The Blues Life

I named the picture above ,"These are the Blues"

I responded to an article on Wynton Marsalis posted in "Facebook" by one of my "friends" there. I posted the first paragraph and then went back and deleted it . I realized that I don't know the "friend" very well at all. It occurred to me that I hire the man but he probably isn't really a friend ,especially as he posted an article titled, "Racism and Greed have Put the Blues on the Back Street" ( or back pages ... I don't recall right now and I refuse to post a link to this bullshit) It was an interview with Marsalis in Oct.2009. I start with my would be response :

It is ironic that Marsalis should be commenting on"Racism"much less his pretended authority on the "Blues".The article itself was just another chance at a plug for his current "bad" project where he tries to reunite with "White people" by doing a blues side with Willy Nelson. If there was one thing I got out of the Burns "Jazz" film project , it was that I personally don't want to support Wynton Marsalis any more than I support Willy Nelson.Boy,what a pair.Neither of them swing. The irony and "humor of God" is exhibited here ,yet another "Theo-Funny", not to be confused with the sounds of God,"Theo phony".



Then thoughts on the "Blues Life"



When I think of "Blues" I think of Lightning Hopkins . he played across the lines , that is the bar lines ,out of time ,out of rhyme yet with the essence of the definition of "blues". He lived the blues, as many actual blues players do, their lives a tragedy of mishaps and problems. Maybe this is why the"Blues" are so universal . The struggle of existence is pretty generally the same for everyone with the same conclusion. In between may be peaches and cream or the "Blues" and probably all of the above but the blues singer is naked in his lyric .



One night in Austin Texas about 1965 ,I was watching Lightning Hopkins at a coffee house . He introduced his washboard player as a destitute though I am sure that they had been traveling together playing club after club for years. As the applause died down ,Lightning snuck a taste from the Jack Daniels pint sitting behind his chair on stage before he went into another number. I felt a pinch on my ass and looked around and there was Janice Joplin standing next to me smiling that shit eating grin.she was dressed in a dirty tee shirt and tight jeans , fucked up as usual. I had to laugh at her smiling at me like she had gotten away with something . It didn't bother me but I still wasn't interested in her . We watched the next tune and suddenly two cops went onstage and started talking to Hopkins. It ended up with them putting handcuffs on him and taking him out of the club . He was arrested for drinking in the club and they took him to jail. Janice and me went to a local bar and put down a few more . The entire scene , Lightning introducing his destitute closest friend , Janice grabbing my ass, drunk, the arrest, and the life of "Blues" connected to Lightning Hopkins , is the essence of "Blues".It doesn't need an explanation ,over analyzing,or the acceptance of Wynton Marsalis.It doesn't have to be re-done ,singing ahead of the beat by old hillbillies like Willie Nelson . No amount of hair or pot will ever change Mr. Nelson in my minds eye that can still see him in the early sixties and who he really always was before Johnny Cash and Bobby Dylan started French kissing in 1972.



When I think of Janice and her life of "Blues" , I see her in that club and before ,the night she sat in with the Bob Sardo Trio on his gig at the "Id" , the local Austin College town bar at the time . Janice was so loaded that she was beyond singing ,nearly falling off the stage , loud , and annoying as drunks can get . She was escorted out of the place , thrown out . I was sitting coincidentally sitting in with Bob that night on stringed bass and Janice had remembered me from back then.Her adventures after 1965 have been documented pretty thoroughly and they seemed to be a continuance of her "Blues" life which eventually over took her as she tried to overcome her "Blues".Since 1965 I have seen too many overcome too recently, and too close to me to look back too soon , much too soon .

No Problem

You say ,"Thank you" and "No problem", the guy says like it might have been a problem if he weren't working there but he is working there and that is his job . What happened to "you're welcome" . People want to be as cool as Miles Davis, aloof ,unresponsive. Most people don't even know who Miles Davis is unless they heard the rock crap he was playing from the mid seventies still the attitude has filtered down to the peons. The Seven Eleven , the drug store , the gas station. It is part of the whole ,let's face it , society is rude,ruder, than any time ever before . People speak openly ,in full voice on the cell phone in the public library.They are too busy to concentrate on driving because there is a call coming in.When not on the phone their car is shaking from the sub-sonics of rap bouncing my car which is twenty feet ahead.You cannot get a human being on the phone to speak of business after you sign up for Internet or your phone as the company offers a robot to take care of your unimportant problem. The companies promising great advantages with their newest browsers on line expect you to wade through a plethora of what they call "Forums" that house a lot more questions just like your but no answers.Is it any wonder that the greed of a capitalist nation has caught up to the economy, in the form of a mirror that says."No problem" but really says , "I don't care ."

Well, we are "Cool" now , we are losing our jobs , our homes , our families, our representatives in congress but we are "Cool".The lobbies that represent big business , Insurance companies, Doctors,Lawyers, Wall Street , and other possible white collar crimes are running this country .The representatives , the elected officials that are supposed to be our lobby are saying "No problem" to their constituency once they are elected and "In" but there is a "problem".The problem might be beyond our abstract means of repairing it .If there is a problem of light being shone on the problem it can be clouded in "Patriotism" or another war front. Questioning the problem becomes "Treason". The change of political parties makes no difference because they are all on the same team and that is not our team.

Hey ! They were supposed to be on our team !

Music and Dance

Dance music might be an ancient cause of music as well as a church , so we have two origins that have continued. Church music doesn't need the dance in fact as late as the mid- sixties I remember when the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church decided to allow it's members to dance in social occasions and that didn't include the church .There was a semi-popular movie with Kevin Bacon playing the son of a preacher in the fictional church that brought attention to this very idea .The preacher's part was played by a tall actor that has since gone into over acting on television comedy series but he used to play roles with a lot of frowning or where he was the "heavy".I went to a Missouri Synod church but the drama was never there , in fact I was never told not to dance . I was an acolyte on Sundays and still play some of the tunes I liked on organ that I heard at the services while I sat in costume or assisted at communion, a dress-like white frock over a long black gown which was similar to the pastors .



I did dance even at ten when I remember repeatedly bumping against my baby sitter as we practiced the jitterbug and exciting her fifteen year old hormones . My school went on the local television dance show in the fifties . Dance contest to pop music was the "cool" thing for people who were socially popular . I did participate till I aspired to become a "Beatnik" and separated from the crowd . I had found jazz and classical music by twelve when my parents separated and divorced. My father left some records which I guess I wanted to enjoy as he wasn't there.Looking back now ,I realize that he hadn't been there too much for years .I think I was trying to please him in his absence by getting into the music and actually practicing and performing music. My father was a trumpet player who became an arranger and eventually a composer.It is easier to see this concept now but I didn't see this for most of my life and certainly didn't suspect this as a motive . I guess I wasn't looking for a motive.Anyway , the music I found in Stravinsky's "Petroushka" opened my ears and made me want more. The trumpet stylings and character of Chet Baker , another of the chance recordings left there, also seemed to direct me to follow , finding improvisation excited my mind.By 1958 I was into Miles Davis and searching for more electronic music. In 59 Ornette opened up my ears more and soon classical ,music concrete, jazz, and electronic music seemed to be agreeing and co-operating together .



Music can be abstract ,mathematical, make sense or not, and also just noise moving from one time to another.Certainly social situations like dances can be the initiate of taste for the sound of music but music doesn't have to dance all the time. Music can be rewarding in the abstract as a painting , a sculpture, an independent work standing alone. Beauty in the eye of the beholder , as it were , becomes an individual experience.What if music is as abstract as "Friendship", "Love", or even "God". Certainly the phrase"My music" isn't something foreign to the ear ,in fact it has taken a very familiar ring . It isn't a phrase always associated with classical composers or jazz but also with popular ,dance music. The selling of music has become an enormous business and the characterization of legitimacy , creativeness , and even the illusion of individualism has become a part of the spin by advertising agents. The subliminal excitations of "Sub-sonics" has become a part of marketing in music . Indeed , the "Beat" , the drums , the rhythm ,and the suggested motion of dance is integral in today's pop music . Rap ,ironically uses sounds that are below the human ear range which create tension .This technique was also used by the Nazis at Hitler rallies before his speeches . His speech gave the illusion of ,ironically ,bringing peace .The beat goes on . Perhaps the lower denominator and the earliest rhythm music is still the most powerful communicator to the most people . The dance did invoke the rituals of fertilization and rebirth and even sacrifice to the basic gods of agriculture , sex , war ,and more abstract ideas as culture progressed .Perhaps today we see a revitalization of the basic call to the dance but music still progresses outside the dance as well.