Chick Corea Was A Scientologist (And His Obituaries Ought To Reflect The Cult)

Fuck that Chick Corea was a Jazz artist, when he used his music to manipulate people into his cult. There is only one way to eulogize such a scumbag - for what he really was: 

Scientology icon and double OT 8 Chick Corea dies at 79 of cancer

Anyone even marginally connected, to the death and cover-up of Lisa McPherson, is NOT to be celebrated.

 

Robin Williams And Now This (Suicide Moves Closer)

Derek Rieth, a founding member of, and percussionist for, the Portland pop orchestra, Pink Martini

"Derek's enormous heart and spirit, was too big and wild for this world. Look hard and see if you recognize anyone you know in his eyes. Call them. Find them. Go to them. Eat and drink with them. Fucking grab them and try to keep them here."

- Storm Large, who my heart goes out to - Stay strong, Kid.

Horace Silver, The Great Jazz Pianist, Has Passed Away

It's Just A Miss-Duh-Meaner (You've Got To Get Over It)

This Is Easily The Best Version Of "Royals" Ever Done

Springsteen's version sucked, and the original is a well-produced insult. This is a clown song that needed to be finally performed by a real clown:

In purpose, it easily beats the original,…

 

Old Jim Crow's Obituary (Was Written Waaay Too Soon)

Louis Armstrong's Culture (Some Things Never Change)

“That he was not interested in cultural assimilation is an indication of psychological security and confidence. It may also be taken as a political stance. To insist on the value of vernacular culture and to reject assimilation was not an idle position to take. There were considerable ideological pressures working in the other direction.”

Spike Lee "Kills" A White Guy On Gentrification In NYC

An epic rant.

"The motherfuckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome. You can’t discover this! We been here.

You just can’t come and bogart. There were brothers playing motherfuckin’ African drums in Mount Morris Park for 40 years and now they can’t do it anymore because the new inhabitants said the drums are loud. My father’s a great jazz musician. He bought a house in nineteen-motherfuckin’-sixty-eight, and the motherfuckin’ people moved in last year and called the cops on my father. He’s not — he doesn’t even play electric bass! It’s acoustic! We bought the motherfuckin’ house in nineteen-sixty-motherfuckin’-eight and now you call the cops? In 2013? Get the fuck outta here!

Nah. You can’t do that. You can’t just come in the neighborhood and start bogarting and say, like you’re motherfuckin’ Columbus and kill off the Native Americans. Or what they do in Brazil, what they did to the indigenous people. You have to come with respect. There’s a code. There’s people!"

In Passing

Alice Babs, Who Sang with Duke Ellington, 

Dies at 90

Swedish star appeared at Ellington's 1960s Sacred Concerts

2014

Everybody Sees Racism (Except For The Willfully Blind)

Tearing good blacks down:

“Has anyone ever noticed that 'biographers' like Terry Teachout always attempt to tear down great Black legends in the spirit of 'making the subject more human'? This actually comes closer to dehumanizing them. They always go after the guys for whom there can never be enough praise, like Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong. Who they should go after is overrated White musicians like Nick LaRocca, Frankie Trumbauer or Bix Beiderbecke.

Their time would be better served bringing their great White Ancestors down a peg or two,...” 

- Nicholas Payton, December 8, 2013

Building ugly whites up:

“That racist idiot, Michael Haz, is now posting at Lem's Comment Home (more like The Racist Resting Home) trying to drum up sympathy for the unfortunate whites who ruthlessly dominated South African blacks since the 1600s. After being amazed at how much sympathy Lem's crew can regularly muster for the world's bad actors,…” 

- The Crack Emcee, December 8, 2013

You don't have to call it racism if you don't want - call it anything you like:

But there's, still, something very wrong with any people dedicated to avoiding the truth so aggressively,... 

Some People Are Going To Have To Start Over Again

 

 Stark Reality: Acting, Thinking, Feeling

 

If I Could Stop The World From Getting In Love's Way I'd Strangle It In It's Sleep & Start Life Over With New Music

Simon Cowell's Having A Baby With Another Man's Wife (So, That Means, Criticism Stops At Judging Ourselves)

Pop is suffering from the same malady as the art world, which is stuck on the tired old rubric that shock automatically confers value. But those once powerful avant-garde gestures have lost their relevance in our diffuse and technology-saturated era, when there is no longer an ossified high-culture establishment to rebel against. On the contrary, the fine arts are alarmingly distant or marginal to most young people today.

Unfortunately, the media spotlight so cheaply won by Cyrus will inevitably spur repeats of her silly stunt, by her and others. Image and profile now rule the music industry. At a time when profits are coming far more from touring than from CD sales, performers are being hammered too early into a marketable formula for cavernous sports venues. With their massive computerized lighting and special-effects systems, arena shows make improvisation impossible and stifle the natural rapport with the audience that performers once had in vaudeville houses and jazz clubs. There is neither time nor space to develop emotional depth or creative skills. 

Pop is an artistic tradition that deserves as much respect as any other. Its lineage stretches back to 17th century Appalachian folk songs and African-American blues, all of which can still be heard vibrating in the lyrics and chord structure of contemporary music. But our most visible young performers, consumed with packaging and attitude, seem to have little sense of that thrilling continuity and therefore no confidence in how it can define and sustain their artistic identities over the course of a career.

I think the phrase that pays nowadays is "unsustainable".

I love when Boomers pretend that - after their kids witnessed their antics - they now have no idea where any of this is coming from.

But - they also assure us - there's nothing that can be done.

It's just so neat and tidy,...

 

Don't Say I'm Preaching To The Choir (On Miley Cyrus)

Jazz lovers know this, and with Jazz, you can't get more upright, suit-and-tie. But - just as with religion - there's a real musical world, along side the made-up bullshit we're fed:

“The same kinds of dynamics still occur. The general public is unaware of artists of color who are punk, country, alternative, or any other label record companies use to identify them. To some, these artists appear as outsiders.”

And in the current situation, we are. 

Just as with religion, visions of Hell predominate. It doesn't matter they don't believe in Hell, it's the chain-yanking that's important, with blacks as the chain. C'mon, that's Madonna's entire career, and she's been rewarded handsomely for it, by the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen feminists.

Why shouldn't Miley Cyrus expect the same?

Another question is why didn't anybody expect Miley's shenanigans to begin with? Didn't Jay-Z turn her out on his last album - for civil rights and all that - while taking his work to the high-end galleries?

Miley believes in that. And, pro or con, so does everyone else.

 

They want to, somehow.

Here's a white female Rapper, showing some rhyming potential, but notice the uniform hand gestures - and the uniform itself? Her "homies"? It's all so tired. But there she is, talking about white privilege.

I keep waiting for her head to explode.

 Meanwhile - back in the real world - I told you about Glenn Reynolds missing Kendrick Lamar starting a tidal wave:

Oh, it's on. 

Big Sean's album "Hall of Fame" doesn't drop until August 27, but the rapper already got upstaged on his own track, "Control." The leaked song features contributing verses by Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica, but the spotlight is arguably on Lamar. 

Understandably so: Kendrick goes on full blast, crowning himself the "King of New York" (mind you, he hails from Compton) and name-checking several leaders in the game. In a sample lyric, Lamar attests, "I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you ..." 

The rapper cites celebrities all over the map -- everyone from Phil Jackson to Lindsay Lohan, famous Brits Paul McCartney and Sean Connery, and rappers including Wale, Pusha T, Mac Miller, Drake and Tyler the Creator. 

This competitive challenge hasn't gone unnoticed. Both unmentioned and dissed rappers are posting their responses to the track. Memes are popping up at the speed of light. Some unlikely stars are even throwing in their two cents.

But even those who are aware of the controversy are mostly missing the larger story and it's implications:

Lamar's breakout album, Good Kid/M.A.A.D. City, was about his efforts, as a Christian, to resist temptation - which, I think we can agree, ain't exactly Miley's concern. 

Now he's demanding everyone DO BETTER. A message most would doubt is even being discussed in Rap. Much less, taken seriously, or that it's happening organically, in it's own very Rap/Hip-Hop way, with no input from the outside.

It's like religion, very few want anyone else to know anything else, except for what they tell them. 

 Because that would mean they'd actually have to start talking about other kinds of ideas.

And - it's a fact - there's weirdoes wandering around out there,...

 

Same Paper, Two Deaths, Nobody Puts 2 + 2 Together

Marian McPartland, pioneering female jazz pianist, dies at 95 (The lady in the yellow dress).

Jean Bach dies at 94; made Oscar-nominated jazz documentary (above).

 

I Read The Althouse Blog Like Liberals Listen To Rush (Though It's Never As Smart, Charming, Or Credible,...)

Letting white people with no taste - or bad taste - write about music is some kind of a crime:

"'Got to Give It Up' is late 70s [Marvin] Gaye, the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.' I listened to it today, and I probably would otherwise never have listened to it."

Why not?

Because you can't dance? Your innards are a pile of shit? No - you're tone deaf, you stupid whore! I mean, really, who's "we" Kemosabitch? All I've ever known is you and them:

THEY declared "Rap isn't music" (which shouldn't be construed as racism) but since then, despite their excellent credentials for assessing such things, Rap's taken over the business. Of course, it's importance never shows up on your blog - even when news that's got the world talking is happening right under your nose - but take my word for it, Rap's huge now.

THEY declared "Disco Sucked" - which, also, shouldn't be construed as racism. (Blacks just had to listen to this bullshit from the 80% of people known "at the time" to oppress them,...BTW - we "loathed" that.) Disco too, took over music. (Saturday Night Fever, anyone?) 

And check out the big, bad gay advocate, admitting she "loathed" what was "at the time" black gays' music of choice! 

But don't you dare think that's racism either.

Fucking losers!

And, Jesus Christ, who can forget the "the anguished bellyaching of soul music"?

Totally not racist. 

Face it:

Black people just make crap. Because we're black, see. It's the most vibrant, amazing, far-reaching, futuristic, and influential crap ever made - even The Beatles copied it - but it's still crap.

That shallow, "sexy" collection of holes, liking The Kinks - yes, I said The Kinks - or trying to make a god out of Bob Dylan, or who loves the $64,000 Jazz album (which looks like it was released by K-Tel instead of Columbia) she proves this is merely academic, as white musical forms have always been far superior, and more culturally important, than the influence of Rap, Disco, and Soul. And probably "real jazz", too.

Combined.

Personally, I've never disliked any genre of music in my life, so I'm interested how a now-classic song was "the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.'" Because, um, Satan? Or maybe because "Got to Give It Up" was a Number One Hit on the Disco charts? Or, do you think, you and the other genius' in your Music Appreciation class made the name up? 

I don't know, I'm asking. Maybe you really don't like blacks.

Maybe you can get the anti-Disco haters who make up "we" or "them", together, and ask. If you do, you might want to start off with a question from me:

Are you fucking retarded?

 

Frank Zappa's Funk & Jazz Master George Duke Is Dead

All Of My Friends Are Getting Movies Made About Them

JUST A GUY WHO KNOWS trailer from Blind Escrow Productions on Vimeo.

This is a new up-coming documentary about my friend's dad, and I've just been invited to participate in another film, about two of my gay friends. There are others.

Read the title,...