Prince is dead

[jazzbo]

It's fine if you don't hear it or see it, doesn't upset me. Just my impressions, and I've thought of it for a bit of time.

[Scott Dolan]

1 hour ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Don't mean to be disrespectful, to U or Prince, but I just really do NOT hear this...wish I did, but no.  Maybe I should start a poll, I have the sense that this is a bit of a dividing line...

Can you expand on exactly what it is you don't hear? 

While I may not agree with every point, I do think there is some truth to the overall statement.

[l p]

for people who don't like prince. there's no music on the first 4minutes.

 

 

[Soulstation1]

Hard to believe he left no will

its about to get U G L Y!!

[danasgoodstuff]

4 hours ago, Scott Dolan said:

Can you expand on exactly what it is you don't hear? 

While I may not agree with every point, I do think there is some truth to the overall statement.

Ellingtonian level mastery, i don't hear that.  I hear solid musicality, eclecticism, use of what's in the air in the culture generally and more immediately in his associates, etc.  I just don't hear genius, or anything like it.

[MomsMobley]

On April 22, 2016 at 2:55 PM, JSngry said:

Yeah, Prince.

Greg Tate--

http://www.mtv.com/news/2872859/prince-a-eulogy/

 

[danasgoodstuff]

1 hour ago, Soulstation1 said:

Hard to believe he left no will

its about to get U G L Y!!

Sad, but if that's true it certainly will.

[jazzbo]

IMO the genius in the music isn't quite there as with EKE, but EKE didn't have the genius sing and dance and present music as I feel Prince did. There are parallels in "the stockpile" and "the vault," the abundant touring and the composing and performance and recording as a sort of daily ritual, the religious/spiritual thang, etc.

I never had Duke as a strong cultural force in my everyday world the way that I had Prince. I wish I did. I missed Duke. I'll miss Prince.

Edited April 27, 2016 by jazzbo

[JSngry]

Prince had a strong geek side to of him, but also about as organically funky as this particular fabric of time can withstand.

Was he Duke Ellington? Hell no, he was Prince goddammiy,  PRINCE. Recognize the name.

Don't nobody need to be Duke.but Duke, and for sure was,

And nobody's called Marvin yet.

https://youtu.be/HVKyPlELox0 

[Scott Dolan]

Jazzbo didn't say he WAS Duke. He basically just outlined the parallels between the two. And I can definitely see them, even though I have never considered myself a fan. 

[sonnyhill]

Built like she was
She had the nerve to ask me
If I planned to do her any harm

-- From "Raspberry Beret"

This lyric always made me laugh.  He also had a great sense of humor.

 

Edited April 27, 2016 by sonnyhill

[JSngry]

There've been a lot of "next" Ellingtons...Stevie Wonder being a notable name once upon a time, and it's not that anybody is or isn't worthy of consideration or like that, just that people develop their own things...I like to think of a continum, yes, but a continuum of individuals, not of, like "first Ellington, next Ellington, third Ellington", etc. Just because there was A Duke Ellington creates neither the need for or the inevitability of a "next" Ellington. If anything, that's a setup for disappointment, because Ellington was such a strong voice (and don't forget, he had an alter-ego in Strayhorn who made him that much again stronger and wider). And Ellington straddled the worlds of popular and art musics the way he did because of the "accident" of his chronology. These other names that keep coming up, they work, ultimately, in the realm of popular music, and their art is to to be found their. You wouldn't see Prince working on a Such Sweet Thunder type work, nor would you he really need to. He had his own world, and a massive and often brilliant world it was. Stevie...that Secret Life Of Plants thing...lots of ways that could have grown into lots of other things, but market factors took hold, and he let them. No shame, just sighs...

If you compare Prince to Ellington, the pitfall is that you can always say, well, Duke did blahblahblah and Prince couldn't come close to that, but hey - that is at once completely true and completely irrelevant. Duke was Duke, Prince was Prince and they both had massive vocabularies at their disposal, and they both used them to create their own worlds that spoke both to and about their subjects about as fully and masterfully as they could. Perhaps one mastery can be better appreciated by some more than by others, but I revel in them both.

To that end, sort of, mixing popular and art musics and commenting on times, places, and peoples in a way that hits both,,,I've said it before and I'll say it again - Weather Report in the middle 1970s and the Ellington 1940-41 RCA band.

[jazzbo]

I should have better phrased my feeling as "an Ellington of our time." There are a lot of parallels and a lot of differences of course. I don't see Stevie Wonder in that way at all, but Prince, yeah, I do. 

[JSngry]

No, we don't see Stevie that way at all now. But that 70s run, people were talking like that, especially after Songs In The Key Of Life. Great songs, fantastic colorations, expansive arrangements, really doing something that was musically interesting and popular in equal measure, "the new/next Duke Ellington", that was being proffered pretty often, until it wasn't...and it hasn't been for a long time. The Secret Life Of Plants thing...that was a big turning point, critically savaged, popularly rejected (mostly), and musically, a mostly failed experiment. But failed in the pursuit of new ideas, new concepts of sound...the popular demands crushed the artistic impulses, and although Stevie would rebound a couple of times with exceptionally strong work, he never really pushed the envelope again, not like that. and so we no longer think of Stevie as another Duke Ellington.

But we can do that with Prince, because Prince didn't give a damn (he just want to jam). That whole "slave" thing, people were like, shit, this cat's making a gazillion bucks, fuck that, but it was not about that, it was about being able to own, really own, your music and the direction(s) you could take with it, about not being forced to recoil or retreat, about not being "handled" as a matter of surrendering. And that, very very much, is a strongly Ellingtonian trait. Forget about the music and look at the conscious character of self-determination. There lies a strongly sustained parallel to Ellington, and it's one I think should be celebrated and shout-outed, because people all Purple Rain and shit, hell, that's ultimately just a song and a pop-culture phenomena, let's look at these people as men, humans, and let's look at how they stood up, stood tall, and kept standing tall, always. And then let's ponder why that kind of action gets lip service but is almost never the primary subject of emopurple "tributes".

Because people always standing up and standing tall "complicate" things for forces that do not like to have things complicated, that's why.

[jazzbo]

Well I didn't talk much about music in the 'seventies because I was into shit no one around me was and I just paid lip service to Floyd and Foghat and the stuff around, enjoying some of it (Yes, Bowie), sick of most of it. No one to talk to, no one who cared to listen. But I still wouldn't have done the Ellington parallel to Stevie I don't think. And really I did mean more "an Ellington for our time" than "the next Ellington," I shouldn't have phrased that that way. There are many parallels to Duke in Prince and that self-determination is a big one. There's a look in the eye, know what I mean smirk, that subversive twinkle. And now it's dimmed. Sad.

Edited April 27, 2016 by jazzbo

[MomsMobley]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

There've been a lot of "next" Ellingtons...Stevie Wonder being a notable name once upon a time, and it's not that anybody is or isn't worthy of consideration or like that, just that people develop their own things...I like to think of a continum, yes, but a continuum of individuals, not of, like "first Ellington, next Ellington, third Ellington", etc. Just because there was A Duke Ellington creates neither the need for or the inevitability of a "next" Ellington. If anything, that's a setup for disappointment, because Ellington was such a strong voice (and don't forget, he had an alter-ego in Strayhorn who made him that much again stronger and wider). And Ellington straddled the worlds of popular and art musics the way he did because of the "accident" of his chronology. These other names that keep coming up, they work, ultimately, in the realm of popular music, and their art is to to be found their. You wouldn't see Prince working on a Such Sweet Thunder type work, nor would you he really need to. He had his own world, and a massive and often brilliant world it was. Stevie...that Secret Life Of Plants thing...lots of ways that could have grown into lots of other things, but market factors took hold, and he let them. No shame, just sighs...

 

 

from 1985 Rolling Stone interview (can't find original link on their website but it's here also), Moms Mobley bought & read it at the time--

http://princetext.tripod.com/i_stone85.html

Do you read most of what's been written about you?

A little, not much. Sometimes someone will pass along a funny one. I just wrote a song called "Hello," which is going to be on the flip side of "Pop Life." It says at the end, "Life is cruel enough without cruel words." I get a lot of cruel words. A lot of people do.

I saw critics be so critical of Stevie Wonder when he made Journey through the Secret World of Plants. Stevie has done so many great songs, and for people to say, "You missed, don't do that, go back" -- well, I would never say, "Stevie Wonder, you missed." [Prince puts the Wonder album on the turntable, plays a cut, then puts on Miles Davis' new album.] Or Miles. Critics are going to say, "Ah, Miles done went off." Why say that? Why even tell Miles he went off? You know, if you don't like it, don't talk about it. Go buy another record!

Not long ago I talked too George Clinton, a man who knows and has done so much for funk. George told me how much he liked Around the World in a Day. You know how much more his words meant than those from some mamma-jamma wearing glasses and an alligator shirt behind a typewriter?

***

way Way WAY undermentioned in Prince discussions is Todd Rundgren btw; there's ZERO chance teenage Prince wasn't a Todd & likely Utopia fan for all his obvious absorbtion, transmogrification black tradition, the pop / rock / PROG one is there also, not 'just' Joni, Fleetwood Mac etc... One man can / will do anything = Todd, who even had constumes tho' he knew well-enough not to dance. (And I'm not even Todd fanatic but facts is talent / genius is facts-- and there's a lot of great Todd, esp. once he got really weird.)

***

 

[danasgoodstuff]

45 minutes ago, fasstrack said:

I was nonplussed by the media feeding frenzy (but certainly not surprised). I have to go against the vox popular and say that people like Prince and David Bowie mean nothing to me. I am sorry for Prince's family and fans. I don't understand why someone gets called a genius for prancing around a stage with earrings on and 25 singers and dancers. I guess people are transfixed by a show and a lot of pomp and noise. 

It's disturbing to me that someone like the great J.J. Johnson, who elected to just stand there dignified and play with real genius and accomplishment gets relegated to a historical backwater while Prince and his ilk get so much more attention. 

That's America, folks...

Just to be clear, my view of Prince is nowhere near this harsh or dismissive.  But we live in a world where it's all or nothing...part of what I was trying to talk about.

[JSngry]

58 minutes ago, fasstrack said:

I was nonplussed by the media feeding frenzy (but certainly not surprised). I have to go against the vox popular and say that people like Prince and David Bowie mean nothing to me. I am sorry for Prince's family and fans. I don't understand why someone gets called a genius for prancing around a stage with earrings on and 25 singers and dancers. I guess people are transfixed by a show and a lot of pomp and noise. 

It's disturbing to me that someone like the great J.J. Johnson, who elected to just stand there dignified and play with real genius and accomplishment gets relegated to a historical backwater while Prince and his ilk get so much more attention. 

That's America, folks...

Well, if that's all you get out of it (or all you look/expect to get out of it), then yes, that should be your reaction.

[clifford_thornton]

Not sure what Prince and J.J. Johnson have to do with one another. Both are heavy in their own divergent ways.

[skeith]

Not sure if this adds anything to the discussion ....but I wanted to go back to some comments I had left out of my earlier post when I discussed Prince and Hendrix with some office mates of mixed races.   One person said "Jimi played white music with two white boys for white people, Prince was a black artist....playing black music for black people".....now I guess it surprises me that Hendrix would be viewed that way by the African American community but what was said about Prince sure seems to be born out by the testimonials I am seeing these days....I guess it is to his credit that he connected with his people.

[Scott Dolan]

1 hour ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Just to be clear, my view of Prince is nowhere near this harsh or dismissive.  But we live in a world where it's all or nothing...part of what I was trying to talk about.

I actually disagree with that summation. And I think we've seen ample evidence in this thread to prove that it really isn't all or nothing. Many have claimed not to be a fan, but appreciate the supreme talent that he was (this is basically where I stand). I own one Prince song, 7, and never had the desire to own any of his albums, even though there are other songs of his that I really dig, like Raspberry Beret. I may get Sign O The Times, just because it's such a hot mess of an album, in a Exile On Main Street kind of way. And that Undertaker album that l p posted earlier is truly outstanding. 

As Jim said above, if all fasstrack got from Prince was someone with earrings dancing around on stage, then he'll definitely fall into the "nothing" camp. Or jazzbo's likely unintentional (or at least semi-poorly worded) hagiography, which would put him in the "everything" camp. But by and large, it seems most of us simply recognized the force of nature that he was, even if we didn't really "get" most of his music. Michael Jackson immediately comes to mind, although I actually LOVE several of his tunes, I would never consider myself a fan. But good god, there is no way you could deny the talent! 

So I don't think your opinion really fits the overall narrative, although I respect it and appreciate you sharing it. Yes, we lived in an on/off, open/closed digital world, but we are all still very analog in our thought processes. 

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

Not sure what Prince and J.J. Johnson have to do with one another. Both are heavy in their own divergent ways.

Right! This^^^

[JSngry]

48 minutes ago, skeith said:

Not sure if this adds anything to the discussion ....but I wanted to go back to some comments I had left out of my earlier post when I discussed Prince and Hendrix with some office mates of mixed races.   One person said "Jimi played white music with two white boys for white people, Prince was a black artist....playing black music for black people".....now I guess it surprises me that Hendrix would be viewed that way by the African American community but what was said about Prince sure seems to be born out by the testimonials I am seeing these days....I guess it is to his credit that he connected with his people.

Pretty sure that one person was not Miles Davis, Eddie Hazel, Ronald Isley, or any other number of people.

No idea what the age of that person was, but as a Rapidly Emerging Old Fart, the amount of totally unquestioned "received wisdom" by a too-big LOT of younger people increasingly really gets on all of my last nerves. That's why when my daughter calls (usually with a bunch of her friends in the room, on speakerphone), and asks for me to "speak freely" (code word for "ramble", I'm sure) about whatever kind of music it is that they're confronting, I go ahead and just let 'er rip, not just because that's pretty much all I got in the tank these days, but also because I pretty much know that these folks, no matter how well-intentioned, just don't know from a broad perspective. I know most of them, and they just don't. So when I talk about that video of Prince/MJ, and JB and talk about how Prince does a really focused deconstruction of all the elements onstage, goes all Picasso on that shit, that's something they never bothered to think about, because all they know is the bullet points of history, especially of pop-culture history. I fucking hate bullet points as endpoints.

Fortunately, most of them seem to be happy enough to hear it. But other people, just everyday people you know, they don't want to hear about any of that, because for them, pop culture is all about convenience and factoids, like I am cool because I can recite. But, you know, most of them feel that way about everything in life, or seem to, so, you know. fuck them. If they wanna output and not ever input, hey, good luck with that.

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

Not sure what Prince and J.J. Johnson have to do with one another.

They both made records with Miles?

[clifford_thornton]

Ha, good point! Or... Miles made records with both of them.

REOF I also dig immensely.

[JSngry]

Oh, I'm reminded of the Hendrix fanatic I knew in high school, an African-American kid of 15 or so who told me in no uncertain terms that jazz was for white folks now and that Hendrix was the real black music of today. I mean, he was passionate about this, his pov was that all the old jazz was cool in its time, but that for today, for what he felt as black music for his times, Hendrix was it.

That was, like 1972 or so, and his was not a majority viewpoint amongst his peers of any race. And of course, we're talking about kids here (but kids who were not informed by jsut bullet points, either, limited exposures, perhaps, but definitely processing information as it came, not just receiving it as it was preached). But let today's record reflect that this friend of mine was by no means alone either, if not about jazz, then definitely about Hendrix being black music, no matter who was playing it or digging it. Also let it be known that that opinion is by no means dead today, either.

I graduated and left town before Pete Cosey really blew up on the scene, but I would have loved to have hung with him to hear what he thought about that!

I need to get my daughter's friends to check out Maggot Brain, if they haven't already done so. This friend of mine, he knew Maggot Brain, now, you better believe that!

[Scott Dolan]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Oh, I'm reminded of the Hendrix fanatic I knew in high school, an African-American kid of 15 or so who told me in no uncertain terms that jazz was for white folks now and that Hendrix was the real black music of today. I mean, he was passionate about this, his pov was that all the old jazz was cool in its time, but that for today, for what he felt as black music for his times, Hendrix was it.

Didn't Miles say something similar? 

It's been many moons since I read his "autobiography", but I seem to remember him saying something along the same lines. I mean, fuck the uptown/downtown shit. And he wasn't big on funerals, but attended Jimi's...