[Dixielandjazz] Big Business Sucking The Life Out Of Art

[Steve Barbone]

"Robert S. Ringwald" <robert at ringwald.com> wrote (polite snip)

> IMHO, there is one answer -- MONEY.  As simple as that.

Doesn't MONEY drive just about everything in life?
 
> I am thinking even more specifically of the garbage that big business is
> palming off on the American public as music.
> 
> They develop a star for just as long as they can eek every little bit of
> money out of he/her and then discard them like an old rag.

No different from Baseball or Football, or the business world in general.
 
> Very few of these artists (musicians or singers) have any lasting power.
> Sure, a very few do, but, on the overall scale of things,  not many.

See above. Isn't that true of all things in life? And all people in life?
> 
> I have mentioned this before:  A few months ago on TV, I watched a show
> where they demonstrated what they could do in a recording studio with modern
> technology.
> 
> They took someone with absolutely no talent as a singer, took him into a
> recording studio.  When they got through doing pitch correction, adding
> reverb, music, background singers, etc.  He sounded just like any of the
> other so-called recording stars who are popular today.
> 
> You call that art???

Sure, making a silk purse out of a sow's ear is an example of GREAT ART.
Musicians do it all the time by juicing up their CDs, correcting errors,
changing tonal colors, etc. Shoot, isn't that how Elvis started?

IMO, just about everybody in a position of power over somebody else in the
world exploits the other person(s). They all lie, cheat and steal so what
the heck is unique about the music world?

Examples?

1) The War in Iraq. Forced down the public's throat by the smart marketing
of the Military/Industrial complex who profited mightily thereby. They
suckered all of us on that one. Solution? Vote the idiots who backed the
Iraq misadventure out of office. This is probably the largest redistribution
of MONEY in the history of the USA. By the time it's over, more than a
trillion dollars will have been taken from the public's pockets and put into
the pockets of GE, Halliburton, Blackwater, and all those other companies
that profit by the continuation of the war.

2) Automobiles were for years shoddily made by the Big 3. Then starting in
the 1970s, the Japanese cut us a new you know what. Yep, the public wised up
when given a choice and bought Japanese.

3) Armageddon: Some evangelical Christians would have us believe it is
coming just as soon as the Israelis build their Temple on Temple Mount,
replacing the Muslim church now there. Countless millions of American Born
again folks anxiously await Armageddon because they have been brainwashed
into believing that they will be spirited up to heaven to watch the
destruction of the earth, the Anti Christ and everyone else who does not
follow their particular brand of Christianity. Heck these folks are
determined to make Armageddon a self fulfilling biblical prophesy. Anyone
out there note how they have suddenly the Jew's best friends because Israel
is the key to Armageddon? Talk about hypocrisy as the event will condemn
Jews to Hell. 

And we complain about folks forcing bad music upon the pubic?

The question is not that people in power try to force things down the
public's throat but what the the heck is the public going to do about it?
More importantly in the music business, what the heck are we band leaders
going to do about it other than complain about the facts of life? First
thing might be to generate some MONEY through our own activities by getting
our music to the public via our own hard work.

IMO: There is a huge untapped demand for tuneful music out there. No doubt
other bands experience that latent appreciation also when playing to the
great masses of jazz oblivious people out there. We don't do enough to
attract that audience. There is no entitlement program for us so lets just
do it ourselves.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone