Johnny Cash quote

[fasstrack]

I agree with the basics, and have no problem if a suburbanite making music for suburbanites likes to flavor it with a little Brooks, Haggard or Frizell.

I not only agree with that, I have a serious problem with people who talk about the outrage of artists stealing from other artists. To use the obvious and most often used example, Elvis Presley. People act as if he had no interest in the music he performed but was just using it to get rich at the expense of African-American artists who came before him. This is such a silly perspective I have to wonder what causes it.

Some super dumbasses said the same about Stan Getz ripping off Prez. I remember Dizzy always saying 'musicians are the biggest thieves'. One time at the Monday Night Jazz Foundation jam at Local 802 Donald Byrd turned around to say to everyone listening: 'Miles heard Sweets (I think he said Sweets) play with a Harmon one night and the next night he was using a Harmon. Thief.' And he laughed. He wasn't putting Miles down, just appreciating his good taste.

Everyone 'steals' and it only shows good taste and respect. If you build on it it's all good. Stop there, 'nother story.

[AllenLowe]

I think the question with Getz/Presley (and I think both are important musicians) is that, because of race, there is no level playing field. So you're right, on a level of talent there is no question - but there is also no question in my mind that these guys had certain kinds of access that a black musician would not get. Of course, to complicate things, you CAN make the argument that Elvis, in the long run, helped black musicians by broadening their audience; I think Otis Blackwell and Ivory Joe Hunter , both of whom sold him songs, would agree. Of course a similar thing happened later with Mike Bloomfield and Muddy Waters and BB King.

But still, in this country things are never quite what they seem to be when it comes to issues of black and white -

[fasstrack]

I think the question with Getz/Presley (and I think both are important musicians) is that, because of race, there is no level playing field. So you're right, on a level of talent there is no question - but there is also no question in my mind that these guys had certain kinds of access that a black musician would not get. Of course, to complicate things, you CAN make the argument that Elvis, in the long run, helped black musicians by broadening their audience; I think Otis Blackwell and Ivory Joe Hunter , both of whom sold him songs, would agree. Of course a similar thing happened later with Mike Bloomfield and Muddy Waters and BB King.

But still, in this country things are never quite what they seem to be when it comes to issues of black and white -

I just put a whole long response in only to see it disappear in cyberspace. Arrrrrggghhh! F-ing aggravating. I don't have the energy, the koioch to rewrite it, but musicians and people generally across race and gender are constantly being miscategorized, misunderstood, over or underrated, and generally screwed due to race prejudice (from both sides of the B/W divide), professional exploitation, but worst of all IMO cultural separation. Warne Marsh comes to mind as a great player not as much noticed among blacks as whites b/c he inhabited a cultural reference point---even within jazz---not as resonant with black culture. Whites (particularly white critics)overrating black players simply b/c they are black is equally lame, ultimately racist, and perhaps reflective of wannabeism. It also always bugs me when I wind up picking white players for my own projects even though they are the best musical choices b/c it makes me wonder why I don't know more black players on the scene. Then I think: I'm just a guitar player and it's too much responsibility to solve society's problems. I just want a good band. In reality I know quite a few black and female musicians (not nearly enough Latinos) but we always seem, at least from what we learn culturally, to gravitate to our own kind---we humans---and everyone hires those they know (unless they are politically motivated----musically really unforgiveable).

It's almost tempting to say it would be better if everyone mixed it up and sort of shtupped everyone else until their were no more races. But then there would be no difference, no chiarascuro among humans and it would be damn boring. I do wish we would get to the point where cultural identities would recede more generally.

[JSngry]

And what new music is emerging now, from the culture of hyperspeed interconnection and shard-strewn landscape of modernist/postmodernist texts?

I'm telling you, the very best house music (and it's waaaaaaay underground, btw) is so damn chock full of information as to be the only true (ok, "truest") "music of now" that I've heard. But it ain't about "songs" nearly as much as it is about sound, texture, and peacefully and prosperously populating multiple layers of a sonic landscape.

I believe you and anticipated such a post when I started the thread... I definitely need to check more of said music out. Music (in general, as a response to the circumstances around it) doesn't die; people do.

Were you planning to fork over any names, Mr. Sangrey???

No, not really. Been down that road here before, very little interest, most people seem to reject the very notion of the music, never mind the specifics. And fair enough.

Besides, this stuff is so underground, so scattered, so generally unavailable, that unless you really want to find it, it's more trouble than it's worth. And it's been my experience that one either gets it or one doesn't. No in-between. So I hesitate to recommend something that somebody could quite possibly spend a fair amount of money on only to say "what is this shit?" To really get at it, you either got to go to a club with a great dj (& that's so not going to happen with me, for any number of reasons) or just poke and prod and download various mixes like crazy, and then get to know the names you like and then go from there. It's not like the past, where there's an established body of acknowledged can't-lose classics , this is shit still happening in real time. Remember - it took 365 days for 1959 to happen in real time, but if you got the day off, you can pretty much relive all that matters from that year in 24 hours or less.

But...

Here's a site that has regular podcasts: http://www.routesinrhythm.com/ You might get one really good tune per 'cast, or you might get several. Rarely do you get none, but it does happen. You never know. Or if you don't get the music at all, you'll get a headache everytime out. C'est la vie.

And here's two mixes that a few of my fellow middle-aged jazz musicians have enjoyed: http://karmyda.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008...T21_54_49-07_00 & http://karmyda.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008...T23_04_47-07_00 Why these one in particular, I have no real idea.

Really though, I think you have to want to like it to like it. By that I don't mean discarding all preexisting sense of self or anything like that, I jsut mean that you gotta like the notion of music that is built almost entirely around/from rhythm, texture, and repetition and the creative use of gradual evolution of same. If you need a constantly changing melodic line, or a constantly changing anything for that matter, this stuff will only piss you off. It's there, but only sometimes, and it ain't the driving force of the music.

[JSngry]

Warne Marsh comes to mind as a great player not as much noticed among blacks as whites b/c he inhabited a cultural reference point---even within jazz---not as resonant with black culture.

Hell, hardly any white or black folks got Warne in his lifetime. I think way more people are hip to him now than when he was alive.

And yet Anthony Braxton "got" him better than anybody outside of the original(-ish) Tristano-ites, rightfully placing him in the "white mystic tradtiion" (or something like that) and digging him precisely because of that.

Then again, Anthony Braxton "gets" more things than most people, period.

[fasstrack]

Warne Marsh comes to mind as a great player not as much noticed among blacks as whites b/c he inhabited a cultural reference point---even within jazz---not as resonant with black culture.

Hell, hardly any white or black folks got Warne in his lifetime. I think way more people are hip to him now than when he was alive.

And yet Anthony Braxton "got" him better than anybody outside of the original(-ish) Tristano-ites, rightfully placing him in the "white mystic tradtiion" (or something like that) and digging him precisely because of that.

Then again, Anthony Braxton "gets" more things than most people, period.

Yeah. All I know is he's a great player, and the world needs all the beauty it can get. Here is a page from a tribute site, with some rememberances, including my own:

http://www.warnemarsh.info/global_warne-ing.htm

Edited April 4, 2009 by fasstrack

[danasgoodstuff]

But Konitz didn't think Braxton got 'it'; don't know what Marsh thought...

[Jazzmoose]

I think the question with Getz/Presley (and I think both are important musicians) is that, because of race, there is no level playing field. So you're right, on a level of talent there is no question - but there is also no question in my mind that these guys had certain kinds of access that a black musician would not get.

I agree completely, and that is one fucked up thing. I understand discussing it, lamenting about it, and trying to fix it. What I don't understand is blaming Getz or Presley for how fucked up society was/is.

[Alexander]

I think the question with Getz/Presley (and I think both are important musicians) is that, because of race, there is no level playing field. So you're right, on a level of talent there is no question - but there is also no question in my mind that these guys had certain kinds of access that a black musician would not get.

I agree completely, and that is one fucked up thing. I understand discussing it, lamenting about it, and trying to fix it. What I don't understand is blaming Getz or Presley for how fucked up society was/is.

Thank you! I'm tired of Elvis Presley being the universal symbol of the untalented whitey who unfairly makes it while more worthy black musicians starve to death. As though his career was engineered by the KKK to undermine blacks. As if he was a bigoted roughneck.

[AllenLowe]

yes, I am an Elvis fan too - and currently hoping to wrangle an interview with his old crony Jerry Schilling, for my documentary (he's a neighbor of Larry Cohn's in LA) -

long live the king!

[JSngry]

No, it's not that for me. I just don't think the cat was anything much more than a reasonably talented Southern guy, not some GREAT ARTIST or anything.

I never "got" Elvis, still don't, and truthfully don't really care if I ever do. That has nothing whatsoever to do with race or politics or anything else. The guy has just never mattered to me one way or the other. Ever.

[AllenLowe]

listen to Blue Moon - most avant garde pop recording of the 1950s -

[JSngry]

I've heard it -all the Sun stuff, all the hits, too many of the soundtracks, the gospel stuff, the comeback and beyond things, pretty much all of it, and I remain unimpressed and unmoved. Obviously I am in the minority on that, but oh well about that. I grew up Southern, like plenty of "white" artists, and have no problem whatsoever with "hillbillies" or Pop or Country music, so I'm not demographically predisposed to reject Elvis on principle. I just don't connect with Elvis at any level and personally find all the fuss about him....puzzling. Sociologically it makes some sense, but musically...nah. Not for me.

But to those for which it does, hey, party on!

[paul secor]

I like some of Elvis' recordings a lot - just never bought into the whole King thing.

[AllenLowe]

I saw him working at the mall today - I handed him my 3 bucks; he said:

"thank you very much."

[JSngry]

Yeah, there's a few of the records over the years that I like, namely "Little Sister", "A Fool Such As I", and "Burning Love", but overall....ehhhhhh.

The Sun stuff, I can abstractly grasp the "importance" of it all, but other than "That's All Right....", it mostly seems more sloppy to me than anything else. Not even sloppy so much as just lacking a groove of any sort. Even the RCA stuff, after they knew what they were going for, it just lacks a pocket to me. And I do recognize that different people have different types of pockets. But jeez, listen to "Teddy Bear" or "Return To Sender" or any of that "classic" stuff, and there's just no...SWING there, anywhere, other than what Elvis is able to bring, which is enough to make it not sound like Pat Boone, but hell, if THAT's all it takes to be a Rock & Roll God, then, uh, I picked the wrong line of work...

[Jazzmoose]

I was never much of an Elvis Presley fan, though my grandmother liked his gospel stuff. Heck, I never bought an Elvis LP until My Aim is True...

[AllenLowe]

I'm a fan of nearly all things Sun, and have found some amazing things - Charlie Feathers, Pat Hare, Carl Perkins, Warren Smith, the early Junior Parker, Memphis sides with a VERY young Frank Strozier backing blues singers; Walter Horton, Billy Lee Riley (whom I played with about 10 years ago - now THERE's a great white blues singer) - Earl Hooker - and much much more - that Memphis scene, black and white, may just be the most important post-War blues thing ever anywhere - as for Elvis, the Sun stuff, to me, is just raw and open and so damned new it's a little scary. I have some well-preserved bootleg shows he did on the Louisiana Hayride that are also quite good. To me, by the time he hit RCA he had lost the hunger, and it showed -

Edited April 5, 2009 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

I've heard some of the Hayride things, and as sociology, yeah, I find them important. But straight-up musically, I'm still not convinced that it's some Southern "white guys" trying to play some things that they don't quite yet know how to play the way they think they might want to play it. I'm thinking that some Western Swing was a lot further along this same path than these guys. If not for Elvis, they'd sound pretty lame, and even with Elvis, you got more "energy" than you do music.

And yes, sociology and music often intertwine to a point where they become inseparable. No question. but the whole idea of Elvis as a significant musical figure, apart from a purely social one, is just lost on me. the guy did have a voice, but he really had no idea what to really do with it until he started having hits, and then he did what he knew would sell. The Sun stuff is raw, but it's just...unformed to my ears. Not just the band, but the whole thing, including Elvis himself. That's a difference from most "important" nascent musical breakthroughs like, say Armstrong w/Oliver or Bird w/McShann. There, you get a sense that these guys knew what it was that they wanted and that they knew what they were going to have to eventually do to get to it. With Elvis on sun, what I basically hear is a guy who knows he wants something, and who knows that he can do some things pretty well. But that's about it, really. I don't hear any real "point of view" if you know what I mean, and I think that's a big part of why he became what he became. HE didn't "lose his way" nearly as much as he never really had a "way" of his own to begin with.

Just my opinion., and again, I know I'm in the minority. But Elvis, virtually any Elvis, just does not...satisfy me at all, and so much other music does.

[Alexander]

The Sun stuff is raw, but it's just...unformed to my ears. Not just the band, but the whole thing, including Elvis himself...With Elvis on sun, what I basically hear is a guy who knows he wants something, and who knows that he can do some things pretty well. But that's about it, really. I don't hear any real "point of view" if you know what I mean, and I think that's a big part of why he became what he became. HE didn't "lose his way" nearly as much as he never really had a "way" of his own to begin with.

Bear in mind that Elvis on Sun was just out of high school and no real significant musical experience (outside of church and his activities as a fan of R&B). He had barely EVER even performed in public at that point! I'm sure you've heard the tale...how young Elvis showed up at Sun to make a 78 of himself singing "My Happiness" to give his mother for her birthday. How Marion Keisker decided to make a copy to play for Sam Phillips. By the time he finally got around to "That's All Right," Elvis was still a piece of uncut marble. All Phillips knew was that this kid had SOMETHING, but neither he nor Elvis (not to mention Scotty Moore and Bill Black, who played on that session) knew exactly what it was. "That's All Right" was an accident. Phillips overheard Elvis goofing around with the musicians during a break. That sense of serendipidy, THAT is part of what makes those Sun recordings so remarkable. It might not have happened at all. It very nearly DIDN'T happen. In a parallel universe, Elvis never got up the nerve to make that demo recording of "My Happiness" or Marion Keisker didn't make a copy for Phillips. Or perhaps Elvis never gelled with Moore and Black and everybody went home disappointed, Elvis went back to driving a truck and music history was forever changed. It's one of those moments where everything falls into place and you know, "This is a BIG deal." It's the musical equivilent of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

It's also what Elvis represented to his earliest listeners. There was a sense of transgression, of boundaries weakening. Elvis was a poor white kid from the South who, like many of his peers at that time, was wild about black music. That in itself was transgressive. There was a very deliberate code in the way Elvis dressed (his pompadour and sideburns mimicking the "process" popular among blacks at the time) and the way he performed on stage. Yet he was also clearly self-conscious in those early days. You can hear it in live recordings where he would mock the lyrics of his own songs (singing "Heartbreak Hotel" as "Heartburn Motel"). He obviously didn't really understand what was happening to him. I would imagine that most of us having our fondest wishes suddenly granted beyond our wildest imaginings would feel the same.

And yes, he really never did have his own way. The worst thing that ever happened to him was Tom Parker. Parker's gamesmanship with Elvis's career, refusing to let Elvis record during most of the 60s in order to give him leverage with RCA, is primarily responsible for Elvis's eventual slide into drug addiction and eccentricity. Isolated from the world, surrounded by yes-men and hangers-on, and denied his only form of vocation or release, Elvis had no choice but to construct his own increasingly bizarre world. No wonder he suddenly rose from the ashes in a blaze of glory when he was finally allowed to perform and record again! It was too little, too late by then, however. The rot had set in and it was only a matter of time before the pills and the food claimed him. There's not a little bit of Shakespeare in the tragedy of Elvis Presley.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Alexander

[JSngry]

Yeah, I understand all that "intellectually". But it's never translated into particularly enjoying the actual music.

Really, Jerry Lee Lewis was a lot more formed from jump, I think. And there were others who were much more "there" musically than Elvis but nowhere near as capable of being "molded".

All I can see Elvis really contributing from a strictly musical standpoint is...nothing. Sociologicallly, hell yeah - he made the world safe for Leonard Skynard, god bless him.

Sure, he changed the music business forever, and that in turned changed the music forever. But let's not overlook that there were plenty of people who did it the other way around.

And really, I'd rather not get into a lengthy back & forth about Elvis (or Bill Evans, or anybody generally beloved figure towards whom I am ambivalent at best). I'm not looking to convince anybody that I'm right and they're wrong. I just want to every now and then let whoever know that, no, not EVERYBODY feels the love, just because.

Edited April 5, 2009 by JSngry

[papsrus]

nice post. ... Serendipitous moments in music history. Would be a great book/article.

[JSngry]

Right up there with the Kennedy Assassination leading to the Beatles on Sullivan!

[Jim R]

I'm not looking to convince anybody that I'm right and they're wrong. I just want to every now and then let whoever know that, no, not EVERYBODY feels the love, just because.

I have always felt the same way about Elvis. I've heard the vast majority of his work, and I have rarely been moved or impressed. Not only that, but the praise heaped upon Scotty Moore has always baffled me. I just don't hear anything at all in either his comping or his solos that even seems worthy of mentioning, and it's not just a "chops" thing. To me, Elvis was a guy with charisma who surrounded himself with mediocre talent. The real drag, though, were the background vocalists (especially those cats in the checkered suits on the Sullivan show). Ouch.

Next, we'll discuss Buddy Holly.

[JSngry]

The real drag, though, were the background vocalists (especially those cats in the checkered suits on the Sullivan show). Ouch.

The Jordanaires were a very legendary Southern Gospel group. quite apart from their long association with Elvis. Whether or not you can get into that type of thing or not (and for me it\'s a tste I\'m still acquiring - slowly).

All I\'m saying is that to know them only from Elvis is to not really know them at all, if not necessarily that to know them is to love them....

And also, post-comeback Elvis used the Sweet Inspirations, not a group to dismiss. But I don't think you're including them.

Edited April 5, 2009 by JSngry