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Suggested read. Go to CNN website
On front page now, on Opinion main page too.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/10/24/wynton.marsalis.blues.race/index.html Interesting reading. I'm not sure about all of his conclusions. It obvious that many types of music have roots in blues, such as country and gospel. He says that the reason that black folks don't accept the blues is rooted in racism, a self hatred thing. Seems to me that each person, black or white, has individual taste, some of which is bound to be affected by their cultural environment. That doesn't make one racist. I know a lot of white southern folks who don't particularly care for southern gospel. Perhaps it's because of over exposure to it? The same could be said of the blues. Don S.
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Part of it is true IMO, I mean, gee, at one time there was a record label with the name of Race Records and they weren't talkin' about horse racing, 'k?
However, that was a long time in the past. Some people seem to want to hang onto an anger about what people in the past did to people in the past. Not saying that Wynton is doing that, sounds to me like he is just reporting a bit of the history as it was, pretty much. I do, however, hold those who are doing that as highly suspect and not worthy of the time.
But we are a diverse people, just as all other ethnic groups, races, whatever delineation for human beings you use to describe such things. And as such, there are many different attitudes and opinions concerning the issues.
We do not have a single spokesman.
Don't regard all of us as such a monolithic.
Please.
Chicken Noodle Nooz?
I don't watch it.
But I know that news is not reporting what might happen.
--Mac
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On another note, the white fella playin' piano with Wynton and Willie on that Ray Charles tune is a BAD CAT.
Go 'head wif yo' bad self!
--Mac
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Journeyman
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Well said, Mac....
At the risk of "stepping in it" I feel something must be added here.
Much as I respect Marsalis' accomplishments, leadership ability, and his incredible musicianship, I do not easily award that respect to his persistently big mouth, especially when it comes to "race." Many would say that Wynton is the biggest racist on the planet.
As longtime successful director of the Lincoln Center Jazz program (responsible for, some would say Live at "Wynton" Center), it took years before he would allow any serious participation or recognition of white jazz talents, and he virtually had to be hit over the head (with a Bix horn??) before he finally recognized one, Gerry Mulligan. He so deeply influenced Ken Burn's series on Jazz (great series, by the way), skewing it so that it almost became a long dissertation on racism and oppression of black people in America, eclipsing the music. He's still doing it. (Yes, I know he did an album with Willie Nelson.)
On the Lincoln Center "Hall of Fame," there are 34 inductees. Only five are white (Bix, Charlie Christian, Gil Evans, Goodman, Django). This means, let's see.... 34 over five... Mmm,.. That black jazz musicians are 6.8 times better than white jazz musicians. Sounds about right.
As a counter-POV, read a book called "Blue: The Murder of Jazz," by Eric Nisenson. Not a great book, definitely a biased polemic, but makes some good points. From the Kirkus Reviews: "He repeats the often-made accusations against Marsalis, his primary mouthpiece, Stanley Crouch, and their mentor Albert Murray, that there is implicit racism in their insistence that only African-Americans can truly play jazz, that jazz has its roots exclusively in the African-American experience."
Me, I would just like to not see music politicized, and I hope this thread doesn't go that way. Whether black or white, it remains that Wynton does have a big mouth. But some of my best friends are bigmouths.
Brad
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I suggest moderate discussion. Note that to some of us 'american' includes Canada. And more.
I always wondered at the Columbus Day thing. He landed in Cuba at one point, and I guess some people think that was the US, but....
One needs a broad perspective. The music of the Canadian Mid West is not much different from the US, nor is the NE music, or the NW music. And as to 'black' or 'african' or whatever term is proper these days, the end of the underground railroad was just south of me. Where my wife's family is from. They have at the local university glowing reports of the new postman and his bike, worked for my wife's family who ran the post office. They use the dreaded N word, but in the same phrase talk of him being a great gentleman, and it was the early 1800's when most Canadians had not seen someone of colour.
We need to think of music globally, and understand who and what made it what it is, in the spirit of harmony. As to the man in question and his angst, or leanings, well I know far more about Mr. Mozart than he, and far more about the music of the 1700's to the 1800's. But I like to listen.
This was posted for intelligent discussion, not 6 shooting.
On another note, after 8 weeks I got from the UK the Best of Vera Lynnn, and have been reading the era and listening to her. My 88 year old RCAF then RAF officer from WW2 told me last night, "she thought her job was to make me cry and she did a darn good job of it." Interesting...
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Hey Brad--
How you likin' that good bowl of gumbo, man?
/snark
--Mac
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That remark misses John, I'm old and naive, and my street is the United Nations. Just saying...as some say, from the town that gave birth to Guy Lumbago and Royal Canucks...now it's a brewery.. LOL, just a small one, a billion bottles a year....for now.
How about them Leafs? (Ducks).
John Conley
Musica est vita
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My Great-grandma was a Creole from East Baton Rouge Parish -- half black, half Cherokee, half Mexican (she wasn't very good with fractions). So I know gumbo. It clashes with the Norwegian part of me -- lutefisk and red beans, yukk.
But coincidentally, I just ate chicken noodle soup for dinner.
Which raises a more important question: Why are we all home on a Saturday night, instead of out gigging??
/smurf
Brad
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Not all of us Brad, I just finished a great two hour private birthday party at which I had a little reality check. I'll post in another thread as not to risk hijacking this one.
Later,
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Saturday? I played 2 shows of Cats, with another 9 to go - havin' a ball.
Back on topic for a bit, I too dislike the politicisation of music. Reporting history is one thing, hanging onto hatred for past wrongs only damages the one holding onto the anger.
The music is the thing. Whether it be blues, country, jazz, funk, rock, metal, classical, baroque - doesn't matter - the music is the thing.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya  --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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As I told someone trying to get me to play an open mic night with the wife, 10 years ago ok, if I was free. I'm now in bed at 11:15 (news headlines first), then up at 6 a.m. If you want me, start afternoons, even week days. My wife is 10 years the younger and still works, at least for another year.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Thanks for your post Mac
Much the same thoughts here-
one of the most damaging things anyone can do is hold on to the wrongs of past generations. It is obviously rooted in the home environment to be so instilled.
It is damaging to a group of people and even more so to the individual.
Many examples available throughout history, many still going on to this day.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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I am very sorry to have to report this but, in my experience, black people are, on the whole, far more racist than whites. I am NOT saying ALL blacks but most of the day-to-day ones (and I am certainly not, under normal circumstances, referring to black musicians).
Please bear in mind that I was educated at an international school with boys from all races, creeds and colours and we all learnt tolerance for each other. I later spent much of 30 years in London, probably one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. I have several good friends in England and Austria (and around the world via FaceBook) who are black. By black, I include both Africans and Afro-Americans.
However, here is one example of racism as I have experienced it in Vienna:
My best friend here, Betty, was born in Antigua of Afro-American parentage and brought up in London - she is a wonderful professional singer and has a great voice for blues, soul, jazz and gospel. She invited me to a gig for Africans in Vienna at which she had been invited to guest sing. When we got there, I felt immediately very strong resentment at my being there because (1) I am white and (2) because I was accompanying a black woman. Their immediate response was to do their best, aggressively, to tell me I was not welcome and that I should leave. I had done nothing wrong. Betty started arguing with them, telling them I was her personal guest and she had been booked to perform there that night. The voices started getting louder and then suddenly, the headline singer appeared at the front desk (a Nigerian prince) and told them in no uncertain terms that if I was not allowed entry, he, his musicians, and Betty would all leave too and they would have no music for the evening. They gave in, very reluctantly. Once inside though, I never stopped feeling the hatred from the majority, staring at me like I was something the cat had dragged in BUT all those black guys had WHITE women with them! Seems they like the idea of a black man with a white woman but a black woman should only ever be with a black man? How hypocritical can you get?
I have never experienced the above in the opposite circumstances - blacks are always welcome wherever I go.
Another thing, blacks can call whites 'honky' but only a black can call a black a 'nigger'? I hate that word in any case and would never use it but it does seem very 2 faced, don't you think?
Follow That Dream Sam Karaoke King -------------------- Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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Why did I know that Sam would get in there and muddy up the original thread?
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.. and the mud has a bad smell to it ..
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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As I age I become more ambivalent. I realize that death, as it stalks me, will make me the equal on earth of all men. The legacy has some moderate importance, I'm not Churchill, nor MLK. I think that the Mexican's have something right in the day of the dead. Sitting sharing memories of those who went before, passing that along to the younger ones, in an organized fashion has some appeal to me. Perhaps it is out of fear that I pass and become irrelevant.
I study the past in spurts. Right now the project is to get my catalogue of masonic music completed. A database with the title, tune, type of notation, date. But the purpose is the study of the influences on the music from the age of enlightenment through the Victorian era, the Temperance Movement, and to the present day, where the sound of music is no longer heard in Masonic circles. The preliminary framework will get the scrutiny of my son the anthropologist, then I might publish it. Or not, just curiosity drives me most days.
I am no scholar of the USA. As a youngster, (around 10) and the eldest, I was once let out of school to travel with my grandparents to their mobile home in florida for 2 weeks, my Mother was having the 6th child and I was..well in the way so to speak. I came back a sort of 'civil rights' activist from then on. Signs on water fountains, change-rooms at the beach, and so on. My grandparents were not racists, my grandfather suffered the effects of WW2, but they were aghast at the fact 'the help' talked to you in restaurants, chewing gum. Canada was Victorian by comparison, the waitress would never be familiar with you, nor talk about the weather.
Our marching band still travels some, and I always room with Vern. Vern and I get along great, but a lot is made about oblique references to my black lover, and the guys have at us all the time, but we give it back. Like high school kids. Vern plays snare and I ride him about learning a horn. If someone is getting off the bus at the US border it's always Vern. Odd. He has a Canadian passport but born in South America.
Music is a language. It offers so much in so many variations. We will never understand it all, nor master it. Many great, and not so great musicians pass through. Some I regret spending the time to see, others lift my spirits and send me on a new flight of fantasy.
Canadian songbooks used by school children in the 50's and 60's are full of spirituals. They were revered, sang, and the words faithfully mouthed by grade school choirs.
Now that wouldn't be acceptable. A great debate springs up once a year when a parent sees the N word in "To Kill a Mockingbird" and wants the book banned from the schools. Then the rhetoric heats up about teaching high schoolers the history, good or bad, and to see things as they were.
In the end, I'm one day closer to dust. I learned how to deal with that, for now.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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This is a loaded and pretty highly charged topic, but what the heck...
In my opinion, blues is the greatest musical gift that The US has given to the world. There are blues bands in virtually every country in the world, and many of them are excellent. Blues is a universal feeling, not limited to a country or race. I am personally very grateful that some remarkably oppressed people were able to express their feelings in a musical form, which is what music is all about. Other people heard this music, and understood it's universal message and power.
Blues is the root of jazz and rock and roll, another couple of gifts from the US to the world, and much enjoyed around the world. No form of music can stand alone...the I IV V progression existed long before the blues, as did guitars and pianos, etc., but the blues used these elements to bring forth a new type of music.
The shame today is that so few young black Americans have an appreciation of the blues, or a knowledge of the hard times and sacrifices that the early blues folks had to endure for their music in order for it to prosper and spread.
The days [if they ever existed] when you had to pick cotten around Clarksville, Mississippi to play the blues are long gone. Blues is an attitude and a feeling, unrelated to race, religion or nationality, which is felt universally, and played universally.
I say "God bless those pioneers!" I will always have complete respect for those folks who made the sacrifice to play the blues, most of whom will go unknown and un-named, forgotten now. Their music, however, lives on and thrives.
Fire, the wheel, and the I IV V -- foundations of civilization.
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Quote:
This is a loaded and pretty highly charged topic, but what the heck...
In my opinion, blues is the greatest musical gift that The US has given to the world. There are blues bands in virtually every country in the world, and many of them are excellent. Blues is a universal feeling, not limited to a country or race. I am personally very grateful that some remarkably oppressed people were able to express their feelings in a musical form, which is what music is all about. Other people heard this music, and understood it's universal message and power.
Blues is the root of jazz and rock and roll, another couple of gifts from the US to the world, and much enjoyed around the world. No form of music can stand alone...the I IV V progression existed long before the blues, as did guitars and pianos, etc., but the blues used these elements to bring forth a new type of music.
The shame today is that so few young black Americans have an appreciation of the blues, or a knowledge of the hard times and sacrifices that the early blues folks had to endure for their music in order for it to prosper and spread.
The days [if they ever existed] when you had to pick cotten around Clarksville, Mississippi to play the blues are long gone. Blues is an attitude and a feeling, unrelated to race, religion or nationality, which is felt universally, and played universally.
I say "God bless those pioneers!" I will always have complete respect for those folks who made the sacrifice to play the blues, most of whom will go unknown and un-named, forgotten now. Their music, however, lives on and thrives.
I couldn't agree with you more - my favourite all-time (music) bar in all of England is a little place in London called There Ain't Nothin But... They play nothing BUT the Blues - every night
Follow That Dream Sam Karaoke King -------------------- Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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Whether it is racism, genocide, or any other sin that lurks in the heart of mankind, it is always good to acknowledge its existence and its historical relevance so that those living in the present do not forget and naturally doom themselves into repeating it. Take what is happening with the halocaust these days with regard to a small group of people denying it ever happened. There needs to be, to some degree, those keeping the awareness alive. If that is what Mr Marsalis wishes to do so we do not repeat such an atrocity then I applaud him. The one thing we cannot do, however, is justify in one's mind reasons to continue or further propegate such inhumane ideologies back into society again.
In other words, let us learn from our fathers' mistakes... not replicate them.
Thanks
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Our new jazz, funk & blues RealTracks include a groovin’ collection of RealTracks and RealDrums! These include more requested “soul jazz” RealTracks featuring artists Neil Swainson (bass), Charles Treadway (organ), Brent Mason (guitar), and Wes Little (drums). There are new “smooth jazz” styles (4), which include a RealTracks first: muted trumpet, as well as slick new smooth jazz brushes options for drums. Blues lovers will be thrilled—there are more “classic acoustic blues” styles, including guitar (5), bass (4), and drums (10) with blues master Colin Linden, featuring understated and tasty background acoustic soloing, plus brushes drums and acoustic bass. There are also new electric blues RealTracks, including electric blues with PG favorite Johnny Hiland (3) and soulful electric slide guitar from Colin Linden (4). If you love funk & gospel, there are great new options this year, including gospel organ (3) from Charles Treadway, as well as new funk, tango, and rock ’n’ roll drums (3) and bass (1). And for big, bold arrangements, we have uptempo soul horns (4) featuring a three-part hip horn section with options for a full mix or stems of each individual horn — plus an accompanying rhythm section (4) of drums, bass, guitar, and electric piano!
Rock & Pop (Sets 476–482):
Our new rock & pop RealTracks bring a powerful mix of requested favorites, fresh genres, and modern chart-inspired styles! We have more of our popular “Producer Layered Acoustic Guitars (15)” featuring Band-in-a-Box favorite Brent Mason. We’ve continued our much-requested disco styles (10), and added new Celtic guitar (5) with a more basic, accessible approach than our previous Drop-D or DADGAD offerings. There are also highly requested yacht rock styles (17), inspired by the smooth, polished soft-rock sound of the late ’70s and early ’80s — laid-back grooves, silky electric pianos, warm textures, elegant harmonic movement, and pristine production aesthetics. Fans of heavier styles will love our new glam metal (13), capturing the flashy, high-energy sound of ’80s arena-ready guitar rock. We also have a set of rootsy modern-folk rock (18), with a warm, organic sound combining contemporary folk textures and driving acoustic strumming. And we’ve added lots of new modern pop styles (16) — the kinds of sounds you’re hearing on the radio today, featuring exciting new drums, synths, and cutting-edge RealTracks arrangements.
Country, & Americana (Sets 483–488):
Our new country & Americana RealTracks deliver a rich collection of acoustic, electric, and roots-inspired styles! We have new country pop (9) with legendary guitarist Brent Mason. There is also a potpourri (14) of bouzouki, guitars, banjo, and more, perfect for adding texture and character to contemporary acoustic arrangements. We’ve added funky country guitar (5) with PG favorite Brent Mason, along with classic pedal steel styles (5) featuring steel great Doug Jernigan. There are more country songwriter styles (8) that provide intimate, rootsy foundations for storytelling and modern Americana writing. Finally, we have “background soloing” acoustic guitar (12) with Brent Mason — simpler, but still very tasty acoustic lines designed to sit beautifully behind vocals or act as a subtle standalone solo part.
Check out all the 202 new RealTracks (in sets 468-488)!
And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!
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