Sometimes black people feel as if they have to not look biased. I'm thinking that had to be it. She was all right, but in this society and world, white people only have to be all right to prevail. We, on the other hand, have to be exceptional in everything. We must be 200% better at everything we learn, achieve, do, etc.
What do we do?
Just keep doin' what we do and keep on getting the message out. I read this yesterday. It was posted on the Atlanta Jazz Newsletter: The first paragraph has me outraged! "Now that we have discovered who really discovered jazz..."
Please share your thoughts.
Jazz from India
Posted by: "jazzgoa" jazzgoa@yahoo.com
Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:06 am (PST)
A little under two hundred years ago, a bunch of American musicians discovered the joy of improvising and called it jazz. Meanwhile, over two thousand years ago, Indian classical musicians were busy setting the rules for those American musician's joy. If jazz is improvised music, Indian classical music is jazz! Now that we've discovered who really discovered jazz, it's time to take a good look at the state of jazz in India. The name of India's most popular live jazz venue located in Mumbai, tells the story loud and clear. It started as 'Jazz by the bay', changed to 'Not just jazz by the bay' and should now be called 'Just not jazz by the bay'!
Granted, jazz has a niche audience and commercial music rules, but then a few years later the same commercial music that rules, is ruled out while jazz blissfully evolves, embracing all other forms of music along the way. We now have rock-jazz, pop-jazz, funk-jazz, latin-jazz, hip-hop- jazz, indo-jazz... to cut a very long story short, there is a -jazz attached to every genre of music and there will be a -jazz attached ot every genre that comes along. That's how huge jazz is and it should now be spelt jaaaaaaaaaaz!
Jazz, with it's all embracing
evolution, is certainly going to be the global sound of music just
as everything else gets globalized. Why do I play jazz when I could
easily make millions if I learnt to sing pop through my nose? It's
because jazz allows me to be myself as opposed to pop that wants me
to be Madonna. I'd rather be myself than strut onstage wearing
conical jocks. In fact, not very long ago a leading music company in
India released a male indi-pop star's album titled 'Mai bhi Madonna'
(I'm Madonna too) with the man dressed in drag on the album cover.
Jazz suddenly began to make sense to me after all.
I chose to play bass as I felt it was the coolest sound of music.
Rhythm, melody and harmony makes music and the bass player is the
important link between the three. I may not be upfront or in the
spotlight all the time like the singer and soloist in the band but I
am certainly right behind the song all the way. It's been a long
exciting journey into jazz for me, I made a lot of friends as a
musician and a whole lot of enemies, I did meet a lot of people. If
it wasn't for my music I would have been a lighthouse keeper on
Andaman island or what's worse, I would have been a doctor, lawyer
or engineer.
Yes, music helped me get out of my introverted shell
and face the world with a song. I currently work on two resident
contracts at the JW Marriott hotel with my indo-jazz fusion ensemble
called 'The Brown Indian Band' for obvious reasons and at night at
the Taj Lands End hotel with my band called 'The Bassman's Band' for
some strange reason. I often take time off from these two gigs to
perform at concerts and corporate events all over India and
internationally. One of the highlights of my career so far, has been
performing internationally on the world renowned Hennessy XO jazz
tour. The band, the only one from India selected for this tour, was
called 'Soul Yatra' and was led by the amazingly talented keyboard
wizard Merlin D'Souza.
My journey into jazz has been fun and my best is always yet to come.
To give back to the music that gave me so much, I setup an
organization in Goa called 'Jazz Goa' that can be reviewed at
www.jazzgoa.com. After close to three decades of playing jazz with
just about every jazz musician in the country, I would have loved to
be called the Godfather of Indian jazz. The position has been filled
I believe, so I'll settle for Godson of Indian jazz!
Checkout some of my bands and music at my website
www.jazzyatra.com
WHO'S GETTING PAID IN JAZZ?
You know the old saying, "everybody wants to get into the act"? Well, this is a case in point.
No one on this *#&$% planet wants to give Africans in American who suffered through four hundred years of slavery and found solace in the music they created -- Blues and Jazz -- credit for having used these genres to express their pain and triumph.
Everybody wants to be a jazz musician from New Zealand to South Africa, from Chile to Canada and from Malaysia to China. They all want what Greg Tate says, Everything But The Burden. But at least we can say the people Jazzgoa is referring to are BLACK.
Jazzgoa says they are those who play "improvised music, Indian classical music," which, he says, "is jazz!"
Well, the question is not what jazz is, anymore. Now, it is who has the right to claim it as their own?
However, that's not the real question, either. The real question is WHO IS GETTING PAID TO PLAY JAZZ?
The answer is everyone but Black Americans who created it!
I learned that a sister cannot get a gig in Tokyo singing jazz because all the gigs are taken by Asians who really *%$& up the English language. It's nauseating.
However, in China, Bangkok and Dubai, the band must be fronted by a Black American singer in order to authenticate the music. I'll be you a buck that in a year or two, after those people have learned to imitate that sisters that are performing there, today, that a sister won't be able to get a gig their either!
We're good for showing folks how to do it. After that, as drummer Kenny Clarke discovered in Paris, "they don't need us anymore."
Diva JC
