Bilbo

I have got a few things with Eric Harland on. He's a lovely player; lots of energy but controlled. Just Spotified the Goldberg. Lovely recording.

'You won't get me, I'm part of the furniture' 'You won't get me, I'm part of the furniture' 'You won't get me, I'm part of the furniture' 'Til the day I die'!!

Gong are one of the ones I should listen to, tough, as I was a prog fan and liked the Canterbury stuff. Trouble was, when I was growing up, if you wanted to hear anything out of the ordinary, you had to listen to the radio or buy it. Gong were certainly never on the radio and my meagre income would never stretch far enough to allow me to invest in too many 'maybes'. By the time t'internet came along, these guys would have been off my radar. My list of oversights is massive....

Gong are on my list of bands I have never heard. Same with Egg, Captain Beefheart, The Band, Southside Johnny and The Ashbury Dukes and, get this, Bob Dylan. I must get out more.

I always say 'when you play that chord, you sound like a dick. I can live with that, but it also makes me sound like a dick which I can't live with. So don't f*****g do it'.

I think that is the point. Music and nmusicians can contribute to the debates that are necessary to move issues forward. I think there is considerable merit in that concept, whatever form that takes, rather than the same old 'boy meets girl' stuff that defines most popular music. Doesn't have to take the soul out of it. Protest can be fun....After all, this is a protest song; [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQu892GGbts"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQu892GGbts[/url]

And Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs[/url]

Matana Roberts recent cd based on her family's history as slaves I woudl love to post the track Pov Piti but that may be too much for people to take [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64lE71q2z0&feature=relmfu"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64lE71q2z0&feature=relmfu[/url] Also Max Roach/Abbey Lincoln Freedom Now Suite [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85M7LTbCl-0&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85M7LTbCl-0&feature=related[/url] Nothing commercial/accessible about any of this but powerful stuff. I suspect none of the artists ever earned much from them but they found their way through....

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1335048308' post='1625289'] Well, here's the sort of protest song I think Bilbo had in mind: [/quote] I was thinking about this actually..... 'Alabama' - Coltrane's lament for 4 girls murdered by a racists bomb whilst at Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, September 15, 1963. ' [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOjxBuwBUEE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOjxBuwBUEE[/url] Charles Mingus' parody on Orville Faubus, the Governor who blocked the integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XViz4crnYE8&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XViz4crnYE8&feature=related[/url]

These messages and the (limited) power that they have are subliminal. It is difficult to argue that a song can change the world but it can make a difference. 'Do They Know It' Christmas' had an impact. How many of us knew what was happening in Argentina before 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' or Sting's 'They Dance Alone'? Who many UK residents had heard of Stephen Biko before Peter Gabriel wrote his tribute etc. My point is simply that musicians can say something important whilst they present their Art. Its interesting that musophilr complains about too many smash the world songs when every song we ever hear in the mainstream charts is boy meets girl etc..... You can be subtle or direct. Joni Mitchell's 'Furry Sings The Blues', Pat Metheny's 'Is This America'? (post Katrina New Orleans), Charlie Haden's 'Not In Our Name', John Coltrane's 'Alabama', Max Roach 'Freedom Now Suite', Matana Robert 'Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens De Couler Libre', even Lennon's 'Imagine'.... none of them will change the world but they all remind us that sometimes the world needs changing. Surely that is justification enough?

Great line. Always easier to read than you think because, once you get the pattern down, there is a lot repetition and the fills tend to be 'a la mode'. Great fun.

If you use B, every time you put a B in, you would have to put an accidental in every time the B changed to and from Bb; THAT would be confusing, If every B is Bb and every Cb is B, you don't need to add the accidental everytime. It is actually easier to read.

My guess is that this is a manifestation of the massive volumes that Jaco was playing with at that time. Listening to the tune on Spotify, I hear nothing thatthink is a bow, just a lot of noise generation by amps played at high volume. A lot of Hendrix stuff is only achievable if you are playing LOUD and Jaco was very influenced by Hendrix and that feedback/distortion manipulation thing. Jaco would often finish his solos by leaving the bass lying on the floor feeding back while he walked away or climbed up an amp stack and jumped off to land on the bass and cut of the sound.

Kudos to Corgan. HIs point is legitimate. When I hear a musician saying 'no', I am not looking for someone who is seeking to topple Governments or anything like that, just to redress the balance away from vested interests that are funsamentally destructive. The idea of a concensus is entirely legitimate, I just think that, when the mainstream media represents a powerful minority, it is up to our artists to say 'no'. not with a knife at the throat of the offending few but is a way that promotes consideration. When you hear Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit', you can't but think about the issues she is singing about. I think protest songs/musics are like anything else that seeks to promote change; it works incrementally. If I write a piece of music that I play to one person in Felixstowe. its not going to go anywhere. If a 1,000 people in a 1,000 towns do the same, it starts to get noticed etc. What I think music can achieve is to promte ideas that will have been formed elsewhere but will need nurturing and sharing. Music is a great way to do that because it is a communal activity. Of course, the vested interests then take the artists and corrupt them but that is why the next wave of artists have to pick up the message. Its cyclical.

I don't have a Fender Jazz bass (although he certainly has copped a few of my licks....)

I guess the 5 major record companies would not release anything contentious; they are, by their very nature, conservative and wanting to maintain the status quo (not THE Status Quo!!)

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1334936419' post='1623777'] Music will be a mainly live experience and in the community of the performance we will see meaning again. [/quote] I like this, Luke

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1334933470' post='1623724'] I think that music can be a vehicle for a desire for social change, but it is not a progenitor of that desire. The desire predates the expression, IMO. But it can be a rallying call or, at the very least, an agreeable soundtrack upon which may one look back with pleasurable nostalgia. The problem is that music is a tool and that tool can be wielded by anyone. For every Woody Guthrie and for every Marseillaise ([i]Aux Armes Citoyens![/i]) there is an Edward Elgar and a Horst Wessel Lied. Music can be a vehicle for repression as much as it can be a vehicle for change. As for shouting, angry young men and women, well, they have most recently manifested themselves in the Rap movement. If we're looking for a contemporary UK movement, I don't think the agriculturally-clad youngsters of nu-folk are about to start making petrol bombs. In sleepy London Town, there ain't no place for a street-fighting man. [color=#ffffff].[/color] [/quote] Agreed..... It is interesting to note that when a product seeks to appeal to the mainstream or more conservative elements of society, the advertisers use classical music whereas, if they want to appeal to young folk or more radical thinkers, its Jazz. Christopher Small's book 'Music of the Common Tounge' talks about this at length. Bottom line is, the soundtrack of the world's events is determined by the political intentions of those who are using the music. I suspect that, as each generation ages, their 'rock and roll' gradually turns into a conservative thread and the more radical elements of society needs to regroup. I guess that is why artist are generally free thinkers whereas establishment figures are more conservative. Or is that putting the cart before the horse?

I read a lot about music and am really interested in the relationship between Jazz and Free Jazz and the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 1960s. Books like Frank Kofsky's 'Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music', Val Wilmer's 'Jazz People', John Litweiler's 'The Freedom Principle' and others really project a sense that the music that these guys were playing at the time were moulded in the tenor of the times and gave the activists involved a voice. ThHe same could be said of the Punk era; the changes that this musical genre instigated in Art, Fashion and Theatre etc was clearly a manifestation of the divisions in our society at that time. Comedians were defined by their politics as much as by their jokes and many acts were critical of the status quo. I also don't think it is a coincidence that the last Jazz resurgance rose out of the ashes of Punk. Folk music is chock full of protest songs and a lot of Reggae came from a similar emotional space. I guess that I am wondering whether we should expect some more angry young men and women to come along soon and start shouting no. I hope so.

Jeeees! 20 Miles Davis cds for less than £16. If you have not heard much MIles and want to find out what all the fuss is about, this is a mind blowing deal. The frustrating thing for me is that, in this case and the Mingus one above, I already have 90% of these recordings. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Miles-Davis-Classic-Albums-10CD/dp/B004UVCOZ4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Just saw this on AMazon. 8 Mingus cds for less than a tenner. That is astonishing. There are other sets including Coltrane and Rollins, each featuring 8 full lps over 4 cds. These are all credible LPs and not just early stuff noone bought. If you want to hear what Mingus is all about, try these. http://www.amazon.co.uk/8-Classic-Albums-Charles-Mingus/dp/B0041TM3KG/ref=pd_sim_m_h__2

Did one last weekend and, for the first time, I used in ear monitoring. Scared teh s*** out for me. I am a great believer in the idea that the tone you have contributes to the swing/groove created and not just the notes you play. Of course, the sound you hear through your amp and in the room is not the same as the sound you hear through your iem. So the groove I am used to was actually undermined, in my head, because my wonderfully wooly and integrated sound in the room was now hi-fi and clear as a bell. Still have to try it with double bass but on electric, I guess I will have to turn it down to a barely audible level that allows me to hear it as well as not instead of the room sound.

I can now play half an octave of chromatics.....I SOOOOO suck!!!

I guess for some writing more crowd pleasing stuff is not engaging enough to want to invest time and effort in (and, dare I say it, it may not be where their talents lie).

The old 'E' word (that's entertainment....I feel a song coming on). It is not the only reason for music to be produced, and there are many different perspectives to be taken on the concept of entertainment. Jummping up and down is only one form of entertainment (just the most common by a country mile). Like any commercial product, you need to establish your market and if that market is a 1,000 people in a pub on a Saturday night (or 7 million on live tv), your product will be different to that of, say, an Arts Centre on a Wednesday or a church on a Sunday. But, like all areas of the Arts, there is always a group of people (call it an audience or a market) who are looking to be stimulated by what artists are creating rather than waiting to be given some sort of pre-determined version of 'what they want'. Music for a Hollywood blockbuster film requires one sort of music, for an obscure independent film with minimal budget, another will be sought. A dance troupe may want to work with an improvising saxophonist whilst a poet may work with a solo double bass player. Its all legitimate but it will all result in varying levels of financial gain. Ceiri Torjussen's 'Concerto for Eight Flutes' is not going to get the Dog and Duck on its feet and won't make him a millionaire but it will interest a certain clientele and has a legitimate right to exist.