OT: Jason Whitlock is on point.

Programmed2Kill · Post by **Programmed2Kill** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 5:11 am

Feanor wrote:Sometimes good parenting isn't enough - some kids are just rotten.

Hell yeah. I think sometimes it is forgotten that there are alot of genuinely bad people on this planet. And we all know a few, let alone witness a few each and every day.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 8:08 am

I'm not a parent so I can't really give an opinion there but I do teach high school and deal with 14-18 year olds constantly. It is absolutely evident that respect is no longer part of the equation. I can't even begin to tell how pathetic it is. I do agree that parenting is invaluable in this situation but I have to totally agree with Whitlock. Not only is it hurting the black community, it is hurting all communities. Youg white teenagers WORSHIP these talentless clowns called rappers. Its disturbing how women are treated/portrayed in their music/videos and how it is mimicked by our youth...black and white. The thing that disturbs me the most is how numb girls are becoming to how they are portrayed and treated. Fathers, trust me when I say this...even if you think your daughters are on the right path continue to "pollice" them as if they aren't. It is scary the number of "good" girls I see buy into this whole culture...scary.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:12 am

A bit of a deviation to come, so my apologies.

Many of the posts here point to rap and hip-hop as one of the prime eroders of youth culture, and I agree. And it kills me even more to know that jazz, a true American ART form -- not just mindless noise disguised as talented rhyming -- has been swept to the dustbin.

We have an entire generation of kids who worship 50 Cent but don't even know who Charlie Parker, Miles Davis or Duke Ellington are. They don't even know who a living jazz legend like Wynton Marsalis is!

Sure, the jazz community has its legacy of problems with drug abuse, but there's more class, style and respect in one bar of jazz than there is in an entire rap/hip-hop record collection.

That really pains me, as a lover of classic jazz and the elegance, art, beauty, intelligence and possibility it brings to our society.

Seriously, which musician would you rather have your child emulate?

Him?

Or him?

And those two pictures, in a nutshell, are exactly what's wrong with our culture, boys. We shun the genius in the top picture and celebrate the f*cking thug in the bottom picture.

Take care,
PK

davet010 · Post by **davet010** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:17 am

But of course, you could say the same about listening to Mozart or Guns n Roses...

Bill_Abner · Post by **Bill_Abner** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:56 am

davet010 wrote:But of course, you could say the same about listening to Mozart or Guns n Roses...

England scores!!!!

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:14 pm

davet010 wrote:But of course, you could say the same about listening to Mozart or Guns n Roses...

Not really. Mozart has been dead for hundreds of years, so I don't expect people to look up to a dead dude.

My point was that we have two living, breathing examples of black culture, and the thug is cherished while the classy artist is shunned.

Plus, how many kids do you see today in American high schools walking around dressed like Slash?

Take care,
PK

EZSnappin · Post by **EZSnappin** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:34 pm

Holding up Wynton Marsalis as an example of "modern" music is a joke. Wynton has been a devisive figure in Jazz since he broke on the scene in the late 70s - early 80s. He firmly believes that all innovations of the post-bop era (1959 - present) are irrelevant. I have no problem if people don't like a style of music, be it free jazz or fusion, country or metal or rap or what-have-you. But holding him up as an example is like saying that Brian Setzer should be used as an example for young white kids because he champions rockabilly and swing, gentile music with no "noise", as you put it.

Marsalis has done a great deal of good in championing his particular causes, but his causes are not current or relevant to any particular community. I'm glad he does the educational outreach and teaching programs - it is a tribute to the work his father did in the city of New Orleans. What he does musically is aping the works of those giants from before he was born. He's made every effort to make Jazz as stultifyingly repressive and canonical as classical music - like his upcoming "recreation" of the music of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens from the Twenties and Thirties. If anything is comparable to Mozart in Jazz, those arrangements and performances are it.

Can you tell I don't like Wynton much?

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:43 pm

Just a smidge. And can you tell I despise "smooth" jazz and most kinds of fusion as nothing more than soundtracks for porn films and elevators?

Ironic that Marsalis is being seen as someone who stifles jazz yet almost all smooth jazz is so homogenized that it's nearly indistinguishable.

I guess I should have held up Marsalis as a modern practitioner of classic jazz, which you aptly pointed. There's nothing new or fresh about his music, which is fine with me. I tend to share Marsalis' view that most great jazz was made pre-bop, although I like some bop and hard bop.

But when jazz steered into fusion in the 70s, led by Miles' "B*tches Brew" and Hancock, I think jazz took a turn for the worse.

But therein lies jazz's dilemma. It needs to connect with a modern sound, a modern audience, yet there are unashamed anachronists like me who love Rollins, Parker, early Coltrane, Montgomery, early Miles, Monk, etc., and those anachronists still have quite a grip on the jazz industry. It also doesn't help that those classic artists and styles are still revered and are much more popular in Europe.

Just look at jazz radio: You're either going to hear classic, pre-1970s jazz, or smooth jazz horsesh*t by people and bands like The Rippingtons, Spyro Gyra and Kenny G. Jazz radio simply doesn't play interesting fusion -- an oxymoron maybe in my eyes?

-- or really good, fresh new jazz that connects it to a more modern sound and youthful audience.

It's why jazz is, and has been, at such a crossroads in America.

Take care,
PK

EZSnappin · Post by **EZSnappin** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:48 pm

I despise "smooth jazz" and love noiser, atonal free jazz blowing (which is the truer legacy to the advances made in the Sixties). If you get a chance, check out Ornette Coleman's new disc "Sound Grammer". Two bass players and a drummer and Ornette - really beautiful, inventive and challenging (at times).

getting back to topic, any response to Wynton as "non-example?"

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:49 pm

I'll definitely check that Coleman stuff. Thanks for the tip.

P.S.: We're teetering on the edge of a major threadjack here. Sorry, and please someone steer this one back on topic if you don't like it's veerings.

Take care,
PK

vanburen · Post by **vanburen** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:05 pm

back to espn and its intolerance of criticism, recall the Gregg Easterbrook affair a few years back.

Easterbrook is a talented author and thinker who happens to write the excellent Tuesday Morning Quarterback column each week during the NFL season. A couple years ago on one of his rants in his 5,000 word TMQ espn.com columns, he said (paraphrasing from memory) that jewish hollywood producers should not glorify violence in movies considering their people's history with suffering violence.

that was a big no-no as he was quickly fired. His column continued, and even did quite well on NFL.com last year. ESPN hired him back this year. I don't know the specifics of the deal, but I lost a lot of respect for the worldwide leader in sports over that one.