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  • Gilbert Klein
    Gilbert Klein

    The Music In Me: Rap of History Backwards The

    A Warning:

    The last two songs in this article might offend some people, so keep that in mind if you’re playing it in a public space— Gilbert.

     

    An Introduction:

    Look, I know I know too little about this subject to say I’m an expert, so I’m not. I’m not going to opine on the form or its practitioners, proponents, prophets or phans. (Sorry, I just had to do that. You get it, with the phat thing, right?) I know there must be rap artists who are soulful more than angry, and I know some people are making beautiful music that’s called rap or hip-hop, and I’m sorry but I must conflate the two. I don’t know about it or the scene, and I don’t have to, because I only want to tell you about the first rap song that I heard, and do a little history. I like a little history. I’ll bet there isn’t a rock fan out there who doesn’t know who Chuck Berry is and his music, but I’d bet there aren’t many rap fans who know who Gil Scott-Heron is. But first, the history, and I’ll ask you to keep in mind that in the entertainment industry, innovation is quickly replicated and exploited.

     

    The History:

    Oh, I am so not the right guy to expound on the history of rap. But I heard a few lines from a song I hadn’t heard in years, see, and it made me think about it. And I have this column, see? I’m telling you now I’m no expert. I’m just a guy. Okay, a guy with a column. Like a lot of old people, I don’t get rap music. I didn’t get it when it started and I’m probably too old now; I ignore it now because when it first broke big, I just didn’t like it. There was too much violence, too many gats, glocks and putting a cap in someone’s ass. It all seemed to be swagger about n--gers, bitches, blunts and bling. I understood anti-social sentiment, honest- I’ve enjoyed a bit of it myself in my youth, but where was the music? Suddenly everyone was clever for stealing using bits from other people’s music. That didn’t used to be cool in the 60’s, man. I appreciated the innovation, but I just didn’t find the music in there. Okay, if melody was going to be subverted by cleverness, I gave it a listen, but what I was hearing just seemed… angry. I understood the anger coming out of urban, less privileged areas like Brooklyn, the Bronx and lower Manhattan. I got that. I got why it was coming from places like Compton. But I missed melody, you know?

     

    So rap sells a lot of music and is one of our most popular music forms. But nothing comes from out of a vacuum, so where did it come from? First, let’s look at the word “rap.” Yeah, it’s a bad thing if it refers to a criminal charge, but that wasn’t what it meant when we used it back in the mid-Sixties. It came from “rapport” and it usually meant that you were under the influence of the demon drug, marijuana. It just meant someone went on a talking jag. Logorrhea, as it were. Could have been about someone on meth, but it came out of the pot community. People got stoned and went off on verbal tangents, sometimes seemingly endlessly. It was kind of a joke, you know, when a guy looked around him and realized he’d been talking nonstop and had no idea what he’d been talking about. That was rapping. Or, you could be with someone else, or even a group, and having an earnest discussion. Pot wasn’t necessarily a component in this instance. That was rapping, too. I used to cringe when they called it a “rap session,” but that’s what we called them back then where I was, and I was in a lot of places. It was just silly talk or a serious discussion; either way, we rapped. And now it means something else, but that’s where it came from, and this is about how it got to here, so we’re going backwards.

     

    Let’s start with all the rap music that’s out in the world right now, and go back from there. Let’s include Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Biggie and Tupac, and N.W.A. and Ice-T and Snoop Dogg and Eminem and Nicki Minaj and Kesha and everyone you know in that field, and there’s a lot of them. Let’s call all of them current artists, and yes, I know who’s dead. Let’s say that these are the folks you know, and for those of you that know more than I do about the recent history of rap, please excuse my glossing over most of the details to get to the first of it. Let’s go backwards to January, 1981. You’ll like this.

     

    The first mainstream rap hit song was “Rapture,” by Blondie. Rap song? Blondie? The New Wave hit machine? Well, it had a rap, no doubt, and up ‘til then, rap had always been tough black guys, mostly gangsta, you feel me? Well, Debbie Harry was as opposite all that as you could devise, but it was rap—okay, maybe rap-ish—but Blondie was a powerhouse group and the song did have rap. It was also the beginning of the Age of Video, and MTV played the bejeesus out of the song. It was November, 1980 when that song came out and became the first major pop hit with rap in it. It was dipping your toes in rap, but it was huge. What preceded it?

     

    Well, that would be “Rapper’s Delight,” by The Sugar Hill Gang, which came out in September, 1979, and went to #36 on the Billboard Hot 100, #4 on the Soul chart, #1 in Canada and Europe. It’s thought of as the first song to introduce rap (or hip-hop) to U.S. audiences, was a great big hit, and you know about sampling, right? This would be when sampling came into prominence, and from that development two phenomena emerged: today’s rap music, and a whole boatload of very wealthy lawyers. And you know who they sampled for this big hit?

     

    Well, that would be “Good Times,” by Chic, which came out in June of 1979, and went on to be sampled too many times to even estimate at this point (note: check out Who Sampled for a list of the 180 times this track has been sampled and many other delights - CC). But “Rapper’s Delight” was the first to almost go mainstream, and when it hit, Debbie brought legendary singer/songwriter/producer/ recent Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Nile Rodgers of Chic, to a club where he heard his beats and bass lines being used in some other guys’ song. He asked the DJ what record it was, the DJ told him he just bought it that day in Harlem, and it was an early version of “Rapper’s Delight,” whereupon they sued over the use of their record, and he and his bass player are now listed as co-writers. So, was “Rapper’s Delight” with all the “Good Times’” samples the first rap record to get serious airplay? No, that would be “King Tim III (Personality Jock),” by The Fatback Band, in March of 1979. And think about that title for an indication of how rare this was. It was happening fast, wasn’t it? Where’d this come from?  

     

    The funk dance outfit The Fatback Band was looking for something new, something energetic to put out. Knowing about the parties (remember- we’re going backwards here), they hired Tim Washington, an almost unknown MC who used to throw out raps at parties, and they recorded the song. They were a funk band, but they’d wanted something innovative, something to drive the song, so they went to a rapper because that was still all but unknown on any music charts, but there were dance parties in the Bronx and now elsewhere that were increasing in popularity, and rap was still exciting and daring. They thought the dance parties were not their dance crowd, so they put it out as the B-side. They thought those parties out there were for someone else,  but the song took off like a shot in clubs and parties, and they re-released it as the A-side. I’m guessing the folks over at Sugar Hill Records thought they were on to something as they prepared to release “Rapper’s Delight,” shortly thereafter, and they were right. So now we’re back in March of 1979, when “King Tim” came out. So where’d he come from? Glad I asked.

     

    What had been going on until “King Tim” was parties with MCs, starting in 1973, when Coke La Rock and DJ Kool Herc teamed up for a dance party in the Bronx to celebrate his sister’s birthday. La Rock improvised lines over the beats, mostly calling out to friends in the crowd and making up short stories to the beat, puffing up him and his friends. He did their first few parties from behind the speakers so no one knew who was rapping. For the sixth party, he started calling himself La Rock, and stepped out in front and got bolder, incorporating more poetry into his lines. His antics were getting closer to rap, but it was closer to a combination of performance art and showing off. The idea caught on and other parties started featuring MCs, and I’m using the term in a general way or we’ll be here all day.

     

    Their success made these two players influential as the other MCs started showing up at dance parties. Violence was always a part of the raps because they reflected the reality of life in the ghetto, but the lore must have included the night when DJ Kool Herc was stabbed at a party, and when La Rock went looking to settle the score, he found that friends of the perpetrator had sent the guy out of town. La Rock mostly retired from rapping after that, but his influence lived on with the current and then the next generation of rappers. Later rappers eschewed La Rock’s improvisations, writing out the lyrics out and rehearsing their rhymes with a crew, which allowed them to become more complex. These parties continued outside the notice of mainstream record labels and the songs appeared mostly on tape until The Fatback Band, and we’ve been there and done that, so what the hell could possibly have preceded Coke La Rock in 1973? I’ve got two names for you: Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets.

     

    Summer, 1971.  The “Sixties” are over, but racial tensions continue to erupt.

     

    Gi-Scott-HeronAnd this is where I came in. In the old days, the pre-Sixties, we only had AM radios and all we listened to was Top 40. When all that changed with the Underground Radio revolution, we all listened to our FM stations, and that was where this essay starts. The snippet of the song I heard that started me on this quest was in the opening music for the just-ended season of “Homeland,” on Showtime. I heard a phrase that I’d heard the first time in the song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” by Gil Scott-Heron. It would only ever be played on FM in the summer of 1971; it was too hot for AM, and I don’t mean “hot” in the good way. Over the years, the phrase popped up now and then, and I know there isn’t an ex-hipster out there who forgot it, and when I heard it on that show, I wanted to know more about it.

     

    It was played on FM because it was daring, it was about “the revolution” that had evolved into the middle class when the hippies got married and had children; some were left some behind. AM wouldn’t touch it, and it didn’t ignite any flames that I know of, but I heard it, and so did those of us still listening. I wasn’t alarmed, but I did think that this was something new. Not just the message, but the medium. That was new, and I paid attention. It was in 1971, and it didn’t ignite any flames, but it was something different, and that’s what I heard. Different. It was jazzy and pop-ish, but it had a message, maybe a warning. In the early Sixties, Dylan wrote: “Yes, it is I who is knockin’ at your door if it is you inside who hears the noise,” and we heard him knocking when he sang,

     

    Oh the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes

    And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re dreamin’

    And they’ll pinch themselves and squeal and know that it’s for real

    The hour when the ship comes in

     

    The message was received, the Sixties had come and gone, and there’d been some changes made. But not enough for a lot of the black community, who were still restless, waiting for all the freedoms that were promised so recently. Black Olympians had raised their fists in the Black Power salute, James Brown said “I’m black and I’m proud,” but where were the changes? The influence of the Black Panthers had come and gone by 1971, when Gil Scott-Heron released “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” He was speaking for a group that was virtually unheard in pop culture, and we heard the warning. We’d heard it from Dylan, and he’d been chillingly right…

     

    I remember comparing the two in 1971. When I heard it recently, I asked myself if this wasn’t the origin of rap. It was certainly so in my mind, and then I saw that confirmed in my research, but I also found one more step backwards in the history of rap, and that would be to The Last Poets, a group founded in the wake of the late 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, and its Black Nationalist’s offshoot. Angry revolutionaries, they made no effort to couch their message in radio-ready language, and so it was months before Scott-Heron put out “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” that they released The Last Poets, which, out of concern for my host’s inbox I will call: this song and the other song, neither of which you may play in sensitive situations.

     

    I never heard this group back then, and I can guess why. Maybe it was because of the language? I don’t know, maybe Station Managers or Program Directors or owners felt that playing Gil Scott-Heron was daring, but playing The Last Poets was a bridge too far. Even hippie stations had to sell ads and keep their licenses. Don’t know, don’t care; this is about the first rap music and I think this is it. Maybe you never heard of The Last Poets, either, but they were not unheard, and if you listen, you can hear their echoes today. Them and Gil Scott-Heron.

     

    Were they angry? Definitely. Got a point? You decide. What I decided was that this was as far back as I can trace rap. Yes, there may be evidence of rap as far back as the early 18th Century in Congo Square, but 1970 is as far as I go.

     

    Now rap is everywhere and has fragmented into styles and methods, as it should. It’s in clubs, on TV, on the web and stuck in people’s ears; if there are still boom boxes, then it’s there, too. It’s on the guy’s radio next to you at a red light, and at or near every 7-11 in at least in Southern California, and it’s in movies and TV soundtracks, and it’s in the news, and its biggest stars are the biggest stars, and it’s come a long way from The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron and Coke La Rock and The Fatback Band.

     

    You may now go back to the present day. And good day to you.  

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    GilbertgGilbert Klein has enough degrees and not enough stories. He’s been a radio talk show host, a nightclub owner, event producer, and has written two books: FAT CHANCE about the legendary KFAT radio, and FOOTBALL 101. He threatens to write one more. He spent 25 years in New York, 25 years in San Francisco, and is now purportedly retired in Baja.




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    23 minutes ago, Jud said:

     

    There's a guy rapping on the album, right?  Miles was planning on taking him on tour.

     

    I saw Miles twice, and especially the second time, people were dancing their ass off.  He wasn't some withdrawn genius (though genius he was).  He wanted people, to use the title of one of his albums, to Get Up With It.

     

    Excuse me. I forgot where I was. There is only one person who can be right here at Computer Audiophile and, of course, it is you.

     

    Yes, of course, Miles was going to turn into a Hip-Hop artist. How could I have been so blind. 

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    Just now, Speed Racer said:

     

    Excuse me. I forgot where I was. There is only one person who can be right here at Computer Audiophile and, of course, it is you.

     

     

    I am very happy when I'm wrong, because it means I'm learning something new.  You'll find many posts here where I thank people for correcting me.  And I'll thank you if you find that I was incorrect in these last statements that Miles had a rapper performing on his last album and planned to take him on tour.

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    21 minutes ago, Jud said:

     

    Same jazz critics who deserted him in droves when he left Charlie Parker and be-bop to invent cool (one exception was Ralph Gleason, long time jazz critic and co-founder of Rolling Stone with Jann Wenner; this led to a life long friendship).  Same critics who then deserted him again when he left the cool movement he invented to start fusion.  Sensing a theme here?  Every time Miles moved to a new thing the critics hated it, until they looked back on it as a great classic period when they hated the next new thing he did.

     

    How much credence do you suppose Miles gave these critics? How much do you suppose we should?

     

    If you know anything at all about Miles and his personality, the idea of him bothering to "sell out" to anyone else's idea of what was good or commercial is pretty funny.

    Just because an artist you like goes into a specific direction doesn't always mean you have to "buy into it".   This applies to everyone, jazz critics and fans.  

     

    Some of this stuff is certainly experimentation, they try it once just for the experience and if they don't dig it, they do something else,, if they feel there's more to explore, then they'll continue in that direction until they run out of ideas and something to say with that group or musical direction..   Did Miles put out a stream of hip hop albums with gangsta rappers?  NOPE.  Why not?   Hip Hop doesn't always have rappers or DJ's.  You can have Hip Hop style grooves with decent melodies on top, but that doesn't mean a jazz artist like Miles would then be considered a Hip Hop artist.  He just seemed to be experimented with Hip Hop grooves.  Personally I don't member that album too well since I didn't buy it,  so I would have to relisten to it to be reminded of what it was and what is wasn't.  Miles wasn't a Hip Hop artist whether he put out one Hip Hop influenced album.  He was a classically trained jazz musician that experimented throughout his career.

     

    I can't seem of find a single artist or band where I like every album they put out equally as much as the others and listen to them equally as much. We all have our favorites that seem to be higher on our own playlists and then others that don't get listened to as much.

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    6 minutes ago, DRB100 said:

    Did Miles put out a stream of hip hop albums with gangsta rappers?  NOPE.  Why not?

     

    Umm, 'cause he died?

     

    Of course I'm not saying Miles *became* a hip hop artist.  Miles was always Miles and not confined to narrow categories.  But the last couple of albums he made before his death showed his interest in and exploration of funk, and for the last album in particular, hip-hop.

     

    So what I'm saying again is that we're all completely entitled to like or dislike whatever we want, but I'd hesitate to dismiss something in which a musician like Miles showed significant interest as musically worthless.

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    18 minutes ago, Jud said:

     

    Umm, 'cause he died?

     

     

    Of course, I forgot you have a crystal ball too. Certainly Miles would have found commercial success with his Hip-Hop sound and were have made a dozen Hip-Hop infused albums. These albums would have been viewed as Miles' best work and the whole country would embrace the sound.

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    Hip hop, rappers, avant garde jazz, street cred, African polyrhythmic cred, pan-cultural philosophy cred: Steve Coleman and the Five Elements. Two rappers in fact. All the musicians in the band could teach a master course in polyrhythms. With Steve, you start with all those ingredients as a base, you shake it up, you get real, and floor it.

    Miles Davis tried it, Steve extended it.

    De La Soul. Try to say any of their rhymes were "nursery rhymes". Oh, and they and the rest of the Native Tongues freely mixed in jazz, and Tribe even had real musicians the caliber of Ron Carter play on their albums.

    You don't have to like it, but real musicians consider it music. Can we please move on?

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    Sure. As soon you all let DRB100 have his own opinion without being told he is wrong.

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    1 hour ago, Jud said:

     

    Same jazz critics who deserted him in droves when he left Charlie Parker and be-bop to invent cool (one exception was Ralph Gleason, long time jazz critic and co-founder of Rolling Stone with Jann Wenner; this led to a life long friendship).  Same critics who then deserted him again when he left the cool movement he invented to start fusion.  Sensing a theme here?  Every time Miles moved to a new thing the critics hated it, until they looked back on it as a great classic period when they hated the next new thing he did.

     

    How much credence do you suppose Miles gave these critics? How much do you suppose we should?

     

    If you know anything at all about Miles and his personality, the idea of him bothering to "sell out" to anyone else's idea of what was good or commercial is pretty funny.

    I just listened to one song and it sounds like they are using a drum machine loop.  Sorry, that's an instant turn off.  Also, the vocal part is just silly.  If they used an actual drummer and no vocals, it would be a lot better but the background music he's playing on top of is stupid. The rapper is just dumb. Sorry Miles, I won't be buying this.  Like I said. it sounds like a sell out bullshit Miles album.  Just because he did this doesn't make him a Hip Hop artist because he's still playing jazz melody lines, it's the rest of it that's just lame. 

     

     

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    8 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

    Sure. As soon you all let DRB100 have his own opinion without being told he is wrong.

     

     

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    29 minutes ago, Jud said:

     

    Umm, 'cause he died?

     

    Of course I'm not saying Miles *became* a hip hop artist.  Miles was always Miles and not confined to narrow categories.  But the last couple of albums he made before his death showed his interest in and exploration of funk, and for the last album in particular, hip-hop.

     

    So what I'm saying again is that we're all completely entitled to like or dislike whatever we want, but I'd hesitate to dismiss something in which a musician like Miles showed significant interest as musically worthless.

    That's one way to get out of a record contract or having to put out more albums with gangsta rappers. :-). Putting out Doo Bop is probably what killed him.  He probably pissed off his entire fan base with that garbage.

     

    No, Miles wasn't even being a Hip Hop Artist putting that album out because he's playing jazz melodies, it's the others that were creating the backdrop loops, rappers that are the Hip Hop guys, and I would use the term "artists" VERY loosely.

     

    Sorry, but Doo Bop album sucks. Now, I have to listen to older Miles with actual musicians to cleanse my soul from the Hip Hop stench.   

     

    Ahhhhhhh. That's much better.  Now I feel great again.   

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    Doo Bop is an easy target: Not jazz enough for dyed-in-the-wool Miles fans, and not hard enough to be real hip hop. Straight up: He picked the wrong hip hop producer. It's a one-off and tough to consider within the rest of Miles' catalog. Remember Jazzmatazz? It had all the right stuff, but was also weak as hell. Watered down hip hop that you can't dance to... what's the point?

     

    Instead, try some of the other musicians I mentioned earlier, if you want a true challenge to the arguments you've built up and can't let go of, relevant or not.

     

    Try Robert Glasper. Tell me he doesn't have jazz chops. The hip hop on his Black Radio series is real enough to offend any haters in this thread. Really, you might bust a blood vessel cuz it's real rappers and real jazz musicians, all killer no filler.

     

    I've tried to shine a light, but now I'm out. Time for me to say: Act like ya know.

     

    P.S. All this is making me rip all my hip hop CDs and buy tickets to DJ Premier's show with The Badder Band this weekend. Look Premo up if you don't know who he is.

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    39 minutes ago, watercourse said:

    Doo Bop is an easy target: Not jazz enough for dyed-in-the-wool Miles fans, and not hard enough to be real hip hop. Straight up: He picked the wrong hip hop producer. It's a one-off and tough to consider within the rest of Miles' catalog. Remember Jazzmatazz? It had all the right stuff, but was also weak as hell. Watered down hip hop that you can't dance to... what's the point?

     

    Instead, try some of the other musicians I mentioned earlier, if you want a true challenge to the arguments you've built up and can't let go of, relevant or not.

     

    Try Robert Glasper. Tell me he doesn't have jazz chops. The hip hop on his Black Radio series is real enough to offend any haters in this thread. Really, you might bust a blood vessel cuz it's real rappers and real jazz musicians, all killer no filler.

     

    I've tried to shine a light, but now I'm out. Time for me to say: Act like ya know.

     

    P.S. All this is making me rip all my hip hop CDs and buy tickets to DJ Premier's show with The Badder Band this weekend. Look Premo up if you don't know who he is.

    Yeah, Miles wasn't even alive during the entire album.. To me, it's just an Easy Mo Bee album where he got Miles to put his parts on top of pre-programmed crap, and then because Miles past away before it finished, they just stuck older Miles performances on top of Easy's loops.  Hardly what a honest jazz album would be. I know why it won the Grammy, but it didn't win for a jazz album it won for a Instrumental performance R&B album. The critics didn't dig it, I'm sure the majority of died hard Miles fans didn't dig it and it was just a last ditch effort for Miles to get attention and experiment with Hip Hop loops, etc. but he wasn't even around during the creation of the whole thing, so he never heard the final mix before being released. I wonder if he would have released it, had he been alive?  Maybe, maybe not. But the Record Label will release anything once a legendary artist dies, just like they released old, unfinished Jimi Hendrix tapes.  It's called MILKING everything they can get from unfinished work.  What a shame.

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    47 minutes ago, watercourse said:

    Doo Bop is an easy target: Not jazz enough for dyed-in-the-wool Miles fans, and not hard enough to be real hip hop. Straight up: He picked the wrong hip hop producer. It's a one-off and tough to consider within the rest of Miles' catalog. Remember Jazzmatazz? It had all the right stuff, but was also weak as hell. Watered down hip hop that you can't dance to... what's the point?

     

    Instead, try some of the other musicians I mentioned earlier, if you want a true challenge to the arguments you've built up and can't let go of, relevant or not.

     

    Try Robert Glasper. Tell me he doesn't have jazz chops. The hip hop on his Black Radio series is real enough to offend any haters in this thread. Really, you might bust a blood vessel cuz it's real rappers and real jazz musicians, all killer no filler.

     

    I've tried to shine a light, but now I'm out. Time for me to say: Act like ya know.

     

    P.S. All this is making me rip all my hip hop CDs and buy tickets to DJ Premier's show with The Badder Band this weekend. Look Premo up if you don't know who he is.

    Sorry, when someone uses ANYTHING programmed instead of live musicians to play the parts, That's what I consider a demo.  Sorry, I couldn't sit through 2 minutes of the first track. It was just a mess.

     

    I'll go back to listening to actual musicians performing together as a group rather than someone overdubbing on top of drum machine tracks and other annoying noises.  It's too bad people like yourself think this is great. I don't. It's not what I feel music is all about.  There is a thing called interaction between musicians that's not happening here.  That's what a lot of this Hip Hop stuff lacks.  No real musicians, no real music.

     

    I would practice to recordings by myself, but that's practicing, that's not playing a gig or putting out a record. When I do those, it's with other musicians performing live, HOPEFULLY, at the same time, but unfortunately not always done that way.  It's very difficult putting out great music when you aren't even playing with all the musicians on the song and people overdub days, weeks or months later. I hate those types of recording projects. They usually come out lame unless it's a VERY rigid production of a song where everyone's parts are pre-written and there's no spontaneity involved.  But Jazz is all about spontaneity.  

     

    Have you seen Whiplash?  If not, go watch it and think of me as the Band leader hucking the chair at anyone that thinks that drum machines to replace a drummer, overdubs belong in jazz.. They don't. EVER.

     

     

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    3 hours ago, Jud said:

     

    Again, not saying you have to like it, but:

     

    - Who invented fusion?  Miles Davis.

     

    - Who did Miles Davis, inventor of fusion and one of the musical giants of the century, then go on to work with for his final album?  That's right, a hip-hop artist.  Good enough musical chops for Miles, good enough for me.

     

    Actually, I don't know if Miles actually is responsible for it, but he was there when it was happening, of course.  Actually, I believe John McLaughlin was a large part of that since he had told Miles to get Indian musicians to get involved, so I think it's a collaborative effort.  But John rose fusion to the highest level as he bridged the gap between more music forms than any other on one composition or album(s).  :-)

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    2 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

    Sure. As soon you all let DRB100 have his own opinion without being told he is wrong.

     

    It is not that his opinions are wrong, it is the premises that his opinions are drawn from.

     

    ANd I don't like rap either - but I recognize it's truth, it's innovation, and the great sound tracks done by Chuck D.

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    40 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

     

    It is not that his opinions are wrong, it is the premises that his opinions are drawn from.

     

    ANd I don't like rap either - but I recognize it's truth, it's innovation, and the great sound tracks done by Chuck D.

    Are you a musician?  Just curious.  What premise do you think I'm going by?

     

    I am a musician that knows what happens when performing with other musicians vs playing to prerecorded tracks/loops.   There's huge difference between the two. So, if you are a musician that has also done both, then you should understand where I'm coming from.  if you aren't a musician, then you are clueless about the difference because you haven't experienced what musicians have experienced.   I like the energy between musicians performing together, it creates an energy that can't be recreated any other way.  It just can't.  If that's interaction, interplay and being spontaneous that is also generated and drummers play a huge role in the energy behind the music.  They can direct the band in so many ways.  Have you ever heard a horn band play with a crappy drummer and then the same band with a good or great drummer?  It changes the dynamics greatly.  But to play to pre-recorded tracks or loops, it's just not the same thing.  you lose sometjhig in the process. 

     

    Are you a programmer that sits in front of a computer creating loops?  I'm just trying to get a better understanding here.

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    8 minutes ago, rando said:

    YfTahlb.jpg    

    and they weren't doing it to put out an album to sell it and call it music, now did they?   But I'm sure they weren't using Ebonics, that's for sure.  They probably spoke the same language, right?  Well, if rappers want to sit in a room insulting each other using Ebonics, be my guest, and do it when I'm not around to hear it.. 

     

    But to put it out on an album and to try to pass it off as music to make money?  NOPE.   They didn't do that.   Good try.  I'll give you an A for effort but an F for failure to understand the difference.


    See how your attempt has failed?  Try again. maybe your second attempt with be better, but please THINK things through.  OK?

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    23 hours ago, firedog said:

     

     

    Degree in music/singing? How is that relevant? I'm pretty sure there are many types of Asian, African, and various indigenous styles of singing not taught at those schools. Doesn't mean they aren't singing or don't exist.

     

    Check out the studies that show a larger vocabulary used in rap and hip hop than in lyrics by  Bob Dylan and other forms of sung music.

    Your criticisms of slang etc are also meaningless. Just because it isn't standard usage doesn't make it illegitimate linguistically or less sophisticated than standard usage. It's just different.

    I won't even get into the history of terms like "axe/aks" which are not simple mispronunciations, but are usages hundreds of years old that originate in African languages spoken by slaves. Sure, they aren't standard pronunciations, but they aren't "mistakes", either. They are simply part of a linguisitic subset of English.

    I know of dozens of versions of English spoken around the world. Just because they vary from standard UK or US English it doesn't make them somehow inferior. Dialects are not, by definition, linguistically inferiror, just different.

     

    Language isn't static. 

    I might not use one of these dialects when writing  an academic theisis, but that is a totally different animal than spoken language. 

     

    So you don't mind me calling you a slang derrogitory name? Really?  Oh, OK. then people shouldn't get all bent out of shape when they are called the N word or women called the B word/. So you don't mind communicating with the Ebonics crowd speaking THEIR language, which you probably don't know.  Actually, I was taking quotes from definitions I was reading, so please, leave your diatribe on the sidewalk.  Ebonics, is considered American Black English, which is different than the English that is chosen as the language of the US.  And not all American Blacks speak it or endorse it to be used.  This is based on black friends of mine that can't stand Ebonics being spoken in their household. And they also don't like being referred to as African Americans either, so there are many different views on this subject.


    But frankly, I don't speak Ebonics as part of my daily communication it's not part of any form of communication with places of business that I've worked at, and it's not used in any College I've been to and I find it an insult to my intelligence to listen to it and to think it's something people should use, especially in music.  

     

    So, I guess you don't mind people calling people names that are slang because it's just, as you say, different., which opens you up to be called a lot of vulgar disgusting names, which you are essentially telling me is OK.

    What is acceptable to some people isn't for others.   I don't speak Ebonics as my daily form of communicating with others, I don't WANT to speak Ebonics, and I don't want to listen to Ebonics in music because I think it sounds incredibly dumb and it would sound even worse if they tried to sing melody lines using Ebonics lyrics. If I speak it, it's because I'm making fun of it In a comedic manner with friends of mine that also despise it.  

     

    It sounds like you know something about languages, but try taking a song with a melody line that has lyrics that are in English and the replace them with Ebonics lyrics and see if it sounds like it fits and that it sounds good. I highly doubt you can.   Take a jazz standard and replace the English lyrics with Ebonics based lyrics.  See if you think it sounds equal as valid and that the listener won't tell the difference and enjoy both versions.  It hasn't been done by any professional that I'm aware of.

    I find Rapping to degrade music, especially when the song has a great melody line and the rapper isn't singing the melody and their voice is more atonal without any musical notes being used.  It just messes up a perfectly good song and then the lyrics that are used are typically dumb, ignorant and childish in nature which makes it even worse.  Go listen to Carlos Santana's remakes with a Rapper. All he's saying is "Carlos Santana is in the house" and dumb statements like that.  He's adding NOTHING worthwhile listening to and all that rapper is doing is destroying the music which stands on it's own.  the same rules apply with the majority of rap music.  

     

    Do you speak Ebonics on a regular basis and if not, why not? 

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    It's kind of hard to ignore Ebonics and Rap if you live in the US.  it's used in TV shows, Movies, people driving around In their cars with their windows open and their stereo is blasting at 100dB+.  I can't always get to the mute on my remote when it comes on the TV while watching a movie or TV show..   I can't even watch certain shows because I know they, at. some point in time are going to play it.   It's offensive on so many levels to me.  The more I hear it, the more I despise it.  And I don't want to have to speak Ebonics just to go along with other members of society that seem to be brainwashed by the popularity of it.

     

    I find too much hate speech in Ebonics/Rap music and I find that to be disgusting.

     

    One thing I've noticed around where I live. I hear less and less cars with Rap being blasted.  Which is positive, maybe the local police are doing something to take these guys out of the picture so to speak.  At least I'm getting some amount of peace and quiet if that's the result of their efforts.  But it's still difficult to escape it.  I wish the music industry stopped promoting it as well as the TV and movie producers..  But I guess that's the only way they can get young people to watch their programming.

     

    You say Ebonics and English are just two different dialects.  To me, one Is vulgar and the other isn't, so to me , they aren't JUST different.  Being different doesn't mean they are both equal in all ways and that either one is acceptable.

     

    I could only imagine if the Constitution, Bill of Rights and all laws created in our country were re-written using Ebonics.  God what a nightmare that would be.

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    3 hours ago, DRB100 said:

     

    Do you speak Ebonics on a regular basis and if not, why not? 

     

    No, but my parents would speak Yiddish on a regular basis, an expressive patois spoken by a ghettoized minority.  A century after it was widely spoken, some of its words have been adopted into English.  Oddly, no one thinks this is the downfall of the language or the civilization.

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    4 hours ago, DRB100 said:

     But to play to pre-recorded tracks or loops, it's just not the same thing.  you lose sometjhig in the process. 

     

    I know, think of what The Beatles lost on that horrible Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, etc., by using those tape loops.  Took all the imagination and creativity out of their music.

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    5 hours ago, DRB100 said:

    Actually, I don't know if Miles actually is responsible for it, but he was there when it was happening, of course.  Actually, I believe John McLaughlin was a large part of that since he had told Miles to get Indian musicians to get involved, so I think it's a collaborative effort.  But John rose fusion to the highest level as he bridged the gap between more music forms than any other on one composition or album(s).  :-)

     

    John was and is terrific.  Most folks consider Wayne Shorter's title track to be the first fusion composition.

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    21 minutes ago, Jud said:

     

    John was and is terrific.  Most folks consider Wayne Shorter's title track to be the first fusion composition.

     


    I read that Jeremy Stieg's recording of Jan Hammer's Sister Andrea with Jan and Billy Cobham was the first jazz-rock fusion recording.  There are people that intermix the title fusion and jazz-rock fusion.  yeah, I know it gets confusing.  The other argument, which I can understand, is the first example of fusion is probably really, really old that we don't know about since the fundamental concept of fusion is combining 2 or more different musical genres together. There were Latin Jazz being done many years prior to when Miles had his "fusion' recordings, etc.  Cream, which was also around in those days was a fusion band, as they combined blues, and jazz, and African and even some tinges of classical since Jack Bruce was a classically trained cellist, and Ginger Baker was a jazz drummer that also studied African rhythms. I was way into them before I got turned onto Mahavishnu.   The Beatles, in a. way were a fusion band when George Harrison brought Classical Indian into the music, and they did country/folk songs, etc.  

     

    I just personally think that in terms of really taking one composition and listening to the various influences of different forms of music from a melodic standpoint, and a rhythmic standpoint, that John's  compositions such as Dream, which I sat down and calculated at least 7 or 8 different music forms hidden in that gem.  There might have been more than that, but that's at least what I counted as I listened to not only John's part, but the other players as well. I could be wrong on a couple of them, but I believe there might have been that many music forms represented, even if it was just a short passage in one of the solos. But the way McLaughlin constructed the melodies, it's clear that several genres were represented in the melody lines that it was just blended so well that one didn't dominate another and that's that brilliance that floored me.  It's hard to blend Classical and Classical Indian microtonal pitch bends and other forms of music into one melody line.  I still enjoy listening to all of the studio and live (even all of the concert tracks on www.concertvault.com) and I will never get tired of what that band represented. They were just set apart from anything else that I've seen and heard over the years.   

     

    they were one of the biggest of the fusion bands of that early 70's era when it was at its height, and they were the biggest band in terms of notoriety, and I don't think there's a single band that would want to embarrass themselves by going on after their set.  Especially in '73 when they started to really got used to the material since they rarely practiced before they started touring.  I didn't really care for them being labeled jazz-rock fusion, because I felt they were a lot more than that due to heavy classical (different forms) and classical Indian influences as well as some Celtic, Funk, blues, and whatever else they brought in.  They just were special and it's too bad the first band didn't last longer. Their influence on other fusion musicians, classical musicians, rock musicians, funk, country, Indian, and God knows who else is just limitless.  I saw a country band with a violinist play at a local State Fair many years ago and they were from, I believe, Nashville, and damned if the violinist didn't throw in some Mahavishnu licks in a freaking country song. I was probably the only one in that concert that knew the passage other than the band members.   But it's good to hear that McLaughlin is revisiting that music with his current band for the remainder of the year while on tour.


    Either way, I'm glad to have been around when they were touring.  Best concert experience in my life.  I got spoiled by their intensity where it's really hard to listen to anything else afterwards.  


    I'm sure there was probably recordings long before the invention of audio recordings that there were musicians from different cultures blending together whatever primitive music forms they had.   I just think the modern jazz/rock fusion (0r whatever one wants to call it) era beginning, at least from my perspective, really started with Miles, but the others like John had a hand in it and I really think it's more of a collaboration effort as each musician brought their own influences into it.

     

     

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    1 hour ago, Jud said:

     

     

     

    1 hour ago, Jud said:

     

    No, but my parents would speak Yiddish on a regular basis, an expressive patois spoken by a ghettoized minority.  A century after it was widely spoken, some of its words have been adopted into English.  Oddly, no one thinks this is the downfall of the language or the civilization.

    Ironic you bring that up. Because as a Germanic language heavily influenced by Hebrew, it was considered exactly that way by many Germans before WWII. Just hearing it spoken was often enough to result in an anti-Semitic reaction to the speaker, including violence. Besides being racists, the Germans who reacted this way were also ignorant of the fact that part of the reason Yiddish sounded "incorrect" to them was that both the grammar and pronunciation were derivative of German from the Middle Ages, with aspects that had been preserved in Yiddish but not in "standard" German. 

     

    Sounds sort of like some of the criticism we hear of American Black English and other variations on standard English, doesn't it?

     

    And don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of people knowing standard English. But it has it's place, and just because someone speaks or uses non-standard English in a non-formal setting, it doesn't prove they are ignorant or in any way intellectually inferior. 

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