Posted on 03/08/2012 11:25:10 AM PST by nickcarraway
Oh *puke*.
I heard gospel music, rags, jazz and MoTown, and loved ‘em, which installed and grew a strong respect and love for African American music.
Then I heard rap.
Somehow I have a hard time considering Vince Guaraldi’s score for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as “Black American Music.”
Rap and Hip-Hop have destroyed the Legacy of Black American Music.
It is left to White musicians (like myself) to share this beautiful heritage with Black Children.
Oh man oh man will I shortly be in trouble.
A lot of really good white jazz players ... but ...
A handful only of white players have actually changed the language of jazz. You mention Bix, he was an early one. Bill Evans on piano. Maybe Paul Desmond. Probably Stan Getz. Scott LaFaro on bass. A number I’ve missed I’m sure.
It is undeniably a black music form at its roots. I will never, however, call it BAM. It will always be jazz to me.
And BTW, Benny Goodman got famous playing (black American) Fletcher Henderson’s charts. Benny paved the way for having a mixed race band when he hired Charlie Christian.
Somehow I have a hard time considering Vince Guaraldi’s score for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as “Black American Music.”
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LOL. I have a hard time calling it jazz.
Listen to some Monk with Coltrane at the 5 spot in NYC in the mid to late 50s, and then listen to Guaraldi. Doesn’t sound like they are playing the same ‘kind’ of music, does it?
White players playing jazz often make jazz pretty. You’ll never hear the spit gurgling in a white guy’s trumpet playing like you do when you listen to, say, Lee Morgan.
Oh God, please don’t let this conversation move into a discussion about the racial beginnings of blues music. I might get banned.
Now Kenny G, THAT’S not Jazz.
But then I never heard a black piano player grunt while playing, like Keith Jarrett.
Don’t even get me started. Kenny G is hardly even music from where I sit. One step removed from elevator music.
You’ll appreciate this if you’ve not seen it before ... in response to Kenny G laying his saxophobne on top of Louis Armstrong recordings ... Richard Thompson wrote a song called I agree with Pat Metheny.
Pat’s commentary:
http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm
Richard Thompson’s song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucgZQGPZOpk
Pretty funny stuff.
re: “Somehow I have a hard time considering Vince Guaraldi’s score for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” as “Black American Music.”
First of all, not all of the music in the score is “jazz”. Second, jazz is a very eclectic word and can mean many different styles/types of jazz. It all depends on how one defines “jazz”. If one is a racist and wants to exclude all other groups from participating in an art form, or wants to deny any contribution by those who are of a different race from the original “jazz” creators, then I guess “BAM” is the way to go.
What a bunch of crap. The contribution of African Americans to the American religious and pop music scene is well established - loved and celebrated by all Americans - it should not be dragged into this stupid, ridiculous “racial” identify politics - which is all this BAM term is meant to do.
Jazz is not popular with many young blacks - they are into “rap” and “hip hop”. Whitey did not force them into this style. If black jazz musicians cannot draw young blacks into being fans of jazz - whose fault is that? Changing the name may create a momentary interest, but not in the long run.
What is great about American pop music is that it includes everyone - it crosses all barriers - from spirituals, to ragtime, to jazz, to big band, to rock n’ roll, to soul, to rock, to metal, to country, to bluegrass, to crossover country, to Sinatra, to rhythm and blues, to Wilson Picket, etc. I get so sick of the way racial politics has to be vomited onto everything.
We tend to label all music of a somewhat improvisational nature as “Jazz”...there are offshoots, of course, Free Jazz, Avant Garde, Bop, Post-Bop, Fusion, etc.
Listen to more Monk.
Doesn’t grunt like Keith, hums his solos while playing them (but a little out of key).
And let’s not forget the great all-honky Stan Kenton orchestra.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=7f3_pmJYNoo
re: “We tend to label all music of a somewhat improvisational nature as “Jazz”...there are offshoots, of course, Free Jazz, Avant Garde, Bop, Post-Bop, Fusion, etc.”
Exactly right! There is room for all kinds of jazz forms - it doesn’t mean we will like all of them. I don’t like all styles of rhythm and blues guitarists, I don’t like all styles of rock, - everyone has their likes and dislikes.
I’m not saying that there aren’t any standards, but sometimes I get sick of the ones who want to define what “they” like as being the “true jazz” or “true R & B” or whatever. Some of them are just plain musical snobs.
Another shame is most people know Wes Montgomery for the easy listening stuff he did right before his death, and not the classic trio stuff he did. Ditto for Nat King Cole, probably one of the greatest Jazz keyboardists ever, but most people only know him for the easy listening songs he sang.
Or he tries to whisper yell to wake up his tenor saxophonist.
Truth is, the finest jazz contributors were white, dating back to Bix. How about Desmond, Konitz, Kenton, Pepper, Shank, Sheldon, Ferguson, Mulligan, Baker, Evans, Charlop, Woods, Getz, Cohn, Brubeck, Hamilton, Vache, Daniels, Zoot, Pass, Martino, DiFrancesco.....and on and on. These guys took the art form way beyond its primitive beginnings.
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