Despite or because of its formal starkness, the blues is infinitely variable. It provides a universal framework within which instrumentalists and singers with little else in common can carry on an extended musical conversation. Without artful improvisation and microtonal note bending, the latter cannot be executed on the piano, one of the least blues friendly instruments, blues sometimes seems monotonous.
Blues may be America’s greatest cultural gift to the world, if not, it’s certainly on the short list. It was the key contributor to the origins of jazz, rock and roll, funk, soul, R&B, and hip hop, and it deeply influenced country and western and bluegrass music as well. Without blues, it’s fair to say, there might be little recognizably American music. Blues embodies human resilience in the face of adversity and suffering. It’s therefore the perfect musical tonic for a nation founded on slavery and genocide... and a country of extreme economic inequality whose fossil fueled luck is starting to run out.
Indeed, Americans will have plenty of reasons to sing the blues as this century wears on, as their nation’s oil and gas production inevitably declines, as climate change worsens droughts, wildfires, and megastorms, as decades of unsustainable economic growth turn to decades of contraction, as mountains of government, corporate, and consumer debt come due, and as festering resentments, urban/rural, racial, and regional, further erode an already fraying set of norms that enable political and legal systems to function... I can think of no music more fitting as a soundtrack for that enterprise than the blues.
Source: Blues for America by Richard Heinberg
Gerry Mulligan - Jeru
Blues may be America’s greatest cultural gift to the world, if not, it’s certainly on the short list. It was the key contributor to the origins of jazz, rock and roll, funk, soul, R&B, and hip hop, and it deeply influenced country and western and bluegrass music as well. Without blues, it’s fair to say, there might be little recognizably American music. Blues embodies human resilience in the face of adversity and suffering. It’s therefore the perfect musical tonic for a nation founded on slavery and genocide... and a country of extreme economic inequality whose fossil fueled luck is starting to run out.
Indeed, Americans will have plenty of reasons to sing the blues as this century wears on, as their nation’s oil and gas production inevitably declines, as climate change worsens droughts, wildfires, and megastorms, as decades of unsustainable economic growth turn to decades of contraction, as mountains of government, corporate, and consumer debt come due, and as festering resentments, urban/rural, racial, and regional, further erode an already fraying set of norms that enable political and legal systems to function... I can think of no music more fitting as a soundtrack for that enterprise than the blues.
Source: Blues for America by Richard Heinberg
Gerry Mulligan - Jeru
- First recording by: Miles Davis and His Orchestra
- Written by: Gerry Mulligan
- Released in: 1953
"In 1951, Mulligan formed the first pianoless quartet, an innovation which would influence musicians for decades to come. The quartet featured Chet Baker on trumpet, Carson Smith on bass, and Chico Hamilton on drums, and became a focal point of the West Coast Jazz movement."
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