[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Pianist Kenny Drew Jr. on Today's Music.

[Steve barbone]

>From Kenny Drew's Web Site. (He is a black jazz pianist as was his Dad)
Sound familiar? Like us and Phil Woods. :-) VBG

Cheers,
Stedve

What the **** Happened to Black Popular Music?

I've decided to add this section to my website as a vehicle to express my
views on various topics, musical and otherwise, that have been on my mind
lately. You may wonder why I'm talking about popular music in this first
installment, since I am generally thought of as a"jazz" musician. However,
anyone who knows me knows that my tastes in music are very eclectic (as are
those of most jazz musicians, quiet as it's kept). In fact when I started my
career as a professional musician, I was not playing jazz. I started out
playing in R&B groups and Top-40 bands. We only played jazz if the club was
almost empty!

The 60s - 80s was such an incredible time for all styles of popular music,
but for the sake of this discussion I will concentrate specifically on black
music (or rhythm-and-blues, or funk, or whatever the hell you want to call
it). Recently, I've been listening to a lot of my favorite music from that
time, and to be honest, I am disgusted and sickened at how far our music has
declined in the quality of the music and its message. How the hell did we
get from Motown to Death Row; from Earth Wind & Fire to Ludacris; from
Luther Vandross to 50Cent? I remember a time in our music when songs had
great melodies and chord changes, you actually had to be able to sing or
play an instument to become a musician, and Michael Jackson was black! It's
a sad commentary on our culture and society when the biggest thing in
popular music is an ex-crack dealer whose claim to fame is being shot nine
times, and one of the greatest entertainers in the world was on trial for
child molestation. If that's not a sign of the coming Apocalypse, I don't
know what is! And if 50Cent was really shot nine times, why couldn't one of
those bullets have hit a vital organ? Who the **** was shooting at him:
Stevie Wonder? And as far as all these black rappers getting shot, how about
a little equal opportunity violence here? Can't somebody pop a cap in
Eminem's white ass?

Another issue in the decline of music today is the stupidity and negativity
in the lyrics and the video images that accompany this so-called"music". I
recently discovered that there is now a form of rap called "coke rap", in
which the lyrics deal mainly with the sale, distribution and use of cocaine
and crack. I find it offensive that any record company would try to make a
profit from glorifying something that has decimated the black community the
way that crack has. I hope that one day while 50Cent is lounging by the pool
in his humongous mansion surrounded by beautiful groupies, he might consider
how many lives were ruined by the poison he used to sell, and how many more
lives will be potentially damaged by the musical poison he's selling now.
There's a video by Ludacris that I've seen of a song called "Act a Fool".
All I can remember about the video is that there were a lot of shots of him
and his boys running from the cops. Don't we have enough young black men
running around acting like fools without some idiot rapper encouraging it?
(But then again, Ludacris probably makes more money in one month than I'll
make in my entire life as a jazz musician. So who's the idiot here? Maybe
it's me!)

Remember when the lyrics in our music spoke of love or the loss of love? Who
can forget the uplifting messages of peace, hope and spirituality in the
lyrics of Earth Wind & Fire? Or the social consciousness and protest
messages in the lyrics of Gil Scott-Heron and Marvin Gaye? How the hell did
we get from "Just to be Close to You Girl" to "Back That Ass Up Bitch"? How
the hell did we get from "What's Goin' On" and "You Haven't Done Nothin'" to
"Me So Horny" and"My Hump"?

Last, but not least, it's time to address the musical quality of this
bullshit, or more accurately, the lack of it. Way back when, when I first
started studying music I was told that music had to consist of three
elements: melody, harmony and rhythm. Rap music (an oxymoron similar to
"military intelligence" or "jumbo shrimp") has basically discarded the first
two elements and is left with nothing but rhythm. Since only one element of
music is present in most of this crap it doesn't even justify being called
music. Our culture has been dumbed down to the point where your average
dumb-ass American can't tell the difference between a truly great musician
and somebody who's been studying their instrument for a week. Playing a
musical instrument at a high level is no longer a well-respected skill in
our society. (I'm not 100% sure that it ever really was.) In fact, to be
honest, I think that most of the students in music schools today who are
studying jazz and classical music are wasting their ****ing time and their
parents' money! (Boy, am I gonna get in trouble for saying this!) Why spend
all that time mastering an instrument when you can just get a drum machine
and a microphone, write some asinine lyrics about bitches, ho's and pimps
and make a ton of money? Sometimes I wonder whether I'm wasting my time in
this cesspool called the music industry. These days it seems like the only
way to make any serious money in music is to produce some bullshit that
doesn't even sound like music!

So what's the solution here? Damned if I know! But I did see an encouraging
story on the news recently. A billboard advertising 50Cent's new movie was
put up in a black neighborhood not far from a school. In the billboard
50Cent is seen with his heavily tatooed back to the camera with his arms
outstretched in a crucifix-like pose with a microphone in one hand and a gun
in the other. Understandably, the community was outraged. They held
protests, got some media coverage, and eventually succeeded in getting the
movie company to remove the billboard. I say that we use this as a model
nationwide. I propose a nationwide boycott of rap music; perhaps by
picketing in front of record company offices and major record store chains.
Anybody remember the"Disco Sucks" movement in the 70s? Maybe it's time for a
"Rap Sucks" movement now. Who's with me here? (Actually, looking back on the
disco era, that music sounds like Beethoven in comparison to the rap garbage
that's poisoning our airwaves now!) Maybe we could have a big"Rap Sucks"
rally somewhere.( As long as it doesn't escalate into a riot like the "Disco
Sucks" one did.) That's it for now. I'll be back soon with more of my
opinions on various topics.