....blues is an autobiographical chronicle of a personal catastrophe expressed lyrically but endured with grace and dignity. The spiritual is an attempt to make some vertical connection by means of song from soul to God against the backdrop of the catastrophic. And jazz itself is an endless quest for freedom with improvisation predicated on discipline but always against catastrophic circumstances. Its how we forged an elegance of earned self togetherness against the backdrop of the scandalous and monstrous circumstances of slavery and jim crow and jane crow and self hatred and self violation and self destruction. So that music for black people, Duke Ellington said it so well, black people have made dissonance a way of life. it is an attempt, that we structure time, because we are a people of time not space, weve got no control over land and territory. how do we structure time in such way that we can find some home in time, given our poor condition and in that structuring of time, in the music, in the syncopation, in the rhythm, in the poly-rhythm with the drums, how do we find our sense of humanity and sanity in the face of the catastrophic? music then becomes a way of life, it becomes a mode of existence not just a form of entertainment or amusement... Cornel West on music https://youtube/watch?v=Fz4O8f4DB6I
Posted on: Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:59:02 +0000
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