Mass Media Blackout of Jazz-Rock Fusion Artists?

[Dr. Ellwood]

"Well, IMNSHO, the wankers have always been people like Frampton, like the aforementioned Skynyrd guitarists with their box-pentatonic solos on "Freebird", the jerks from Blackfoot doing the same on "Highway Song" - the list of yawn-a-licious 4 minute noodle-fests still played on classic rock radio goes on and on."

 

Well some of it is something called Show Business, something ya don't have to worry about when you next 25 gigs are in the basement..right?

[Tone Taster]

Frampton mixes the modal with the blues in a most seamless fashion on "Do you feel".

 

I believe he leans more on the melodic than on the riff-bashing on that cut

[MILLO]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

Well, IMNSHO, the wankers have always been people like Frampton, like the aforementioned Skynyrd guitarists with their box-pentatonic solos on "Freebird", the jerks from Blackfoot doing the same on "Highway Song" - the list of yawn-a-licious 4 minute noodle-fests still played on classic rock radio goes on and on.

 

Give me Steve Howe, John Petrucci, even Dave Murray and Adrian Smith with their harmony pieces over any of that tripe. At least there's taste, there's buildup, there's breakdown, there's some thought behind the notes. Give me John Coltrane, give me Louis Armstrong, give me somebody who really has a fooking clue how to play their instrument doing a long solo over the aforementioned clowns playing finger exercises while they fantasize about how much ass this solo is going to get them after the show is over...

Yup, show business. Precisely the reason why often times complaints about "classic rock or pop hits" being "better music" than "modern rock or pop hits" are rather inane, maybe even unfounded. Old show biz, like new show biz, has little to do w/ "good music" or real "creativity".

[Griffinator]

Originally posted by ellwood:

Let's see then, all that mindless wanking the classic rock players do should be pretty basic, right? Maybe some guys should try to pull it off and put down some sound clips of them trying to do those boreing and easy chops? Yeah should be no problem right... lets hear em!

Sorry, bro, but if I could, I'd be on the radio right next to 'em. Point was that there are much, much better musicians out there that don't get any play, yet these guys are worshipped as gods...

[Gifthorse]

Yeah I consider Frampton a badass. Great tone, technique, but awesome note sensibility and execution.

[Dr. Ellwood]

Originally posted by Griffinator:

Originally posted by ellwood:

Let's see then, all that mindless wanking the classic rock players do should be pretty basic, right? Maybe some guys should try to pull it off and put down some sound clips of them trying to do those boreing and easy chops? Yeah should be no problem right... lets hear em!

Sorry, bro, but if I could, I'd be on the radio right next to 'em. Point was that there are much, much better musicians out there that don't get any play, yet these guys are worshipped as gods...

But is that their fault? or is it the public's fault? all they did was play their own music and let the chips fall where they did..right.. why crank on those guys? dont get it?

[Griffinator]

Hey, I told you it would be inflammatory, didn't I?

 

You're right. My hostility is definitely misplaced. However, it's very difficult to not get angry at the musicians themselves when they're shoved in your face day after day after day.

[Tone Taster]

O.K to attempt to tie in the last few posts:

 

So why is it that only the classic songs with more musical intricacy (Longer than usual solos, metric cycling, unusual harmony) are played such as Yes, Frampton, Skynyrd.

 

How come the modern tunes which have such are blacked out?

 

Are those type of elements only going to be played on Mass FM stations only if they are classic rock, but if it is something new which has those elements OR BETTER; then those tunes are blacked out?

 

P.S.

For those about to bitch that I am taking the position that old songs are better than new, you better re-read.

I affirm that there IS music BETTER that is out these days, but it is blacked out.

[musicalhair]

Well dude, clearly it is a conspiracy to keep the enlightened and articulate vanguard of working class musical expression down and alienated from its natural audience. By feeding the mainstream audiences only a narrow and limited sampling of music, the man keeps new and culturally relavent ideas from completing the cycle back to the people. By stifling art and science for that matter the man keeps culture from evolving naturally and gains greater control over the path of society. That is until the revolution.

 

Uh, was that too political? Sorry.

[Eric VB]

Originally posted by ellwood:

[...] listen to the setting the bass player is using on that song, is that a standard popular bass tone ..NO IT'S NOT.. it's that tuba like tone... that's my description of what I hear on that song, feel free to describe it better if you can.

Yeah, ok, I see what you mean about the tone. Just reading your original comment in context didn't lead me to think of tone, that's all. When hardly anyone's listening to the bass in the first place, a neato bass tone doesn't seem to be something that "makes" a hit song. But yeah, I see you were listing interesting elements of the song from a listener's perspective. Gotcha.

 

How about something like "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith? It's got that hooky harmonized chorus with memorable riff, verses and breaks to keep everything fresh. Might even have a talk box in there. But yeah, I grew up with this one and I enjoy listening to it.

 

It may not be as technically demanding as "YYZ" by Rush, but I listen to both anyway. In fact, Rush is labeled prog rock now, but you know they played Rush alongside the classics back in the day on WABX, WRIF, W4, WLLZ, etc. I'm sure you've covered "Working Man" or "Fly By Night" or some of their older stuff before.

 

The jazz fusion stuff used to be on WJZZ, but now it's only on part-time on WDET.

 

So, in your original post were you saying that jazz-rock doesn't get much air time because maybe it doesn't have the elements of a hit song?

If you take apart element by element of a hit song..OK let's take an old rock standard.. "All Right Now" there is every element there. a solid repeating groove, a break to ease the tension, a musical lead line, a off standard bass resonance, a simple but easy to follow story.

[Tone Taster]

Originally posted by musicalhair:

Well dude, clearly it is a conspiracy to keep the enlightened and articulate vanguard of working class musical expression down and alienated from its natural audience. By feeding the mainstream audiences only a narrow and limited sampling of music, the man keeps new and culturally relavent ideas from completing the cycle back to the people. By stifling art and science for that matter the man keeps culture from evolving naturally and gains greater control over the path of society. That is until the revolution.

 

Uh, was that too political? Sorry.

Wow, I could perceive that coming from the mouth of that South Park Character in your avatar

[Dr. Ellwood]

Originally posted by RicBassGuy:

Originally posted by ellwood:

[...] listen to the setting the bass player is using on that song, is that a standard popular bass tone ..NO IT'S NOT.. it's that tuba like tone... that's my description of what I hear on that song, feel free to describe it better if you can.

Yeah, ok, I see what you mean about the tone. Just reading your original comment in context didn't lead me to think of tone, that's all. When hardly anyone's listening to the bass in the first place, a neato bass tone doesn't seem to be something that "makes" a hit song. But yeah, I see you were listing interesting elements of the song from a listener's perspective. Gotcha.

 

How about something like "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith? It's got that hooky harmonized chorus with memorable riff, verses and breaks to keep everything fresh. Might even have a talk box in there. But yeah, I grew up with this one and I enjoy listening to it.

 

It may not be as technically demanding as "YYZ" by Rush, but I listen to both anyway. In fact, Rush is labeled prog rock now, but you know they played Rush alongside the classics back in the day on WABX, WRIF, W4, WLLZ, etc. I'm sure you've covered "Working Man" or "Fly By Night" or some of their older stuff before.

 

The jazz fusion stuff used to be on WJZZ, but now it's only on part-time on WDET.

 

So, in your original post were you saying that jazz-rock doesn't get much air time because maybe it doesn't have the elements of a hit song?

If you take apart element by element of a hit song..OK let's take an old rock standard.. "All Right Now" there is every element there. a solid repeating groove, a break to ease the tension, a musical lead line, a off standard bass resonance, a simple but easy to follow story.

Right RIC! see I do listen to bass players ALLOT! and always have, why because I KNOW what a great bass player can do FOR ME! yeah and I mean commercially too, I have experienced it over and over through the years. I've had them carry the night with cool tone and funky groove and just in and out of pocket coolness, I mean we as sophisticated musicians might scoff at dancers but we also know that's how we judge ourselves commercially too! Getting back to the elements again though, yes I think that the reasons for a hit being a hit are simplicity and in art lots of times simplicity is the most direct connection to the viewer/listening audience, If I was playing to three or four hundred musicians ALL the set lists would be different. I think sometimes that the classic rock guys get accused of wanking in solos was because of their personal NEED to stretch out as musicians and the audience put up with it!

[Billster]

Originally posted by yZeCounsel:

O.K to attempt to tie in the last few posts:

 

So why is it that only the classic songs with more musical intricacy (Longer than usual solos, metric cycling, unusual harmony) are played such as Yes, Frampton, Skynyrd.

 

How come the modern tunes which have such are blacked out?

 

Are those type of elements only going to be played on Mass FM stations only if they are classic rock, but if it is something new which has those elements OR BETTER; then those tunes are blacked out?

 

P.S.

For those about to bitch that I am taking the position that old songs are better than new, you better re-read.

I affirm that there IS music BETTER that is out these days, but it is blacked out.

Well, I wouldn't say new music in that vein is "blacked out", because the dearth of new music on radio is not targeted at any one genre, but music in general.

 

The older material at some point passed into "classic" (for want of a better term) Can Peter Frampton show up at a concert hall and play anything new? Or get anything new on the radio?

 

Radio formats are so tightly defined these days that almost nothing not calculated to the nth degree has a chance of getting heard. We've ranted this out before.

 

Not genre specific.

[musicalhair]

Oh come on Bill, you know it is one of the man's conspiracies.

[Billster]

Originally posted by ellwood:

Let's see then, all that mindless wanking the classic rock players do should be pretty basic, right? Maybe some guys should try to pull it off and put down some sound clips of them trying to do those boreing and easy chops? Yeah should be no problem right... lets hear em!

See, you're talking about aesthetics, and it becomes a matter of what you want to devote your time to.

 

At a certain point, a practiced or trained musician can play almost any straight-ahead type of music. The question then becomes "what do I want to play", and focusing on developing that.

 

The average listener wants to be able to remember something they can hum in their heads on the way across the parking lot. Stuff like the endless soloing on Free Bird, while it may be boring to someone who has developed an ear for more advanced improvisations, still has a singable element that appeals to the hum-along desire.

 

The most successful of what we'll call "advanced" music still has something you can hold in your head as you turn the stereo off. A listener who has cultivated their taste may be able to grab that from a Coltrane piece, but a listener who takes what makes it to mainstream radio requires something different. Not that what appeals to a broad audience has to be banal.

 

I think that the broader audience doesn't know what they could enjoy if they were given the opportunity - but the lack of diversity is not targeted at "musician's music" that we enjoy, it's a general lack of trust in the music business that keeps recycling the same stuff to the public. See previous post - it's not genre specific.

[Billster]

Originally posted by musicalhair:

Oh come on Bill, you know it is one of the man's conspiracies.

Yeah, if the Man thought about us at all, he'd probably hate us. But it's not targeted at us, it's a much broader conspiracy

[Eric Iverson]

Right, it's all about the money. It's not a personal hatred of improvising musicians. They don't deal with us enough to care one way or the other!

 

I'm not sure if the musicians and the suits EVER got along all that great in a lot of cases, when they did have dealings. I remember reading stories of San Francisco rock stars and jazz artists fighting with their record companies from way back when!

[Dr. Ellwood]

"Right, it's all about the money. It's not a personal hatred of improvising musicians. They don't deal with us enough to care one way or the other!"

 

Yeah know that's probably a VERY true statement, I think it's just as simple as that. Any strategy put forth by any marketing firm will have a percentage of "throw away percentage" of a population that is simply not worth the effort or use of resources to be bothered with. It's a fact that even out of the throw away percentage of population SOME will embrace some of what is being mass marketed. It's just business as usual.

[Eric Iverson]

Originally posted by ellwood:

"Right, it's all about the money. It's not a personal hatred of improvising musicians. They don't deal with us enough to care one way or the other!"

 

Yeah know that's probably a VERY true statement, I think it's just as simple as that. Any strategy put forth by any marketing firm will have a percentage of "throw away percentage" of a population that is simply not worth the effort or use of resources to be bothered with. It's a fact that even out of the throw away percentage of population SOME will embrace some of what is being mass marketed. It's just business as usual.

And it's true for us, too. If one of us recorded a fusion guitar album, would we market it at a website for opera fans - at least as a first choice?

[Tone Taster]

I believe that there is a retograde, entropic, Social Darwinism ensuing in America

[musicalhair]

You mean like "Are we not men, we are Devo?"

 

I think we have to include the part of the equation that is the publicists and various people that push for artists get air play or any kind of big media exposure. That costs money, it is akin to lobbyists in washington, not ever group has the ability or need to hire a lobbyist to push their ideas infront of people in power and same goes for most artists.

 

I think if there is a conspiracy look towards which groups are singing on which soundtracks for movies with tie-ins to which burger joints and cars and they try to tell all them guys the theme song from the new bond movie or the new spider man movie ain't getting played 4 times a day. Every song you hear on the bigger radio stations playing 'new' music has a machine behind it pushing for that airplay. I mean I guess, I don't listen to that crap. I'll watch the pussycat dolls, but I ain't listening.

 

If Greg Howe can hire any one of these guys he'd be wasting his money and would be bankrupt long before he is a household name.

[Tone Taster]

Well, this has spurned another concept:

 

How about Greg Howe gets an act signed which will have some Timberlake/Jessica Simpson type proteges and has them sing about their genitals/sexual prowess, breakups, love spells, etc . .

 

But then the backup band busts into Proto-Cosmos or some of their own fusion tunes every once in a while so the vocalists can catch thier breath after all of the dance moves they were doing while lip-synching?

 

They could sell the Greg Howe Band coloring books at the merchandise counter

[Justus A. Picker]

Originally posted by yZeCounsel:

Well, this has spurned another concept:

 

How about Greg Howe gets an act signed which will have some Timberlake/Jessica Simpson type proteges and has them sing about their genitals/sexual prowess, breakups, love spells, etc . .

 

But then the backup band busts into Proto-Cosmos or some of their own fusion tunes every once in a while so the vocalists can catch thier breath after all of the dance moves they were doing while lip-synching?

 

They could sell the Greg Howe Band coloring books at the merchandise counter

That might work. It's arguable Zappa never would have gotten the exposure he did without his off the wall humor lyrically. We came for Dynamo-hum and left humming a 12-tone line in 21/7 time.....

[Eric Iverson]

Yes, a sense of humor adds to the entertainment value. I think of Steely Dan who were very sophisticated harmonically, but people could relate to the lyrics.

 

One problem with some "serious" jazzers and classical and fusion people is that it seems like they never crack a smile! Sure, their music may be important (at least to them) and they are artists, but at least treat the audience like you're glad to see them. Not that you have to turn your concert into a comedy routine, necessarily....

[musicalhair]

Originally posted by yZeCounsel:

Well, this has spurned another concept:

 

How about Greg Howe gets an act signed which will have some Timberlake/Jessica Simpson type proteges and has them sing about their genitals/sexual prowess, breakups, love spells, etc . .

 

But then the backup band busts into Proto-Cosmos or some of their own fusion tunes every once in a while so the vocalists can catch thier breath after all of the dance moves they were doing while lip-synching?

 

They could sell the Greg Howe Band coloring books at the merchandise counter

You need to ask him, but I imagine he might see such stuff as cheapening his art maybe? Or maybe he feels such stuff is beneath his dignity? Segovia could have had sixties style dancers in go-go boots and sombreros while he played Sonata Mexicana, but he didn't.

 

Dude, don't leave out the singers themselve from pushing the prorgressive envelop. Every chord change we play can be sung by a group of singers to great effect. A very cool thing to do is to take a progression out of Ted Green's Modern Chord Progressions and sing each voice, recording it and hearing it that way.

 

But dude, ask not what Greg Howe can do for you, ask what you can do for ... well Greg Howe in this paraphrasing of the JFK quote, so let me try this another way: Don't curse the darkness when you can light a candle so that we can peek up the skirt of the hot chick singer you're going to put in front of your progressive-pop jams.

[Tone Taster]

I was just using howe as an example since you had brought him up. It could've been any one including me or you.

 

Another route is what John Mayer did

 

Write some teeny bopper hits (although quality music) and then scrap that and play with a rock/blues trio after attaining worldwide success

 

The thing is - Why are these cats so successful in Europe, Japan, South America, Italy, etc. . . ?

 

The fusion cats sell out over there.

 

To just dismiss that as a cultural thing would be valid if there was like - only one part of the world who dug it

 

The music is made accessable and people want to dig the shows(non-musicians alike)

[Billster]

Originally posted by yZeCounsel:

 

The thing is - Why are these cats so successful in Europe, Japan, South America, Italy, etc. . . ?

 

To just dismiss that as a cultural thing would be valid if there was like - only one part of the world who dug it

 

It would seem there is only one part of the world that doesn't like it

 

I don't know about South America and Europe, but I know Japanese popular culture has a fascination with all things American: baseball, jazz music, cuisine, etc. They don't discount their own heritage, but they do like western style from a curiosity standpoint.

 

OTOH, Americans tend to be dismissive (rather than curious) of the unfamiliar

[Gruupi]

I agree with Billster, American culture is very influential around the world. Kind of like generations ago, Paris was the cultural center for the arts, it is now American. We get bored with things fast here, but the really good stuff influences musicians around the world, most people don't have to have a new "American Idol" every 6 months.

[Eric Iverson]

And I agree that American culture is pretty arrogant.. we take from other cultures in a condescending sort of way (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery)(flavor of the month) and then go sell them McDonald's and Hollywood movies!

[musicalhair]

Hey Yze, I was just pickup up from this quote below from near the top of this thread, I've actually only heard a couple of tunes by Greg Howe, many years ago. I really did dig them a lot for that matter.

 

Originally posted by yZeCounsel:

I used Jazz-rock for lack of a better term. I'm talking about cats like Greg Howe, ...