Creativity Is An You would think the music industry would have
learned by now. Art cannot be commodified. Oh, of course, you
can sell Van Gogh prints in the check out aisles of Walmart as
quickly as you can churn out a Muzak version of Led Zepplins
"Stairway to Heaven". But great music can't be sanitized,
sterilized or serialized. There are some things you don't learn
in a classroom: Things you can only learn on a stage in front of
an audience. All great music is born on the stage. It is a
product of the chemistry that happens when a performer and an
audience meet headlong on the edge of sanity.
As much as we take inspiration and are certainly entertained by
great music, there is something called a collective conscious
that takes over when the music and the artist meet. A magical,
mystical synergy takes place. It is what audiences expect and
all musical artists live for. There is always an open stage for
the artist who can make an audience love him. If he gives them
what they want or at least what they expect, the union is
complete and the audience will remain faithful seemingly forever
or at least until the next craze begins.
Juke joints - now known as dance clubs - were filled with
couples jitterbugging to Swing music, a big band style emerging
out of Kansas City. These joints were jumpin' with the sounds of
Count Basie and Duke Ellington. By the mid-forties, Fifty-second
Street in Manhattan was lined with them. The mainstream music
establishment had no trouble accepting Swing. It wasn't a
significant break from musical tradition. Swing relied on
standard European forms similar to that of the classic concert
band. The difference between the two styles was that classical
European music created tension by contrasting movements of a
piece. Swing, on the other hand, created tension within each
piece rhythmically emphasizing off beats.
Be Bop emerged during the despair of World War II. Hitler was
fighting for a 'New Order' in Europe. It was a time when African
Americans were creating a growing list of firsts. Jackie
Robinson was the first black baseball player. Althea Gibson
played at Wimbledon. Gwendolyn Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for
poetry. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in
Chicago. Suddenly, bebop groups came from nowhere. Swing had
been welcomed by the American mainstream but the mainstream
didn't support bebop. Bop musicians were black outcasts who grew
up poor.
The black Be Bop world offered a place for expression and
experimentation. It was hip to know everything, see everything
and be mentally unflappable. Be Boppers created a double-talk
language which made no sense to anyone else. What began as a
revolt against the confining nature of the harmony, melody, and
rhythm of swing reached fruition in the mid-forties. The flatted
fifth, elaborate rhythm, and harmonic focus of "be bop"music
emerged. Rhythm and blues came right alongside combining rock
with earlier Black music.
A few decades later, Lennon-McCartney's "Yesterday" took a
backward glance at lost if not misguided youth. It's a constant
reminder to those of us who were of that era. Music brings back
memories. It is braided into the fabric of our being. We love to
remember the past, good and bad, and music helps us to do that.
But, today, as effortless as that may seem, remembering the past
is an exercise in futility unless, of course, it is renewing
acquaintances over a coffee once or twice a year. Remembering is
all good and well; that was then and this is now. We should be
spending our time in the present, not the future or the past. If
you want to be creative, this is the time, the moment is now.
Dennis Walsh progressofmusic@hotmail.com
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