Bilbo

Kudos to Corgan. HIs point is legitimate. When I hear a musician saying 'no', I am not looking for someone who is seeking to topple Governments or anything like that, just to redress the balance away from vested interests that are funsamentally destructive. The idea of a concensus is entirely legitimate, I just think that, when the mainstream media represents a powerful minority, it is up to our artists to say 'no'. not with a knife at the throat of the offending few but is a way that promotes consideration. When you hear Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit', you can't but think about the issues she is singing about. I think protest songs/musics are like anything else that seeks to promote change; it works incrementally. If I write a piece of music that I play to one person in Felixstowe. its not going to go anywhere. If a 1,000 people in a 1,000 towns do the same, it starts to get noticed etc. What I think music can achieve is to promte ideas that will have been formed elsewhere but will need nurturing and sharing. Music is a great way to do that because it is a communal activity. Of course, the vested interests then take the artists and corrupt them but that is why the next wave of artists have to pick up the message. Its cyclical.

I don't have a Fender Jazz bass (although he certainly has copped a few of my licks....)

I guess the 5 major record companies would not release anything contentious; they are, by their very nature, conservative and wanting to maintain the status quo (not THE Status Quo!!)

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1334936419' post='1623777'] Music will be a mainly live experience and in the community of the performance we will see meaning again. [/quote] I like this, Luke

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1334933470' post='1623724'] I think that music can be a vehicle for a desire for social change, but it is not a progenitor of that desire. The desire predates the expression, IMO. But it can be a rallying call or, at the very least, an agreeable soundtrack upon which may one look back with pleasurable nostalgia. The problem is that music is a tool and that tool can be wielded by anyone. For every Woody Guthrie and for every Marseillaise ([i]Aux Armes Citoyens![/i]) there is an Edward Elgar and a Horst Wessel Lied. Music can be a vehicle for repression as much as it can be a vehicle for change. As for shouting, angry young men and women, well, they have most recently manifested themselves in the Rap movement. If we're looking for a contemporary UK movement, I don't think the agriculturally-clad youngsters of nu-folk are about to start making petrol bombs. In sleepy London Town, there ain't no place for a street-fighting man. [color=#ffffff].[/color] [/quote] Agreed..... It is interesting to note that when a product seeks to appeal to the mainstream or more conservative elements of society, the advertisers use classical music whereas, if they want to appeal to young folk or more radical thinkers, its Jazz. Christopher Small's book 'Music of the Common Tounge' talks about this at length. Bottom line is, the soundtrack of the world's events is determined by the political intentions of those who are using the music. I suspect that, as each generation ages, their 'rock and roll' gradually turns into a conservative thread and the more radical elements of society needs to regroup. I guess that is why artist are generally free thinkers whereas establishment figures are more conservative. Or is that putting the cart before the horse?

I read a lot about music and am really interested in the relationship between Jazz and Free Jazz and the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s. Books like Frank Kofsky's 'Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music', Val Wilmer's 'Jazz People', John Litweiler's 'The Freedom Principle' and others really project a sense that the music that these guys were playing at the time were moulded in the tenor of the times and gave the activists involved a voice. ThHe same could be said of the Punk era; the changes that this musical genre instigated in Art, Fashion and Theatre etc was clearly a manifestation of the divisions in our society at that time. Comedians were defined by their politics as much as by their jokes and many acts were critical of the status quo. I also don't think it is a coincidence that the last Jazz resurgance rose out of the ashes of Punk. Folk music is chock full of protest songs and a lot of Reggae came from a similar emotional space. I guess that I am wondering whether we should expect some more angry young men and women to come along soon and start shouting no. I hope so.

Jeeees! 20 Miles Davis cds for less than £16. If you have not heard much MIles and want to find out what all the fuss is about, this is a mind blowing deal. The frustrating thing for me is that, in this case and the Mingus one above, I already have 90% of these recordings. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miles-Davis-Classic-Albums-10CD/dp/B004UVCOZ4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Just saw this on AMazon. 8 Mingus cds for less than a tenner. That is astonishing. There are other sets including Coltrane and Rollins, each featuring 8 full lps over 4 cds. These are all credible LPs and not just early stuff noone bought. If you want to hear what Mingus is all about, try these. http://www.amazon.co.uk/8-Classic-Albums-Charles-Mingus/dp/B0041TM3KG/ref=pd_sim_m_h__2

Did one last weekend and, for the first time, I used in ear monitoring. Scared teh s*** out for me. I am a great believer in the idea that the tone you have contributes to the swing/groove created and not just the notes you play. Of course, the sound you hear through your amp and in the room is not the same as the sound you hear through your iem. So the groove I am used to was actually undermined, in my head, because my wonderfully wooly and integrated sound in the room was now hi-fi and clear as a bell. Still have to try it with double bass but on electric, I guess I will have to turn it down to a barely audible level that allows me to hear it as well as not instead of the room sound.

I can now play half an octave of chromatics.....I SOOOOO suck!!!

I guess for some writing more crowd pleasing stuff is not engaging enough to want to invest time and effort in (and, dare I say it, it may not be where their talents lie).

The old 'E' word (that's entertainment....I feel a song coming on). It is not the only reason for music to be produced, and there are many different perspectives to be taken on the concept of entertainment. Jummping up and down is only one form of entertainment (just the most common by a country mile). Like any commercial product, you need to establish your market and if that market is a 1,000 people in a pub on a Saturday night (or 7 million on live tv), your product will be different to that of, say, an Arts Centre on a Wednesday or a church on a Sunday. But, like all areas of the Arts, there is always a group of people (call it an audience or a market) who are looking to be stimulated by what artists are creating rather than waiting to be given some sort of pre-determined version of 'what they want'. Music for a Hollywood blockbuster film requires one sort of music, for an obscure independent film with minimal budget, another will be sought. A dance troupe may want to work with an improvising saxophonist whilst a poet may work with a solo double bass player. Its all legitimate but it will all result in varying levels of financial gain. Ceiri Torjussen's 'Concerto for Eight Flutes' is not going to get the Dog and Duck on its feet and won't make him a millionaire but it will interest a certain clientele and has a legitimate right to exist.

A lot of this is, as skank says, about us deciding what it is we want to do. I know that I could, if I chose to, start/join a covers band that focussed its energies on a highly commercial product that appealed to a section of he market that would guarantee frequent gigs. Problem is, and, in mycase, always has been that I don't want to. I did a gig last night that was not jazz and found myself driving home thinking 'I want to knock everything on the head except Jazz originals'. I know that is suicide in terms of regular gigging and have noticed that, as gigs are tailing off for many of us, I am finding that I am ss likely to be 'match fit' for the gigs I do do. The question is always 'what are we doing this for'. If it is fame and fortune, you take one route. If it is to make money, you take another and, if it is for artistic/aesthetic reasons, you take a third. Audiences want what they want (and some certainly DON'T want 'Mustang Sally'), and many of them don't actually know or even care what is happening on stage. As long as its noisy and vaguely in time, they can dance to it and that's all they care about. If you want to hear something new and fresh, you choices are much more limited and you have to work a lot harder but that's no different in theatre or film or the visual arts. If you are interested in quality, be that cars, pens, ceramics or food, you have to pay more and travel further. You won't get much of that in a pub anywhere in the world, let alone Cardiff. If all you want is applause, then you know what you need to do

Too many tribute bands for my liking. Should have done it as a tribute festival and called it 'Remebering Reading' or 'Monsters that Rocked'....

Esperanza Spaulding, Eddie Gomez, Jerry and Andy Gonzalez, Felix Pastorius, Gary Peacock, Butch Warren, Melvin Gibbs...... JT is my favourite jazz publication but this bass special may make it worth a look to others who may not know the publication.

Reading this, I am reminded of why they call music an art form.....it's not the tools that matter but what your creativity allows you to achieve with them.

Peart is a metronome. Bonham was a heartbeat.

Dare I say it, and I swing back and fore between 'amp modelling is the best thing since sliced bread' and 'but its still not the real thing', I have kind of reached the point where I have bigger fish to fry and can't be bothered with all the knob twiddling digital gear requires. Having all this kit that can make an E barre chord sound a million differnt ways like a million different guitars through a million different amps doesn't change the fact that it is an E barre chord. Get the sounds anyway you want; 98% of the listening public, including most musos, won't be able to tell the difference, especially if htey are listening to an ipod on the bus !! I know I can't. But I can tell when the music is derivative, predictable and boring! Can you get a digital piece of kit tham makes my cheesy jazz compositions more interesting/advanced? I'll have two!!

I prefer different Scandanavian Hammond based prog rock groups myself. Me? Its this..... Shubliiime....

The problem with these disucssions is that perspective is always determined by the listening and playing experiences of the individual. If a kid who is a rock player hears Janek as the first advanced fusion player he has ever heard, he will have a different perspective than someone who has hundreds of bess led fusion cds dating back to Jaco and Stanley Clarke or even Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Rating a musician, be that Janek, Mike Stern or Marcus Miller requires not only familiarity with their work but also the range of alternatives that are out there. Can you place Joe Henderson in the lineage of tenor saxophone players if you don't understand Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Joe Lovano, Michael Breacker, Chris Potter etc? Can you comment on the JoJo Meyer if you don't know Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins, Steve Gadd, Dave Weckl, Bill Stewart and so on? You can have a view, of course, but it needs to be tempered by some acknowledgement of perspective. I have my favourite classical pieces but would never argue the merits of Bach over Beethoven because I don't know the genre well enough. I would always look to the experts for a considered view and develop a perspective that way. The trouble with the net is everyone is an expert, whatever their knowledge or experience. Each contributor is given equal weight without any qualification.

Its the 'big fish in a small pond' mentality and a short term vs. long term strategy. A band that pulls only its mates can have an immediate appeal but its time will be limited and its earning potential short term. If you are going to build up a venue over time, you will want to ensure that your audience returns week after week and the only way to do that is to quality control your acts. Poor bands every week will only keep the audience in place for a short time. We see it a lot with Jazz. Venues put on singer/pianist duos and call it Jazz but it often isn't or is really poor so jazz fans don't come because they have higher expectations. So the venue folds.

I prefer this nutjob..... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbe5c2OIxI&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbe5c2OIxI&feature=related[/url]

A world without real books? God forbid!! We'd all have to write our own tunes!

Satin Doll, as I recall, is Dm7, G7, Dm7, G7, Em7, A7, Em7, A7, D7 / , E7b9, Cmaj&, A7 (repeat) Your changes resolve to the Fmaj7 too soon and lose the tension too quickly. Try this set of changes, they are the ones most people use....

Sounds great. Will look that one up later!!