The Saxophone of King Curtis

 The suspense is tangible.  Why?  "Will they stay, will they go?"  The 82nd Airborne of course.  The news is... well honest.  It must be that in the history of American Popular Music, the guy with the biggest one wins.  Those who solicit and receive the recording rights to a particular song are more financially successful than others.  There are songs inherently that are more communicative and thus successful than others.  During the Era of Tin Pan Alley, something America does not remember or champion, songwriting was a highly regarded and lucrative craft.  This was when music was an everyday part of American life.  It was not that long ago the same was true.  When I was in high school music was still big.  That music scene was promulgated by radio play.  There was a need for good music, because music is what drew listeners to the dials of their radios.  It was not ads.  We would not tune it to listen to a company hawk its products at us.  We did tune in to hear successful bands play meaningful music.  Similarly we would tune into television to watch communicative programs, whether drama, comedy, or the news and humbly absorb sales pitches for various American products.  Geritol.  Flour.  These things did respond to human needs rather than excess, like fifty-thousand dollar pick up trucks.  I am listening to the artist King Curtis, who is a saxophonist from the mid 1900's.  I had never heard his name before, but I had heard his tracks or songs.  I am a jazz educator, although I do not actively teach anymore.  I continue to teach myself and broaden my knowledge base.  I have learned more about jazz in the last few years from the historical perspective because of Youtube.  King Curtis chose to play R&B and Soul as well as being a substantial jazz musician.  The radio airplay from the popular forms of American music meant more financial reward.  It makes me appreciate the great jazz saxophonist even more.  Most of them were not financially successful.  Instead they were artists who developed one of America's few true art forms, Jazz.  I have a former student who became a doctor of music and taught jazz studies in South Carolina.  He posted a challenge to name the top ten most influential jazz artists.  As I have learned this is an impossibility.  I have taken it upon myself to try to synthesize the history of American Popular Music.  Wow!  I have been successful with Jazz, and the culmination of this knowledge lies in four DVDs each covering different genres of jazz music.  They are grouped so to provide a pleasant and satisfying listening experience.  If music is not pleasant and listenable, no one will pay attention.  The substance of the history of American Popular Music is almost overwhelming.  It is like Donald Jay Grout trying to pack the history of Western Music into one volume.  It is impossible.  That book is useless, although it may still be in use in colleges and universities today.  There is so much diverse information that spans centuries and national boundaries, the Grout text only could serve as a broad outline of Western music history.  This is what it is.  Like American Popular Music there are so many genres, a different course is needed for each.  French Grand Opera.  Ballet.  The String Quartet.  It is absurd to try to pack it all into one study, but American Popular Music is only one country and one century.  There is music pre1900, and it is important.  If we had to discipline ourselves then 1900 is a logical place to pic up.  "The Jazz Age."  The absurdity all ready present itself.  What was happening in America was affected by Western music, or what I like to call European-based orchestral and chamber music.  Europe of itself is a rich pallet of musical culture, because all of these languages and customs were close together.  Italian, French, German, and Russian.  That is the tip of the iceberg.  Perhaps a study of each country would be best for music study.  I discovered King Curtis as being the prominent solo saxophone voice of American Popular Music.  Like much music I study, the most important and memorable for me is mined from Youtube with my own curiosity and sweat.  I am picky about my music.  The only way I can leave the television on is if I am ambulant in the house working on other things, and it is just background noise.  If I do try to watch TV, it is very difficult.  The main reason would be  I do not have a pay television service.  We have had both Spectrum and DirectTV.  DirectTV was a better product, but they raised their prices after two years and lost several important local stations.  WNCN, channel 17.  When my mother died I cancelled the Spectrum service and mailed in my boxes.  Never will I regret it.  Over-the-air television does provide quite a few channels, and the best of these broadcast old television shows.  These shows were professionally produced and had quality sound reproduction, costuming, and acting.  They were conceived during the Golden Age of Television.  Local television has become a different thing.  King Curtis, when I discovered him on Youtube, was what must have been the original Smooth Jazz saxophonist.  Grover Washington would be more well known, but King Curtis is earlier.  The recording I found was exemplary, because he was replacing the vocal on top ten songs.  One of these was "Ode to Billy Joe."  The backing tracks are almost the same as the originals, so his saxophone sound steps into the spotlight.  This supports my first premise, that those who solicit and acquire the rights to the best songs are the most successful.  I decided to buy a box set, because I liked him so much.  To my surprise the 4 CD box set is nothing like what I had discovered.  It is early Rock 'n' Roll, so the sophisticated backing tracks are missing.  No strings and no recognizable songs.  It is representative of the true task of the songwriting contingency.  There are hundreds of thousands of forgettable songs published, and you can find them in different genres.  The Great American Songbook is the pinnacle of songwriting, so only the best songs become "standards."  The King Curtis box set is like many blues artists trying for success.  There are songs galore, but you will remember none of them.  You will remember the successful ones which have made it to the top and have received distribution and airplay.  For an artist to become successful, it takes a variety of ingredients including marketing.  King Curtis will still remain noteworthy in my lineage, but most of the songs in this box set are novelty songs or selling the energy of early vocal Rock 'n' Roll.  Interestingly there is a genre of itself that defines these crossover saxophone instrumentals.  What is it?  Lounge music may be the closet title I can think of.  It makes notable use of the Hammond organ as a solo voice, not in the jazz style.  It is aggressive, percussive, and kitschy, kind of like a Las Vegas sign.  As for the news today there has been no room for false information.  Our reality is surreal enough.  In a nutshell consumer prices remain inflated, and because of the President's attack on Iran, our gas now costs $1.00 more a gallon.  That has been the interesting thing about Donald Trump's presidency, is that gas prices have remained steady at about $2.50 a gallon.  "No new wars!"  The American people are being fucked.  Donald Trump is a murderer.  The death toll has risen to 200 Americans, who would be alive if not for this ludicrous action of attacking Iran.  He is killing Americans and raising prices.  America now will enter the history books with its first murderous dictator.  The irony is we elected him.