Howard Zinn…Nothing new under the sun…

Before quoting Howard Zinn … I’m thinking back to the history books we had pushed on us in the late 50’s and 60’s and 70’s when I was in school. I have to shake my head in amazement at all the propaganda that they were spoon feeding us each and every day between the A bomb drills at school, and the blackout drills after dark. The public was in a general state of fear for the most part, but there was reason for concern, as to who was the real boogie man, thats up top you to decide, I have my own thoughts on the matter..But now, with all the information we have access to on the internet today, I can’t see how the reality of “business as usual” isn’t as plain as the nose on our proverbial faces…Look back, WW2, detention camps for Japanese, Germans, and Italians were in effect and utilized, the japanese taking the brunt of that…1970 war on drugs=the industrial prison complex which is now the largest prison population on planet earth, housing a huge population of blacks, browns, and the poor…its the old school rule, keep enough of the population feed, entertained (and now, on pharmaceuticals) with 500 channels just a click away, and you can do just about anything you want to, to whatever people you want to do it too, and no one will even give it a second thought…Were sedated, entertained, and can feed ourselves for the most part, so whats the fuss? The fuss is now very myopic our culture has become as to the awareness of our neighbors, and what has been going on, and still is going on in terms of the people that have been, and are still being sold down the river …Can’t help but wonder what all those empty FEMA camps around the country are really for, look real close at the history of man, one never knows whos next on the list, might just be us..Now that would get our attention…!

Howard Zinn… “Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States

The industrialization of Jazz…?.

This hits home for me, I was a 15 year old kid taking the subway to all the village jazz clubs to hear guys like Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, The Gil Evans band, and everyone else that came to town, the music was alive and organic, and screamed with fire…Then production companies like CTI records, and the rest of the new order came along and slowly watered the music down to sell records, and 10 years later, Lollipop Jazz was born, and most all the great jazz clubs slowly disappeared into the yesteryear…Many famous Jazz artists became employed by major universities who in turn taught students what to play, the licks of all the great players, that did have their own voice, creating parrots instead of artists, in turn, those artists trained the public to hear what they were doing as “the real deal” …Gotta shake my head, industrialized Jazz,. Like farming, like community, like fashion, food supply, land developing, and world domination wasn’t enough! that had to mess with the Jazz ! Oh no, ! say it ain’t so…And now its excepted, packaged, and spoon fed to the masses like politics….Money is made by the production companies, and the production companies are in charge of the artistic content these days, and the artists think their in charge of the content by way of long term brain washing…The music didn’t die, but it is in a deep deep coma!…I’ve played with some great musicians at loft sessions, late night sets at friends gigs, and so on, back in the 70’s, they don’t do it that much anymore, this country has sold its artists out to corporate control at every turn over the last 40 years, slowly and methodically…If only young artists knew the intensity, and passion that was here before the production companies took over creative control they would be marching at the Lincoln Memorial as we speak, holding up saxophones and trombones, and guitars high in the air, and demanding freedom for quarter notes and pentatonic scales to be freely placed where the artists deems fit, and not where the production companies direct the artists to place them without their knowledge of the manipulation that is taking place as the artists thinks he or she is doing the creating … Of course, this an overview, and a vast generalization which I am taking the liberty to enjoy, and exceptions to this subjective observation are taken into account…