Black History : DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE BLUES...

maybe I can also contribute in demythologizing the Blues

Brother Isaiah, I appreciate this contribution, but it is slightly problematic…I want to digress somewhat to make my point.

I remember the story about a white professor at the prestigious Julliard school of Music who was making reference to the social circumstances he felt inspired the Blues, in his attempt to define the more melancholy harmonic structures and lamenting melodies of the Blues, he related their origins to the suffering, impoverishment and depressive state in which “Negroes” lived. So happen, one of his students was a young Miles Davis, which upon hearing this explanation, made it clear he could play the Blues and rebutted his instructors observations by paraphrasing a lyric from the song Summertime, “my daddy’s rich and my mother’s good lookin’” (Miles’ father was a Dentist in East St. Louis).

This was an important statement, because it has been a misnomer that the blues were only about depression and hard times. The Blues dealt with sex, love, happiness, superstition, wisdom, sadness, African-derived religiosity, love, strength and even weaknesses.

Now I’m not disputing that Blues people didn’t live under oppressive conditions, but this oppression wasn’t just a coincidental condition, but this oppression was a well thought out political and social institution and like racism was systemic. And Miles statement elevated the concerns of the Blues man from just an emotional response and/or reaction to hard times and suffering, but his or her music was an well-articulated political statement and a intellectually thought out lyrical pronouncement and assertion of our story and plight in America or exile, in all its complexities.

The Blues notes and minor harmonies are derived from African (pentatonic) scales and more meditative and earthy harmonic modalities. But Instead of embracing the hypnotic and earthy resonance, linear-Europeans could only relate to what was seemingly the melancholy sadness that haunted them in every song (even though it is true that some Blues speak to loneliness and sadness). It’s like how Whites were always jittery when they heard African drums. Now they liked the exotic melodies and the “savage” beats but they could not discern their complexity.

This is the true science of our music…it was more than just an emotionally simplistic choice of notes.

They do this with our politics, In other words you are only politically conscious, militant and progressive because you’re angry, and you’re angry because you feel insecure (fear), and you’re poor and are reacting to some traumatic incident in your life (like Pavlov’s dog). And you really have no ideological stance or intellectual reason for your politics....or your music..

h_mmmm...mmmm?

Peace:cool:
 
Sun Ship said:
Brother Isaiah, I appreciate this contribution, but it is slightly problematic…I want to digress somewhat to make my point.

I remember the story about a white professor at the prestigious Julliard school of Music who was making reference to the social circumstances he felt inspired the Blues, in his attempt to define the more melancholy harmonic structures and lamenting melodies of the Blues, he related their origins to the suffering, impoverishment and depressive state in which “Negroes” lived. So happen, one of his students was a young Miles Davis, which upon hearing this explanation, made it clear he could play the Blues and rebutted his instructors observations by paraphrasing a lyric from the song Summertime, “my daddy’s rich and my mother’s good lookin’” (Miles’ father was a Dentist in East St. Louis).

This was an important statement, because it has been a misnomer that the blues were only about depression and hard times. The Blues dealt with sex, love, happiness, superstition, wisdom, sadness, African-derived religiosity, love, strength and even weaknesses.

Now I’m not disputing that Blues people didn’t live under oppressive conditions, but this oppression wasn’t just a coincidental condition, but this oppression was a well thought out political and social institution and like racism was systemic. And Miles statement elevated the concerns of the Blues man from just an emotional response and/or reaction to hard times and suffering, but his or her music was an well-articulated political statement and a intellectually thought out lyrical pronouncement and assertion of our story and plight in America or exile, in all its complexities.

The Blues notes and minor harmonies are derived from African (pentatonic) scales and more meditative and earthy harmonic modalities. But Instead of embracing the hypnotic and earthy resonance, linear-Europeans could only relate to what was seemingly the melancholy sadness that haunted them in every song (even though it is true that some Blues speak to loneliness and sadness). It’s like how Whites were always jittery when they heard African drums. Now they liked the exotic melodies and the “savage” beats but they could not discern their complexity.

This is the true science of our music…it was more than just an emotionally simplistic choice of notes.

They do this with our politics, In other words you are only politically conscious, militant and progressive because you’re angry, and you’re angry because you feel insecure (fear), and you’re poor and are reacting to some traumatic incident in your life (like Pavlov’s dog). And you really have no ideological stance or intellectual reason for your politics....or your music..

h_mmmm...mmmm?

Peace:cool:

Hey, brother Sun, I feel you... In fact, to say the piece if "problematic" is an understatement... This particular paragraph oozed major inaccuracies:

"Another emerging myth of blues history is a Delta to Chicago to London narrative. This myth holds that the blues was born in the plantations of the Mississippi Delta, migrated to Chicago where it became electrified in the 1940s and 1950s, and eventually immigrated to London where it shaped the bluesy rock sound of groups like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. This story of blues evolution, which posits a direct line of development from Delta pioneer Charley Patton to Son House to Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, is most clearly expressed in Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues (1981). Although the Delta and Chicago were enormously important blues centers and this line of historical development is indeed one of the big stories of the blues, it is not the only way the story can and should be told. For example, the Delta to Chicago myth ignores the contributions of W. C. Handy and other composers to the mass popularity of the blues early in the twentieth century. It further disregards the early activities of great women vaudeville blues singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Mamie Smith. And it discounts other significant centers such as Texas and Memphis where artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, and B. B. King contributed substantially to the stylistic development of the blues..."

LONDON! Where in God's name does LONDON ever enter the picture where BLUES is concerned??? Again, brother, I am feeling you all the way, and then some, when you talk of the problems with the piece... David Evans, if I am not mistaken, is also an AFrican American, and you have to wonder what the academy DOES to these folks... Does it stop us from having our own independent thoughts, or something????(SMILE!) Yikes!

Even Handy's "blues" writting is questionable, and too studied and stilted to truly be considered authentic blues... So when we talk about London being a major center for BLUES development - please, the idea and notion are totally absurd! It is said that NOWHERE outside of the south has an authentic BLUES singer been born, even among African Amercans, so how do we get Real BLUESMEN from LONDON???

I've been posting these articles to get our blood stimulated about our culture... Taking our temp on this, I am finding that only a few of us have a pulse rate when it comes to African American Cultural traditions... I am happy as hell to see yourself and Mississippi Red taking a strong and leading interest in bringing us the truth... I am at work now, so my time is limited, but I'd like to continue to see us dissect these things, and distill something valuable to the young people who might just drop in out of curiousity... I'll hit back a little more tonight...


Peace!
Isaiah
 
Sun Ship said:
Brother Isaiah, I appreciate this contribution, but it is slightly problematic…I want to digress somewhat to make my point.

I remember the story about a white professor at the prestigious Julliard school of Music who was making reference to the social circumstances he felt inspired the Blues, in his attempt to define the more melancholy harmonic structures and lamenting melodies of the Blues, he related their origins to the suffering, impoverishment and depressive state in which “Negroes” lived. So happen, one of his students was a young Miles Davis, which upon hearing this explanation, made it clear he could play the Blues and rebutted his instructors observations by paraphrasing a lyric from the song Summertime, “my daddy’s rich and my mother’s good lookin’” (Miles’ father was a Dentist in East St. Louis).

This was an important statement, because it has been a misnomer that the blues were only about depression and hard times. The Blues dealt with sex, love, happiness, superstition, wisdom, sadness, African-derived religiosity, love, strength and even weaknesses.

Now I’m not disputing that Blues people didn’t live under oppressive conditions, but this oppression wasn’t just a coincidental condition, but this oppression was a well thought out political and social institution and like racism was systemic. And Miles statement elevated the concerns of the Blues man from just an emotional response and/or reaction to hard times and suffering, but his or her music was an well-articulated political statement and a intellectually thought out lyrical pronouncement and assertion of our story and plight in America or exile, in all its complexities.

The Blues notes and minor harmonies are derived from African (pentatonic) scales and more meditative and earthy harmonic modalities. But Instead of embracing the hypnotic and earthy resonance, linear-Europeans could only relate to what was seemingly the melancholy sadness that haunted them in every song (even though it is true that some Blues speak to loneliness and sadness). It’s like how Whites were always jittery when they heard African drums. Now they liked the exotic melodies and the “savage” beats but they could not discern their complexity.

This is the true science of our music…it was more than just an emotionally simplistic choice of notes.

They do this with our politics, In other words you are only politically conscious, militant and progressive because you’re angry, and you’re angry because you feel insecure (fear), and you’re poor and are reacting to some traumatic incident in your life (like Pavlov’s dog). And you really have no ideological stance or intellectual reason for your politics....or your music..

h_mmmm...mmmm?

Peace:cool:

Hey, brother Sun, I feel you... In fact, to say the piece if "problematic" is an understatement... This particular paragraph oozed major inaccuracies:

"Another emerging myth of blues history is a Delta to Chicago to London narrative. This myth holds that the blues was born in the plantations of the Mississippi Delta, migrated to Chicago where it became electrified in the 1940s and 1950s, and eventually immigrated to London where it shaped the bluesy rock sound of groups like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds. This story of blues evolution, which posits a direct line of development from Delta pioneer Charley Patton to Son House to Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, is most clearly expressed in Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues (1981). Although the Delta and Chicago were enormously important blues centers and this line of historical development is indeed one of the big stories of the blues, it is not the only way the story can and should be told. For example, the Delta to Chicago myth ignores the contributions of W. C. Handy and other composers to the mass popularity of the blues early in the twentieth century. It further disregards the early activities of great women vaudeville blues singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Mamie Smith. And it discounts other significant centers such as Texas and Memphis where artists like Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, and B. B. King contributed substantially to the stylistic development of the blues..."

LONDON! Where in God's name does LONDON ever enter the picture where BLUES is concerned??? Again, brother, I am feeling you all the way, and then some, when you talk of the problems with the piece... David Evans, if I am not mistaken, is also an AFrican American, and you have to wonder what the academy DOES to these folks... Does it stop us from having our own independent thoughts, or something????(SMILE!) Yikes!

Even Handy's "blues" writting is questionable, and too studied and stilted to truly be considered authentic blues... So when we talk about London being a major center for BLUES development - please, the idea and notion are totally absurd! It is said that NOWHERE outside of the south has an authentic BLUES singer been born, even among African Amercans, so how do we get Real BLUESMEN from LONDON???

I've been posting these articles to get our blood stimulated about our culture... Taking our temp on this, I am finding that only a few of us have a pulse rate when it comes to African American Cultural traditions... I am happy as hell to see yourself and Mississippi Red taking a strong and leading interest in bringing us the truth... I am at work now, so my time is limited, but I'd like to continue to see us dissect these things, and distill something valuable to the young people who might just drop in out of curiousity... I'll hit back a little more tonight...


Peace!
Isaiah
 
I just re-read that first article again and am shocked to find out old boy is Black......I thought a white cat wrote that......he's sadly mistaken on a lot of points.....one being the fact that basically it was the poor imitation and corruption of Blues that lead to the demise of Blues.....unless of course you like Kenny Wayne Sheppard or the Yardbirds or any number of white Blues musicians out and about now.....the quality of the music the soul of the Blues is all but gone like some old folk at home used to say...white mane ain't got no soul....(in more ways than one)

and yeah Brother Isaiah....I must've missed London the first time or my mind just couldn't conceive of someone actually putting London and Blues in the same sentence.....on W.C.Handy...great musician but I've never liked his music much and never considered him a major contributor to the type of Blues I love the Country Blues....Handy even called Blues Primitive at one point.....he was the self-claimed "Father of the Blues"....even though his first exposure was at a performance where he was playing for white folk and they asked him to play what they called (your music) when he couldn't and his band took a brake some Brothers got on stage and played Country Blues which forced the classically trained Handy to take another look at the Blues.....but even then he didn't really get it until that day in 03 at a train station where he heard a taildragger singing bout the Southern crossing the dog....Handy was never a Bluesman in my estimation he is thought as such by some due to commercial success among whites and well to do Blacks he didn't love the Blues because of what they were he did the Blues because of what it could do for his pockets....this cat was playing what he and whites called Blues with an orchestra..an orchestra..come on ....and as such I get kind of hot whenever folk through Handy in the mix......

His assumption that Blues needed a revival which of course was led by intellectual Blacks and whites is way off.....no revival was needed because to the regular Black folk in the South they never died..folk still played Blues in the jukes and thangs and we still listened I think the more correct statement would have been"people like myself finally opened our eyes and ears to the foundation of modern American music and in an attempt to not look behind the times or hypocritcal of what we for so long put at the bottom of the musical and traditional pile we had to now claim it as our own and put out a revisionist history making us look as smart and forward as we think we are"....now that's better......

You're right though Isaiah....don't nobody care bout Blues,Jazz,Jug,Zydeco,Work Songs,Stompin non of that....it's too backward and makes Black folk look bad so they say sets us back makes us look ignorant.....if that's the case set me back and make me look bad....send be back to when Black folk in a community looked out for each other and each others kids and thangs now we act like we can't ebem speak to one another....just be looking crazy when I say "hey" or chunk the deuce at em....we just ain't got no home training no mo.... :)....guess we done give that up like we gave up our Southern music and Tradition....



MississippiRed
 
MississippiRed said:
I just re-read that first article again and am shocked to find out old boy is Black......I thought a white cat wrote that......he's sadly mistaken on a lot of points.....one being the fact that basically it was the poor imitation and corruption of Blues that lead to the demise of Blues.....unless of course you like Kenny Wayne Sheppard or the Yardbirds or any number of white Blues musicians out and about now.....the quality of the music the soul of the Blues is all but gone like some old folk at home used to say...white mane ain't got no soul....(in more ways than one)

and yeah Brother Isaiah....I must've missed London the first time or my mind just couldn't conceive of someone actually putting London and Blues in the same sentence.....on W.C.Handy...great musician but I've never liked his music much and never considered him a major contributor to the type of Blues I love the Country Blues....Handy even called Blues Primitive at one point.....he was the self-claimed "Father of the Blues"....even though his first exposure was at a performance where he was playing for white folk and they asked him to play what they called (your music) when he couldn't and his band took a brake some Brothers got on stage and played Country Blues which forced the classically trained Handy to take another look at the Blues.....but even then he didn't really get it until that day in 03 at a train station where he heard a taildragger singing bout the Southern crossing the dog....Handy was never a Bluesman in my estimation he is thought as such by some due to commercial success among whites and well to do Blacks he didn't love the Blues because of what they were he did the Blues because of what it could do for his pockets....this cat was playing what he and whites called Blues with an orchestra..an orchestra..come on ....and as such I get kind of hot whenever folk through Handy in the mix......

His assumption that Blues needed a revival which of course was led by intellectual Blacks and whites is way off.....no revival was needed because to the regular Black folk in the South they never died..folk still played Blues in the jukes and thangs and we still listened I think the more correct statement would have been"people like myself finally opened our eyes and ears to the foundation of modern American music and in an attempt to not look behind the times or hypocritcal of what we for so long put at the bottom of the musical and traditional pile we had to now claim it as our own and put out a revisionist history making us look as smart and forward as we think we are"....now that's better......

You're right though Isaiah....don't nobody care bout Blues,Jazz,Jug,Zydeco,Work Songs,Stompin non of that....it's too backward and makes Black folk look bad so they say sets us back makes us look ignorant.....if that's the case set me back and make me look bad....send be back to when Black folk in a community looked out for each other and each others kids and thangs now we act like we can't ebem speak to one another....just be looking crazy when I say "hey" or chunk the deuce at em....we just ain't got no home training no mo.... :)....guess we done give that up like we gave up our Southern music and Tradition....



MississippiRed
'Sup, Brother 'Sippi RED!

You put some good food on the plate with the Handy info... In fact, I remember when I first heard about him, and his "discovery" of the Blues, I knew this guy was an opportunist and a hustla... Nothin' wrong with "goin' shoppin'" for what a man wants, but FATHER OF THE BLUES he aint, and never will be... Has anyone ever met THE DADDY anyway???(smile!)

But what I've read over the years about, both, the Blues and Jazz is, it's first GREAT players - the guys who sang the Blues, and the HOT JAZZ players - didn't READ MUSIC... The Lousiana CREOLES, who are credited with those original "JAZZ" formulations are said to have really been playing RAGTIME by none other than Jellyroll Morton, himself a Creole... He said that it was those poor BLACK cats who didn't know ish about READING music that played by ear and feeling, and played the socks off everybody else...

I've gotten into arguments with cats about this whole business of reading... They say BLUES catz couldn't read nor write the music down, thus had to play the pieces differently everytime they played, and I ask what is wrong with a new interpretation everytime one hears a song???(smile!) That gives it a beautiful flexibility and originality that written music doesn't...

W.C. Handy, classically-trained musician that he was, could NEVER have been the FATHER of the BLUES... Fact is, there is absolutely no way a classically-trained musician could invent or be the father of this music, because Blues guys do everything WRONG according to the readers(smile!) So too did those early Jazz guys, and GOSPEL singers, too! Interesting, isn't it, that the TRAINED folk are still stuck in the 18-century without the music of the untrained - LOL! You think that rankles them a wee bit??? Of course, it does, and that is why they've always felt the need to savage our style... Like how can these people be so creative and inventive off the top of their heads like that??? Aren't they supposed to be flat stupid??? I guess their attempts to commandeer our culture is borne of their inability to author such creativity...



Peace!
Isaiah
 

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