Actually that wasn’t my assertion (and frankly, you knew that already). My assertion was, and is, that if someone is going to make a statement, In a discussion of recorded artists, along the lines of "Anyone could play a few instruments if they understood the basics of music”, they should be able to back up their statement with knowledge of several instruments and some background with recorded music.
You know what? You might be right. However, I’m pretty certain I made no claim to any certain era of music, bebop, big band, or otherwise.
My original statement was simply that “Some of the greatest musicians ever never learned how to read music”. Look at the list quoted from your post (above). I doubt we could ever agree on a Best Musician Ever, but I believe it’s safe to say at least some of the folks you mention can be listed among the Greats. It appears as though we agree on this one. So what’s the problem?
I’ll give you blues, but that’s not a notatable form of music in its purest form. But jazz? Not a chance.
And Trent Razor-or-whatever-his-“look I have a home studio” name-is wouldn’t even make the top 1000 list.
On another note (sorry about the pun, folks), an open letter to Papa Roach:
Dear Papa Roach,
I’m sorry Mommy and Daddy don’t live together anymore. But if you’re old enough to have 18 pieces of sharp steel inserted into your face, I don’t want to hear you whine about it.
Thanks for listening,
Stofsky
P.S.
I bet you spend half-an-hour going through the airport metal detector!
So, you quote my original statement… then quote something else which contains my original statement… but you are unwilling to admit that it was, in fact, the original statement? Try reading the stuff you cut-and-paste. Sheesh.
[QUOTE] I’ll give you blues, but that’s not a notatable form of music in its purest form.
[QUOTE]
Your turn - let’s see some citations for this. Of particular interest would be ones stating that blues was in no way the foundation for jazz music.
[QUOTE] But jazz? Not a chance.
[QUOTE]
Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we had just named a couple of them. Silly me.
Ok, let me (hopefully) fix this before someone else corrects me…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by BillyBoy * Try reading the stuff you cut-and-paste.
[QUOTE]
Ok, I need to take my own advice a little bit. The first thing stofsky quoted was, in fact, from a later post of mine. It does, however, still contain the text of my original statement, which does appear in it’s original form in the second quote that stofsky offered.
LeRoi Jones (after conversion, Amiri Baraka) Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music That Developed From It, 1963, Morrow. One claim is that the forms we know as jazz and blues, rather than field shouts, developed concurrently after emancipation. Also see Alan Lomax’s The Land Where the Blues Began, 1993, Delta/Bantam, Doubleday, Dell. After years of recording early Delta blues with his father (on the old aluminum disc engraving machines), went on to become the Smithsonian’s head researcher into American music.
You picked the wrong field in which to argue with me. I’ll spout opinions, right, wrong, intelligent, or otherwise on a lot of subjects, but this one’s my dissertation topic. I’ve been researching blues and jazz for 5 or 6 years, formally. And as a musician myself, I understand what I’m researching.
Thanks for providing those citations. However, I don’t see how they back up your claim that blues is not a notable form of music. Rather, the fact that you can find references to blues music so easily would suggest that the opposite is true, wouldn’t it?
So half of what you’ve been studying as a formal dissertation topic for 5 or 6 years isn’t actually a notable form of music, in your opinion? Bet that makes you angry, eh?
Look, I can tell from our discussion that you got a lot of musical knowledge tucked away upstairs, but none of what you say refutes my original statement, quoted and requoted and requoted (badly, by me) again in our previous messages.
My bad. I either misread or misquoted; I don’t remember which. My citations were to rebut your point that jazz is offspring of blues. However, to rebut this point as well, please tell me how, on a Western (and now universal) 5-line staff, you notate a quarter-step or eighth step pitch shift, either or both of which are part of blues instrumentation or vocalization.
I suppose that’s a valid argument… although I will say that the first citation you listed suggests that jazz and blues did at least grow from the same roots, even if one did not grow from the other.
Well, and now it appears that I had misunderstood. I thought you meant “not noteable” as in “not worthy of note”, and my argument was meant to disprove such. I have never heard “noteable” used to mean “possible to transcribe”. I don’t know how to notate either of those things you mention, and I don’t know if it can be done at all. This supports, once again, my original assertion that not all great musicians could read music.
Again, given that I am not limiting my statement to any certain era of music, and given that you have been studying jazz and blues for a number of years, I have to wonder why you have such a problem with this assertion.
Indeed, how DID I forget Natalie Merchant in my anti-female-singer-songwhiner tirade? What an appalling oversight!! Not only is anya marie’s criticism dead on the money, but also Ms. Merchant seems to have no dress sense at all. What ARE those clothes she wears? Ugh ugh ugh!!!
Another regretful omission in my original post on this subject were the Cowboy Junkies. Actually, the only thing of theirs I’ve ever heard is that execrable cover of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane”, but for that alone there is a special place in Hell reserved for them. “Sweet Jane” is, in its scrumptious original form, a gritty, working-class ballad. “Some people like to go out dancing/ People like us, man, we gotta work”…in le divine Lou’s inimitable recitative style. So what the Hell are pink-chiffony vocals & a bunch of "la la la la la"s doing in the cover? They took a beautiful song, flipped it over, and ass-fucked it sans lube. I hope they all get their hearts ripped out with grapefruit spoons. RUSTY grapefruit spoons.
Oh boy, don’t let ol’ Lou hear you say that! My copy of the classic Trinity Sessions record has a quote from Mr Reed himself saying it contains ‘the most authentic version of Sweet Jane I’ve ever heard’. The strange lyrics/arrangement are taken from the 1969 Velvet Underground Live record, not from Loaded, and is pretty much note for note/word for word, except for the (IMO) beautiful female vocals. They also do a great fast version of the song on a scarce live EP. There are some terrible covers of Sweet Jane, but this is definitely not one of them. Has anyone heard Billy Idol’s cover of Heroin?
I stand by my statements, though I’m now interested in hearing the version on the Velvet Underground Live album…would be intrigued to find out if it still sucks without those vomitrocious excessively breathy wussy-girl vocals.