Friday, November 11, 2016
Money Green & Kelly
The Week after Capo and Kyro, my man Money Green & Kelly stop by after SXSW and tell some stories about the event and plus more.
Black Music Month
Black Music Month
This month is Black music month, a celebration
of Black music and pioneers who has shape the music culture as well, not just
for Black music but for all music lovers (no matter what race). But for me I’m
going to focus on area of Black music that transcend time and never has been
duplicated again and never will be duplicated. Black music in the 1970’s was
something else from the creativity; the artists who of that time, the album’s,
the outfit’s. And most important the
live show’s that were put on by these artist’s that took it to another level of
entertainment that hasn’t been seen till this day. How did the seventies Black
music become what it was? Well I believe it was four Black artists in
particular who took it to another level and pave the way for the Black artist
of the seventies to do their thing. The first Black artist is Miles Davis who
saved and transformed Jazz at the same time. In 1959 Miles Davis released the
biggest selling Jazz album of all time “Kind of Blue”. “Kind of Blue” broke
away from the tradition and wasn’t trying to emulate Be Bop (a style of Jazz
creative by Charlie Parker and Miles Davis mentor as well.) or any other style.
No what “Kind of Blue” did gave birth to cool Jazz and gave birth to a new
demographic to young white suburban kids who were rebellion against their
parents and the Eisenhower way of life. By listening to Black jazz musician and
trying to understand the culture a little better. For Black kids living in
ghettos of America they understood the music and was trying to become cool as
Miles or one of the Jazz players who help Miles create this masterpiece. From Bill
Evans one of the pianist, Jimmy Cobb the drummer, Paul Chamber the bassist,
Wynton Kelly the other pianist, Julian “Cannoball” Adderley the saxophonists and
the most famous player out the bunch John Coltrane saxophonists as well. This
Album not only helped save Jazz but also help artists outside of Jazz to
discover new waves of musical artistic expression. As the a new decade was one
year away there would be one artist who would create a new form of music that
would express blackness to its fullest level that was unapologetic and it name
is Funk.
The
1960’s was a decade like no other in the
20th century from politicians, wars, culture events and new ways of
living (with the hippie movement coming into scene). But as a far as the music
goes it was the ultimate shift in the record business with the British
invasion, Motown records and Mr. Showstopper. The second Black artist who helped
Black music is the Godfather of soul, the hardest working man in show business,
Mr. Dynamite James Brown. Born into poverty having only a seventh grade
education raised in a brothel house but redefine an era. James Brown is the
most sample artist of all time (due to Hip- Hop), and has inspire the greatest
entertainer of all time (Michael Jackson) and produce some of the finest
musican whose name alone can stand up in
the past and even today. Even though Berry Gordy’s Motown was killing the
charts and was the sound of young America and cross over to white mainstream.
But it was white America who was crossing over to see James Brown on the chitin
circuit and going to Ma and Pa’s stores buying his albums. It wasn’t until 1964
where James Brown and the Flames did the first T.A.M.I annual show that also
had a hell of line up with groups from the white teen pop and black teen pop
and this is where people of all races
got to see how dynamic James Brown was a performer and setting the bar as a
performer. This performance were a larger audience got to see the man in action with the cape being put on him as he sang “Please, Please,
Please” and coming back to microphone to
finish the performance but just having
the same reaction. But the crowd reaction was something else, after
James was threw with his set time the next band was scared to follow him and
that group was the Rolling Stone .
After that
performance on the T.A.M.I show more doors were started to open to James Brown
to come on T.V programs were they offer dance and entertainment and the biggest
one being the Ed Sullivan show. If you made it owned the Ed Sullivan show you
were really big time and just as the T.A.M.I show two years early Mr. Brown set
the bar for what a performance should be and also open up to more wider white
audience who had heard of James Brown but got a chance to see him on the
biggest sage in white America. (The difference between the T.A.M.I show and the
Ed Sullivan show is the T.A.M.I was for younger America and the Ed Sullivan
show was a family get together where the mother and the father and all the kids
gather around to watch the show.) But Mr. Brown wasn’t done yet, since he was
not able to read music James used to make up sounds for his band to play to the
sounds he was humming and they had to play it until they got it the way he
picture it. After a concert James called in his bandleader Alfred “Pee Wee”
Ellis who also played the saxophone, Brown begin making sounds for Pee Wee to put
into music quotations right away the grunts that he was making became the
bassline and all of suddenly Miles Davis So What pop into his head from the
album “Kind of Blue” taking the high pitch horns section which clearly sounds
just as the word so what from song that sound and adding to that. Two
other things that “Cold Sweat” unique is every instrument is sounding and
hitting just as a drum. And last “Cold Sweat” broke away from the tradition of
keeping the rhythm o on two and four beat till keeping it in the one. And if
that wasn’t funky enough he went back to Apollo Theater in Harlem to record his
live album for second time around and it is just down right plain funky. Miles
Davis and James Brown broke away from the restriction that was given to them in
their field of music and creativity a whole new sound and standard to live up
to. But if Miles and James didn’t follow the rules these next two artists never
even heard of the rules.
As I stated early the 1960’s was a
decade like no other and people breaking away from the status quo in the
sixties the biggest moment was the non- violent
civil rights moment of the south fighting for equation and the right to
vote for Blacks in America . In Harlem New York there was another moment that
was going as well that didn’t see eye to
eye with the non- violence moment in the south. Malcom X and Martin Luther King
Jr were on top of the food chains of their moment. Martin Luther King Jr was
for the non-violence and wanting to live your enemy but Malcom X of the Nation
of Islam preach a different sermon and didn’t see things the way Martin Luther
King saw it and calling him “Uncle Tom”. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X
battle was the same as Booker T Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois just in different
formats some people believe in Dr. King way of living and others believe in
Malcom way of living and the ones who believe in Malcom way of living was going
to take it to another level. A land taking from its rightful owners during the
gold mine rush in 1848 when James Wilson Marshall found flakes of gold in the
American river near Coloma, California which became an open land of new
opportunity and a lifestyle and attracting people of all races from Latin,
European, Australia and Asia Americans to take part of this new phenomenon. And
my the early 1900’s with more Movie companies moving out west because of the
land and space California was becoming a boiling pot of a mix diversity culture
but it wasn’t finish until Black America started the great migration towards
the Northeast, Midwest, and the West bringing their Southern roots to better
land opportunity that wasn’t offer in the South at all. Once Black families got
to California they live in the cities of Compton, Long Beach, South Central,
Inglewood, Watts and Oakland. But by the sixties racial intension there was the
same down South the difference is that they fought back and didn’t believe in
non-violent moment as Dr. King. And after Watt’s riot of 1965 it became very
clear that they believe in the teaching of Malcom X and Nation of Islam and
some cat’s from Oakland was going to
taking a step farther that would make them into panthers, Black Panthers. In
Oakland, California two young men who started a revolution that terrified the
government and had to be stop immediately. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton who
believe more in Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael
than Dr. King non-violent way of
life was going to equal rights there and they. The Black Panthers of
self-defense wasn’t going to take any shit from no one and they didn’t. It’s
one thing to stand up to the man (the man is a slain turn that means standing
up to any white man who causes harm in the black community wheatear it be from
the cops or whoever) but it is another thing when you started carry fully
loading rifles as well. Now for young black kids who saw this wanting to become
a Black Panther and have that privileged of carry a rifle. By this new example
of Black pride more Black Panther self- defense organization was popping up
everywhere in the United States but across the bridge from Oakland there was
another revolution going on that saw life different and believe in peace and
war, oh yeah if you wanting to go there you had to make sure you that you had a
flower in your hair.
The world was in
chaos by the mid-sixties in America to overseas with the Vitamin war that sent
a lot of young Americans to in a useless war. Out of the moment’s that was
going on there was one particular moment that didn’t get taking serious at all
and was look upon as bunch kids who didn’t have any parents at all as
children. To the media in the 1960’s
Hippies represented “long hair who don’t care” a bunch kids who had long hair
who didn’t care how the world or their parents look upon them, which was kind
of true. But the place to be to get the full experiences as Hippie was Haight,
Asbury in San Francisco, California, if living in Oakland was golden state
bridge that separates them apart. And what separated the musical group Sly and
the Family Stone from the rest of the musical group of the sixties is that they
were a multi culture diversified group who did these there way and didn’t care
who approve of it or not. But what they prove is that they were unique and had
some catchy hooks that every race could groove to. Songs as “Hot fun in the
summer time” sounded as if the Beach Boys could have written that tune always
talking about and being from California as well; and song as “Stand” which
representing not only Black’s but to all races of people to fight for you
believe in and what is right. “I Want to Take You Higher” was the feeling you
get in church when the choir feel the holy ghost spirit moving you and you
can’t to stop feeling of the uplifting the beat that gets you to jump up and
move your body to the spirit. For Miles Davis it was “So what” that made people
take recognition of this new sound he creating for James Brown it was “Cold
Sweat” that broke away from the regular format of music that put everything on
the one and making all the instrument sound the same as a drum. For Sly and the
Family Stone every song was different with vertebra that hold core of the song
but none of the songs could compare to one. Larry Graham who play bass in his
mom church choir as kid was good (I guess) a decent job of just playing the
bass. One particular Sunday his mom had to get rid of the drummer of the church
band and Larry had to make up for that position with his bass guitar by
plucking it as a drum. That thinking format was the same format James Brown had
with “Cold Sweat” and to add it it the same format Pee Wee took from Miles
Davis “So what” by taking the hoof, very interesting. In “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Larry Graham showcase a new way of playing the bass guitar and that was by
thumping. For some people they question Sly and The Family Stone for separate
their selves not by dressing as other black performers of that time. If Sly got
question for his blackness and where he stand with the black community it was
no question that Jimmy Hendrix was no were near black but just look black.
Jimi Hendrix did
not appeal to the black audiences at all when he first came out (and never did
while he was alive) but neither did Chuck Berry or anyone else on the Chess
record label of the 1940’s and 50’s expect for Etta James with her hit “At
Last”. Hendrix was black just the part black people tried to forget about, just
in musical roots. Hendrix played the guitar as an old southern who just got off
the field from a long day of work and had the urge to express him and the way
he was feeling, the blues you may call it but the blues wasn’t popular with
black’s. For young white kids they love it just as white British kids who were
now rock n roll stars (The Beatles, Rolling Stone and so many other bands that
came from Britain) who love the delta blues from Mississippi. For Hendrix there
were two pivotal moments that made Hendrix a guitar god. The first one was in
1964 at Monterey pop festival in San Francisco were Hendrix put everyone into
shock with his playing and burning the guitar as well. The second one is him
outing playing Eric Clapton on the guitar, made not sound as a big deal but it
is though. At that time in London no one could out play Clapton but Hendrix
change that and with that change he became the best on the guitar.
By the last year
of 1960’s the decade had been a horrible mess and probably on the verge of
World War III. But to go out with a bang the biggest concerts was thrown and
still hasn’t been match till this day. Woodstock was a monument event that took
place for three days in White Lake, New York. After that event is when the
changes started to happen in music and to Hippie culture as well. A couple
months later there was another festival that tried to capture the success of
Woodstock but fail completely horrible. Altamont was a free concert in Northern
California in responded to Woodstock, in the end it didn’t turn out as well as
Woodstock at all. The Hell’s Angeles was the security for the event and before
the night was over they killed man and was constantly fighting with random
people as well, this was officially the dark side and was about to get even
darker with the decade on its way.
With 1960’s over
with now it was time for the 1970’s and the year 1970 started with a bang.
Hippies never opposed a threat until Charlie
Manson and his cult of followers committed one of America heinous crime. After
that it became a normal way to look at hippies as if they were all criminals. If
that wasn’t bad enough four things happen in music business that shook the core
at the time, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all die at the age of
27 and on top of that the Beatles broke up. Sounds horrible felt as if the
1970’s would become worse than the 1960’s as far as the music goes, but it
didn’t it turn out for the greater good . While the Beatles were breaking up
they lost their number spots on the charts to another group who were a bunch of
kids black kids at that from Gary, Indian.
The Jackson 5 became Motown. Even Motown was undergoing some new changes
with the artist on the label and moving to a new location. Berry Gordy had a
vision for all his artists on the label on how they should dress present their
selves to the public eye. And by 1969 Berry pack up Motown and the artist and
headed out west to break away from Detroit and that wasn’t the change going
around Motown .By the late sixties most
of artists wanting to break away from
his perception on how to present themselves to the public eye and one by one
Berry Gordy had to accept the fact. The first act to break away from Berry
Gordy perception was The Temptations with the song “Cloud Nine.” The song was
mainly focus taking a L.S.D experience and being on a cloud that was high up in
the sky. Gordy didn’t like the song meaning at all and what it represented; the
group had to make him see this is what young people was doing and how they were
expressing their selves, in the end Berry Gordy lost the argument on the song
but gained the first ever Grammy for the group and for Motown. The second
artist’s who broke away from Berry Gordy ways was Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye was
the sex symbol and wanted him to stay that way singing love ballets for women.
With the Vietnam War being showed every day on T.V and the racial tension from
Blacks living in America and college protester that was happening on campus, it
was hard to deny the situations and couldn’t be deny. Marvin Gaye knew he had
to talk about the injustice the situation that was taking place. But once again
Berry didn’t want Marvin to change his image and once again Berry had to learn another
valuable lesson. In the Marvin Gaye produce the biggest selling album on
Motown, “What Going On.” The third artist who broke away from Berry Gordy ways
was Stevie Wonder. Once Stevie turned 21 his contract was up with Motown and
there was a couple things that he wanted before renewal his contract he wanted
the ability to have musical freedom to sing about anything. After seeing the
success that Marvin Gaye had with “What’s Going On” he wanted that freedom as
well to produce, write and compose his own material. At this point Berry knew
it would have been stupid not to see things his way and gave him what he asks
for. And with that freedom Stevie reenter Motown swinging album’s out the park.
The first album he released with his return was “Music of My Mind”, follow by
“Talking Books”, “Innervision”, “Fulfilling First Finale” and “Songs in the Key
of Life.” With every album become well
as the last one gave him the nickname “Musical Genius” (One that’s well
deserved).
By 1970 Los
Angeles, California was the place to be for artist, record companies just the
whole nine yards. With Sly and the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix really
breaking a wall down on how to make yourself be notice and how to present your
music to the world, it gave other artist’s the courage to really be who you are
and sound they wanting to sound. With a list of artist’s so long that I won’t
get into but played a major way for Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the family Stone.
As far as James
Brown goes and changing with the time he still wanted things to be done his way
with the sound to still having press suits. With that mind set cause him some
of the major musican to leave him and go their way. And for James he had to go out and find new
group of musician’s, which he did a group of musician’s out of Cincinnati, Ohio
who also left as well for not changing his sound. At the very end most of the
musicians who left James went some place where they could express their musical
feel at its full potential and that was with George Clinton and with that
freedom of musical expression they created a new sound called P- Funk and a
concept call “The Mothership Connection.” If it wasn’t for James Brown the
musician’s wouldn’t be able to do what they did. (And Parliament Funkadelic is
the second most sample group in the hip hop world.)
As far as Miles Davis
goes he love change was witness the changes that was going on in the music and
was ready to change with it as well. And in 1970 he created a new sound and a
new way of music with his album “Bitches Brew” with this album a whole new
world was open up to explore. And that’s basically what 1970’s music was a new
world that was being open up from the art work on the albums covers to putting
the needle on the record and letting the music play and getting lost in that
world. For me I wasn’t born in this time but it is very oblivious to me that
seventies music has a profound impact on me and a lot of other people who are
also in their twenties. But for Black artists in this time period it was a
thing of beauty, from crating some of the best music of all time. And it is
very important to give the recognition that is well deserve to these four Black
musician’s for what they did and how they did it for others to follow. And for
this year in Black music month I will do that always have and always will.
The Get Down
On
August 12 Netflix will be bringing a new visual show call “The Get Down” (a
story of the South Bronx and the elevation of Hip Hop in the 1970’s). With so much of it being kept a secret until
it air date it is very hard to give a good analysis on the whole show. Only
thing I can tell is an underdog story and the underdogs are the people of the
South Bronx. The Bronx at that time was hell zone with poor circumstances from living in housing
projects that were burning down to the ground daily, trying to find a job, having gang’s run the
city with a different gang around the corner from the other , no school funding,
drug’s being becoming the everyday norm, and suffer from police brutality as well. With everything that
was going on in this dark era had all the signs that there was no hope at all
to overcome the everyday life struggle trying to get by. But all that change
with one man who brought the city together in an old fashioned way that has
always brought people together. Just as the same in the slavery days as the
slaves work on the field shouting out chants that became lyrics to the everyday
struggle they were facing. These words and emotions became music (Soul music)
in the worst time in American history. And Clive Campbell a.k.a Kool Herc
became somewhat of a savior, coming from the west indies of Jamaica he brought the same formula that was used every
weekend at block party in Jamaica to the South Bronx with big sound systems
that they used to hook up in the street corner lights. And for the Bronx the
shouts and chants would could from sixties and the seventies music that would
help unit the city and bring back hope into the lives of some many people who
were living in the ghetto’s. With all that range, anger and deep buried emotion
it all was express in four different ways; which were DJing, Mc’s, Breakdancing
and Graffiti artist. And these four elements became the structure of Hip-Hop.
If
they knew it or not the South Bronx would be the next step progression in
American cultural that would transcend into world cultural since the 1920’s
(the roaring twenties). People think of the 1920’s just as the prohibition era
and Al Capone but most people don’t know it is also the decade that move art
forward with Martha Graham, Charlie Parker and Pablo Picasso. Martha Graham in
dance who brought modern dance into forefront, creating a new style that broke
away from ballet. Pablo Picasso in art who brought modern art that was
different than the renaissance era. .and Charlie Parker who brought a whole new
style in Jazz called bebop. All three of these individual’s help push their art
form out of the statics quo out of the box that they were cage into. And that is
the same thing that happen in South Bronx as from pushing out of that darkness and creating a
four connecting spectrum that is The Dj’s ,Mc’s, break dancer’s and the
graffiti artist that broke down a wall and made a new lifestyle. To some people
they will just see this as just a show but it is much more than that. The Get
Down to me is showing how kids who came from poverty to create the last
American art form that is still aspiring people around the world today. So with
everything being kept a secert until August 12 it’s highly important to know a
brief history of this monument culture and how it came about because it is
American history.
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