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Now playing: Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - Take The "A" Train
via FoxyTunes
The other day I finally realized and accepted something I had been in denial about for many years now, and that is that music as I once knew and loved it is now dead. I've spent the last oh, eight to ten years hoping and wishing that it would come back, that it would be revived, that people would get tired of the current slop being served to the public as music, but I know that isn't going to happen, ever.
The greatest age of music, the jazz age, managed to last for decades, from it's birth with the great and wonderful Duke Ellington, to it's sort of semi death, with Duke Ellington. Jazz master extraordinaire, Mr. Ellington invented that rarest forms of music, one which was born only on this continent, in other words, purely American. Rag time, blues and gospel, along with any other form of black music are the only American originals, born of artists from this country. All other forms of music originate from forms brought over by Europeans, possibly with the exception of rock. It should be noted here that blacks did not invent rock. Bill Haley and the Comets, a cowboy group looking for a new sound, sang the first rock song, Rock Around the Clock, and thus was born rock and roll. Now, what happened is that black rockers, such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, and the Isely Brothers, came on the scene, and white rockers stole their sound and imitated it. The Beattles had a huge mega hit with the Isely's Twist and Shout. The Beach Boys openly admitted and gave credit where credit was due as they took on the sounds of Chuck Berry.
What made me accept the fact that music as I once knew it, would never come back? The realization that each type of music has its' own place and time in history. The jazz age lasted nearly fifty years, from about 1926 to about 1974. I mark it this way because it could still be heard prominently on the radio, and was still being widely recorded. Many of its' kings and queens were still living and performing, such as the great Ella Fitzgerald, the greatest of all jazz voices. Soul and r&b, ushered in by the likes of Dinah Washington and James Brown, has finally bit the dust, right along with funk. Aretha, that great and beautiful queen, Gladys, Anita, Tina, all of them have been relegated to musical oldies dust bins, and for who? A bevy of beauties who cannot sing. Alicia Keys may be a nice sister, but the girl can't sing. Ciara? Please. Rhiannon? They let this fool stick around because she's pretty. I once tried to listen to that sister. Cats in a blender. Ann Hedly can actually sing, but her neo soul is actually depressing as is most of it, boring and depressing. Will somebody please tell me what's up with John Legend? Why does he sing in that dead pan voice of his? He sings in one voice only and it never changes or shows emotion. What's up with that?
One of the first killers of good music was the demise of actually developing talent. Recording companies such as Motown and the great Barry Gordy used to develop talent and groups before setting them free on the scene. Smokey Robinson was already a great writer of music and lyrics, but Barry Gordy taught him to be great. Diana Ross and the Supremes were developed by Gordy and his teachers. Many of the fine girl groups of the day came through Motown and were developed there. Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell were Motown marvels. Stevie Wonder remains at Motown to this day, writing his own ticket, I'm sure. Recording companies got to hiring so many untalented people until much of music was destroyed.
Then we come to rap and hip hop. As far back as the mid to late eighties rap artists were screaming that rap was the only form of music that there was for black people, and no other, which was strange. As I have previously pointed out, blacks have created the only forms of music original to this country, so that really couldn't be. We actually thought that hard core rappers would kill Will Smith because he wasn't hard core enough! They beat that drum and beat that drum until hip hop is all that's left of "music" now. Music is no longer as fun, fresh and funky as it used to be, and I miss that. You no longer have to have talent to enter the business. All a male hip hop band needs is the ability to call women bitches, whores, sluts, tramps, and any other dehumanizing name they can think of, while considering themselves humans. I've heard one such "artist" state that they call sisters bitches because sisters call themselves bitches, something I've never heard of before. I wonder, then why didn't they step up to the plate and let sisters know that this was wrong? Nellie once asked if he would be forever known for sliding a credit card down the crack of a sister's ass. Yes. He knew better even if she did agree. It's your "art" mutt, stand by it. The sisters? They are so untalented they depress me greatly when I hear them. Their voices are mediocre to sub par, and while many of them are very pretty you wonder who they had to screw to get a contract. Most of them don't last past yesterday anymore. Anita Baker was the last great female voice to come along. Alicia simply cannot sing, no matter what anyone says or does, she simply can't. Mariah? Too uneven to be great. Beyonce? Cute don't cut it. Janet? Control was it. Then she lost it. Mediocrity rules, and that's all there is these days.
The days of great music ended with the eighties. Now I listen to music on Rhapsody, and mostly it's jazz or oldies. It's hard to find good music on the radio anymore, but we do have one jazz station, when it's playing jazz. I've given up hope that hip hop will die and music will come back, lol. For about five years I fought a battle against brothers calling sisters all those names in song, but I've given up on that, too. I'm surprised at how much it's changing our lives, though. Many young sisters are moving away from brothers and dating and marrying men outside the race, pushed by the hatred and misogyny of those songs. I was kind of shocked at this, but pleased and saddened at the same time. I used to feel that there was nothing so beautiful as a brother, now I'm not so sure. Too many brothers don't say anything against the hateful portrayal of us sisters in many of these lyrics, too many of us don't feel loved by brothers anymore. Hatred for a dime has done its' work.
Music as I once knew it will never return. I think all of the original Temptations, one of my first musical loves, are all deceased now. Legend goes, and is true, that having heard the song My Girl, they begged Smokey to allow them to sing the song, and were they ever right. To this day, those brothers singing that song remains one of my enduring loves, a song about how much a brother loves a sister. Listen to Smokey sing You Can Depend On Me. It's not a long song, but there is a brother who knows what to do with his voice; sing in a sister's panties, lol. Listen to Marvin sing I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Want to have your heart broken? Listen to an extremely young Patti LaBelle and the Blue Bells as she sings Down The Isle. It isn't the words so much as it is her voice, or any of their voices really. It's the voice that makes the song. Where in the world is Maxwell?
I didn't start out hating rap and hip hop. One of my all time favorites remains Wild Wild West by Kool Moe Dee. I used to get down to that song! Brothers never wanted to dance with a thick sister, looking for someone to take home, but hell, I wasn't looking for no pound puppy in the clubs. I just wanted to dance and when they found out I could I stayed on the floor. I wasn't there for no one night disease getting stand, hell naw. I don't hate hip hop anymore. How can you hate something you don't even listen to? As for the lyrics, there's a price to be paid for everything, spiritually and here on earth, and besides, there's nothing I can do about it. Fools like David Banner will snot and whine that they can't make a dollar without those lyrics, so once again the white man who owns the recording companies have enslaved the souls of black men, who can't or won't see any other way out. So be it. The fact of the matter is that I don't have to listen to that music, and so I don't. I'm exploring doing a pod cast of oldies and some jazz, so maybe you'll be listening to me do an oldies show one of these days.
The greatest age of music, the jazz age, managed to last for decades, from it's birth with the great and wonderful Duke Ellington, to it's sort of semi death, with Duke Ellington. Jazz master extraordinaire, Mr. Ellington invented that rarest forms of music, one which was born only on this continent, in other words, purely American. Rag time, blues and gospel, along with any other form of black music are the only American originals, born of artists from this country. All other forms of music originate from forms brought over by Europeans, possibly with the exception of rock. It should be noted here that blacks did not invent rock. Bill Haley and the Comets, a cowboy group looking for a new sound, sang the first rock song, Rock Around the Clock, and thus was born rock and roll. Now, what happened is that black rockers, such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, and the Isely Brothers, came on the scene, and white rockers stole their sound and imitated it. The Beattles had a huge mega hit with the Isely's Twist and Shout. The Beach Boys openly admitted and gave credit where credit was due as they took on the sounds of Chuck Berry.
What made me accept the fact that music as I once knew it, would never come back? The realization that each type of music has its' own place and time in history. The jazz age lasted nearly fifty years, from about 1926 to about 1974. I mark it this way because it could still be heard prominently on the radio, and was still being widely recorded. Many of its' kings and queens were still living and performing, such as the great Ella Fitzgerald, the greatest of all jazz voices. Soul and r&b, ushered in by the likes of Dinah Washington and James Brown, has finally bit the dust, right along with funk. Aretha, that great and beautiful queen, Gladys, Anita, Tina, all of them have been relegated to musical oldies dust bins, and for who? A bevy of beauties who cannot sing. Alicia Keys may be a nice sister, but the girl can't sing. Ciara? Please. Rhiannon? They let this fool stick around because she's pretty. I once tried to listen to that sister. Cats in a blender. Ann Hedly can actually sing, but her neo soul is actually depressing as is most of it, boring and depressing. Will somebody please tell me what's up with John Legend? Why does he sing in that dead pan voice of his? He sings in one voice only and it never changes or shows emotion. What's up with that?
One of the first killers of good music was the demise of actually developing talent. Recording companies such as Motown and the great Barry Gordy used to develop talent and groups before setting them free on the scene. Smokey Robinson was already a great writer of music and lyrics, but Barry Gordy taught him to be great. Diana Ross and the Supremes were developed by Gordy and his teachers. Many of the fine girl groups of the day came through Motown and were developed there. Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell were Motown marvels. Stevie Wonder remains at Motown to this day, writing his own ticket, I'm sure. Recording companies got to hiring so many untalented people until much of music was destroyed.
Then we come to rap and hip hop. As far back as the mid to late eighties rap artists were screaming that rap was the only form of music that there was for black people, and no other, which was strange. As I have previously pointed out, blacks have created the only forms of music original to this country, so that really couldn't be. We actually thought that hard core rappers would kill Will Smith because he wasn't hard core enough! They beat that drum and beat that drum until hip hop is all that's left of "music" now. Music is no longer as fun, fresh and funky as it used to be, and I miss that. You no longer have to have talent to enter the business. All a male hip hop band needs is the ability to call women bitches, whores, sluts, tramps, and any other dehumanizing name they can think of, while considering themselves humans. I've heard one such "artist" state that they call sisters bitches because sisters call themselves bitches, something I've never heard of before. I wonder, then why didn't they step up to the plate and let sisters know that this was wrong? Nellie once asked if he would be forever known for sliding a credit card down the crack of a sister's ass. Yes. He knew better even if she did agree. It's your "art" mutt, stand by it. The sisters? They are so untalented they depress me greatly when I hear them. Their voices are mediocre to sub par, and while many of them are very pretty you wonder who they had to screw to get a contract. Most of them don't last past yesterday anymore. Anita Baker was the last great female voice to come along. Alicia simply cannot sing, no matter what anyone says or does, she simply can't. Mariah? Too uneven to be great. Beyonce? Cute don't cut it. Janet? Control was it. Then she lost it. Mediocrity rules, and that's all there is these days.
The days of great music ended with the eighties. Now I listen to music on Rhapsody, and mostly it's jazz or oldies. It's hard to find good music on the radio anymore, but we do have one jazz station, when it's playing jazz. I've given up hope that hip hop will die and music will come back, lol. For about five years I fought a battle against brothers calling sisters all those names in song, but I've given up on that, too. I'm surprised at how much it's changing our lives, though. Many young sisters are moving away from brothers and dating and marrying men outside the race, pushed by the hatred and misogyny of those songs. I was kind of shocked at this, but pleased and saddened at the same time. I used to feel that there was nothing so beautiful as a brother, now I'm not so sure. Too many brothers don't say anything against the hateful portrayal of us sisters in many of these lyrics, too many of us don't feel loved by brothers anymore. Hatred for a dime has done its' work.
Music as I once knew it will never return. I think all of the original Temptations, one of my first musical loves, are all deceased now. Legend goes, and is true, that having heard the song My Girl, they begged Smokey to allow them to sing the song, and were they ever right. To this day, those brothers singing that song remains one of my enduring loves, a song about how much a brother loves a sister. Listen to Smokey sing You Can Depend On Me. It's not a long song, but there is a brother who knows what to do with his voice; sing in a sister's panties, lol. Listen to Marvin sing I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Want to have your heart broken? Listen to an extremely young Patti LaBelle and the Blue Bells as she sings Down The Isle. It isn't the words so much as it is her voice, or any of their voices really. It's the voice that makes the song. Where in the world is Maxwell?
I didn't start out hating rap and hip hop. One of my all time favorites remains Wild Wild West by Kool Moe Dee. I used to get down to that song! Brothers never wanted to dance with a thick sister, looking for someone to take home, but hell, I wasn't looking for no pound puppy in the clubs. I just wanted to dance and when they found out I could I stayed on the floor. I wasn't there for no one night disease getting stand, hell naw. I don't hate hip hop anymore. How can you hate something you don't even listen to? As for the lyrics, there's a price to be paid for everything, spiritually and here on earth, and besides, there's nothing I can do about it. Fools like David Banner will snot and whine that they can't make a dollar without those lyrics, so once again the white man who owns the recording companies have enslaved the souls of black men, who can't or won't see any other way out. So be it. The fact of the matter is that I don't have to listen to that music, and so I don't. I'm exploring doing a pod cast of oldies and some jazz, so maybe you'll be listening to me do an oldies show one of these days.
4 comments:
Mrs Jazzy,
I agree with you in someways. Music as a form of expression is still very much alive. However if you look at the talent level, then we have a problem. Rap music is still a very big part of my life. I hate to admit that, but it is. That is the music I grew up on. I still love it, I don't condone most of it and I have not bought a CD in forever, but I still listen to it. R&B in my opinion is so watered down now it is totally unbearable. There is no substance to it anymore. I am sick of hearing about "making love in the club", and hearing dudes singing through that damn tube Zapp and Roger made up that I can't stand it. I have found my self listening to Rock more lately. I wish that today's music would step back and listen to the stuff you mentioned here. They don't have to copy it word for word, but at least they should incorportate the message of that day into today's music. Sometimes change is not always a good thing, huh?
I have been saying this for years! what an excellent post! I have a 22 year old daughter who listens to pop and rock music because the R & B of this era is watered down garbage and the rap is just porn!
I love Duke Ellington & John Coltrane! They don't make music like that anymore.
DirtyRed try listening to some Roots or Talib Kweli instead of Young Jeezy. Jazzlady what about Jill Scott or Rapheal Saddiq? Music changes and evolves on the surface but it has always been and remains a creative process of the individual. There are still creative people in this day and time just as there was 60 to 70 years ago. Unfortunately we just have to look harder to discover them. Don't give up on today's artists just yet:)
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