Skip to main content

Ornette Coleman - Joy of a Toy

The musical vehicle for lament was appealing, aside from the words, which only increased the appeal to the audience and, therefore, the reach of the message. White audiences started listening, and the messages began to reach people who might otherwise not pay attention. Commenting on the role of music in the South African battle against Apartheid, a struggle that mirrors the American experience in many ways.

Indeed, the music of protest can be, and has been, enormously powerful in changing public opinion, and consequently, improving the guarantees of rights, justice, and the rule of law for minority populations. For this reason, perhaps most emphatically, musical expression is protected as speech by the First Amendment.

Historically, it appears that the idea of suppressing blues music because of its message simply never came up. While there are some prosecutions targeting the speech of radical political movements, those cases usually focused on whether the speech incited violence. Blues music, as seen in the examples cited above, typically fell well short of that.

Not so in Nazi Germany, where powerful forces were at play to suppress certain types of degenerate music. We see it today in China, where Tibetan musicians are jailed for singing songs that lament the plight of the Tibetan people, and the oppression by the Chinese government in that land. Eastern bloc nations during the Cold War were similarly harsh with anyone who dared express dissent, through any medium. Little wonder that no significant musical genre was generated by Soviet oppression or emerged as the expression of the hardships and sorrows of those victimized.


Ornette Coleman - Joy of a Toy
  • Composed by: Ornette Coleman
  • Recorded on: May 22, 1959 and January 31, 1961
  • Genre: Free Jazz, Hard Bop

"Though now celebrated as a fearless innovator and a genius, Ornette Coleman was initially regarded by peers and critics as rebellious and disruptive. Coleman freed jazz from chord changes, fixed rhythms, and conventional harmony."

See previous Song of the Day

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jackson Browne - Kisses Sweeter than Wine

Europe has a rich history of embracing blues and jazz music. In the early 20th century, American jazz musicians began touring Europe, introducing the continent to a new sound that was unlike anything they had ever heard before. Jazz became an instant hit among European audiences, and many European musicians began incorporating jazz elements into their music. Today, jazz festivals are held all over Europe, attracting thousands of fans from all over the world. In addition, many European cities have thriving blues scenes, with local bands and musicians performing regularly. Blues and jazz have also made their way to Asia, where they have found a devoted fan base. Japan, in particular, has a thriving jazz scene, with many Japanese musicians achieving international recognition. In addition, China has also seen a rise in the popularity of jazz music in recent years. Jazz festivals are now held in major Asian cities such as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, attracting jazz lovers from all over ...

Veronica Swift - A Little Taste

There has always been an uncomfortable tension between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, a cyclical influence that vacillates between inspiration, appropriation and separation. Popular music has broken off into categories of rock, pop, country, and R&B, each with their own origin stories. But R&B and rock, usually codified as vastly different, Black and white styles, have long been intertwined in ways our historical memory may have us forget.  Despite the innovation that comes from separation, rock and R&B always find their way back to each other. In recent years, rock veterans have turned to the genre’s classics for inspiration. Queens of the Stone Age veered from their typical hard rock with 2017’s Villains, a dance y album inspired by frontman Josh Homme’s love of 1920s jazz and swing, other Black genres that laid the groundwork for the popular music of today. The whitewashing of rock’s history has oversimplified music’s malleability and silenced the voices of Amer...

Moondog - Behold

The history of jazz has been one of fusion. Its musicians and composers have continually drawn upon a huge range of different musics to create the rich and diverse tapestry that is world jazz today. Jazz is an evolving tradition of music making. And how often, in the life stories of individual jazz musicians, do we see these same patterns operating at microcosm? The richness of Turkish music and culture sometimes seems at odds with its turbulent and cruel history. In 1979... the country suffered its third military take over in thirty years... Every kind of music was in Turkey at that point. But it was not appreciated. To understand the culture of the country, with those three military takeovers, Turkey could not go anywhere. Musically, it was very difficult. But things were beginning to happen. Traditional Turkish music is essentially monophonic, rich in melody and rhythm but with little by way of harmony. The contrast with western music, with its beautiful harmonies but rhythmic weakn...