nothing positive about it at all.  While I am sure there are well adjusted homosexual couples who are not depraved and promiscuous, many are.  They lifestyle of rebellion they live often is based on hatred, vindictiveness, and malice.  They do not seek solidarity but separation and recognition of their difference.  It should be no surprise the majority of the population today misunderstand basic human sexuality and its dependence on gender differences.  That I am sexually attracted to a woman is no bad reflection on me.  God gave me a penis and a man's hormones.  Being attracted to and wanting to couple with women is my mission statement as a man from God.  Period.  That women choose rather to hide behind shells of hatred and maladjustment rather than learning how to deal with the gender difference is their shortcoming.  It's a tough pill, but life is tough.  There once was no shortcut.  Today we choose to hide and cower and suffer from our own inabilities to solve our own problems.  We just spew hatred and vitriol like the modern Republican Party.  We dredge up reasons to hate one another, when it is easier and more rewarding to live in peace.  I guess we do need fresh lessons from God about this.  So much music is based on romance, and today it is anachronistic.  As a modern society we do not understand romance as it once existed.  The internet has seen to that.  When you do open yourself up to the Great American Songbook, you must have some understanding of heterosexual romance.  The Sexual Revolution in America did change this perspective as did drugs and Rock 'n' Roll.  Interestingly I never equated Jazz music with romantic love.  Many aspects of Jazz deal with deeper issues including racism, discrimination, and war.  John Coltrane had a world perspective in his music as did Miles Davis.  When you are playing about survival, it is a different story than simple romance.  There are genres under the blanket of the word Jazz that explore and actualize different goals.  These goals loosely can translate to "aesthetic" or feeling.  What are you trying to say, or create, or communicate to others?  One example is the genre of Keith Jarrett and Jan Gabarek with strings.  Jarrett has written many tuneful, almost gospel, singing melodies that have a feeling of church.  The industry chosen title for their style was championed by the record label ECM in Scandinavia.  It evolved into "New Age."  There was an undercurrent of worship in a large cathedral with those acoustics providing a depth of sacred feeling in the secular music.  This formula, or God versus the Devil, is common in quality American music such as the Blues.  The Pentecostal worship service, with its depth of feeling and exuberance to express such, found its way from the sanctuary to the jook joints.  Not all Jazz recognizes or acknowledges overt spirituality, and some Early Jazz was a vehicle for fornication.  I think it is most accurate to categorize a music by the feeling it creates.  Aaron Copland would disagree.  If you compared this ECM music and its feeling to a Thelonious Monk small group with his angular, pointed, modern compositions, the difference would be obvious.  Monk used Pointillism in his piano stylings, a much more modern approach to the piano than his immediate predecessors.  Similarly Gunther Schuller created "Third Stream" jazz that used elements of symphonic music.  Charles Mingus is a worthy example of this genre, and this combination changed the feeling of the music from possible romance, sexual activity, or relaxation to something deeper such as loss or the contemplation of morality.  None of this is about what I wanted to blog tonight.  What is on my mind is the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.  I found this agency online, and for a while I was receiving email updates about their activity.  After trying to contact some of their agents, I quickly realized this organization has suffered the same fate as most other federal agencies under the Trump Administration.  No longer do they strive in their own mission statements.  Instead they have been taken over by stooges who advance the profits of their friends.  In the recent lawsuit by Cumberland Country against Chemours and DuPont, their rebuttal was, "No one but this department and the state can bring grievances against us."  This has shielded them from litigation until now, when a three judge panel ruled otherwise.  The Department of Environmental Quality is and was just a political tool to protect corporate America.  It is a farce, and it is the kind of farce Phil Berger embraced.  His main impetus as the Senate President Pro Tempore was to do for his friends, not the people of North Carolina.  There is no need to capsulize today's news.  It's absurdity is self explanatory.  The defense industry wants war as does other facets of corporate America.  Who benefited the most from the Covid outbreak, when we all were sheltered in place at home?  Jeff Bezos and his Amazon.  World politics is about the bottom line, not people.  We have more than one war criminal in Washington, and one of them blatantly attacked our own working government.  We reelected him President.  What does this say about our own people?  It says that most of us are not Americans at all.  We are war mongering extremists who have been indoctrinated by something else.  We want to devolve to the tribalism of Islamic Extremism, where we do not have minds enough to figure out what to do with our lives but fight one another.  It is a massive failure of the educational system, and it has been achieved by our own governments with leaders such as Phil Berger.  The immediate exploitation of American assets is their only goal.  Their ship is sinking, so why not take down the world with it?  Are we going to let a senile and deranged President achieve the same thing, invoke world war to destroy the world for kicks?  Any prudent nation would find a way to remove this man from office.