blackguitaristz said:

Country music should be taken out back and SHOT in the head. 4 good.

vainandy said:

Country & honky tonk IS bluse, shape and form.

blackguitaristz said:

?
[Edited 8/7/06 12:07pm]

1BadMoFo said:

Question marks are good. They're healthy. Children that asks questions usually means that their bright. But rent the dvd or catch it on KCET; A 6 or 7 part series called "The History of Jazz". It's excellent. It states where the basis of jazz came from; African Music and Classical, as I stated in the earlier post.

blackguitaristz said:

I think the pre-edited post said "."

blackguitaristz said:

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Jazz travels exceedingly well into other cultures. A number of jazz luminaries have expatriated to Europe to live and thrive among a more appreciative audience (Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon, Don Cherry et al).

Sometimes it's exported and the practitioners don't even know it found a new home. Such was the case of Dizzy Gillespie traveling to pre-Castro Cuba and finding a surprising range of wanna be be-boppers which led to the establishment of "latin" jazz.

Finally, jazz was a major export of the cold war and has lent itself to a thriving scene throughout Central and eastern Eurpope which is making in roadsto extend the genre today.

PFunkjazz said:

Exactly. I love anything that's hybrid. Hell, I even love the word. The way it looks, the way it sounds, the way it's spelled. But u know, nevermind me, I'm weird.

blackguitaristz said:

Everything is pretty much a hybrid when it comes down to it.

PFunkjazz said:

Electronic music in general (= the use of electronic instruments) traces back massively to the European art music of the 1950s. People like Stockhausen and the whole Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne were the ones to experiment with often self-constructed synthezisers. IIRC, Stockhausen even used an electric guitar in his groundbreaking 1957 piece "Gruppen".

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...onic_music

I see this as the second massive influence on today's pop music besides the early forms of black music (jazz/blues).
[Edited 8/7/06 15:05pm]

blackguitaristz said:[quote]

blackguitaristz said:

That's not quite accurate. Blues developed from pentatonic scale used frequently in musical forms of West African tribes. Gospel was born in the 1940's and it combined spirituals, black pop and blues (but back in the day few of the gospel singers would admit to being influenced by Blues - the music was considered primitive and unsavory)

BTW Neither Gospel nor "classical" music (what the hell is classical???) are pure forms. For over a decade Gospel was banned from churches for employing instruments and solo singers.

blackguitaristz said:

I assume you to be referencing the Ken Burns documentary?
I own that,good stuff matter of fact I bought that the DAY it was released.
I also teach music theory as well as excel on 18 instruments.
I suppose I was just calling into question "the facts" that were so freely
spewed on this thread courtesy of yourself and graycap23.I found errors in these "facts",historically speaking.come to think of it,seems whenever graycap23 is around,facts seem to get distorted.that is another story though...
The great thing about music is that it DOESN'T come from one source/race/group etc.. it is beautifully woven together from bits and pieces from many cultures and places from around the globe.
perhaps it is you who needs a refresher course...
this set comes highly recommended!

EmancipationLover said:

Good point. Stockhausen was a consultant to Miles in his ON THE CORNER phase.

delete this
[Edited 8/7/06 19:05pm]

delete this too
[Edited 8/7/06 19:06pm]

hmm delete this
[Edited 8/7/06 19:04pm]

if you're wondering if the blues gave birth to american music, YES it did!

the Pentatonic gave birth to most american music.

PFunkjazz said:

On the American side of things, the first trace of "electronica" I heard on record was...



...MOOG: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman (1969)

Evening Thoughts became an instant favorite.
Probably someone like John Cage was doing more elaborate musical experiments before this.

In terms of the Pop world, I remember hearing things by the 60s group Silver Apples.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

anyone consider him a pioneer in electronic music?

sinisterpentatonic said:

Actually yes! I saw some Jean-Michel Jarre concert footage on youtube. He was playing this instrument, the Theremin. Weird stuff!

Wendy Carlos was actually my first electronica (and that was in elementary school).



That was out in 1968.
[Edited 8/7/06 19:08pm]

1BadMoFo said:

WTH? Other than commenting on my dislike of country what are u talking about? I could care about white folks trying to claim ownership of something else they did NOT create.

sinisterpentatonic said:

It's a spooky sounding instrument... Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/wa...EGC0w3MXCo

To the original question, not being an expert on the subject, my feeling is that there'd be a convergence between the earliest African and European American influences at some point.

There's a PBS documentary that gave a pretty decent perspective on the subject...



...American Roots Music - http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/

I've heard the statement that, "Jazz is the only truly American art form", from sources that have no political or racial dog in the fight.
If that's a starting point from which music that is uniquely American is built, then the answers to these questions are fairly easy to research.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Aren't the blues and ragtime uniquely American?

has anyone brought up Congo Square?

coolcat said:

She looks better at it though...



...Lucie Bigelow Rosen

Featured heavily in the Beach Boys Good Vibrations and many early horror films.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

Wasn't she the lead in the Theramin orchestra?


.
[Edited 8/7/06 19:32pm]

coolcat said:

I'm guessing here that some astute musicologist might be able to attach some African/European linkage.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

All modern music is a combination of African and European music that was formed in America, you couldn't have one without the other, thats why it's considered American music. It's the meetings of the cultures that formed it. It's the exact same situation with 'Latin' music, combination between traditional Euro (spanish) music and african music.

sinisterpentatonic said:

Leon Theremin, an inventor definitely way before his time! Have you seen the documentary on his life? And I used to have this poster in my bedroom, :




Here's the basics, from Wikipedia:

Léon Theremin (born Lev Sergeyevich Termen (August 15, 1896–November 3, 1993) was a Russian inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments.

Léon Theremin was born in Saint Petersburg. His invention in 1919 of the theremin (also called the thereminvox) came at a time when his country was in the midst of the Russian Civil War. After a lengthy tour of Europe, during which time he demonstrated his invention to packed houses, Theremin found his way to America, playing the theremin with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. He patented his invention in 1929 (US1661058 [1]) and subsequently granted commercial production rights to RCA.

Léon Theremin set up a laboratory in New York in the 1930s where he developed the theremin and experimented with other electronic musical instruments and other inventions, including the Rhythmicon, commissioned by the American composer and theorist Henry Cowell. In 1930, ten thereminists performed on stage at Carnegie Hall and, two years later, Léon conducted the first-ever electronic orchestra, featuring the theremin and other electronic instruments including a "Fingerboard" theremin which resembled a cello in use. Theremin's mentors during this time were society's foremost scientists, composers, and musical theorists, including composer Joseph Schillinger and physicist (and amateur violinist) Albert Einstein. At this time, Theremin worked closely with fellow Russian émigré and theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore.

Determined to establish his instrument in mainstream scientific and musical settings, Léon was interested in the role of the theremin in dance music. He developed performance locations that could automatically react to dancers' movements with varied patterns of sound and light. While working with the American Negro Ballet, the inventor fell in love with the young prima ballerina Lavinia Williams. His eventual marriage to the African-American dancer caused shock and disapproval in his social circles, but the ostracized couple remained together.

In 1938, Theremin was seized and kidnapped by Soviet KGB agents (his wife was left behind) and made to return to his native land. Shortly after he returned, he was at Butyrka prison and later sent to work in the gold mines in Kolyma. Although rumors of his execution were widely circulated, Theremin was in fact put to work in a sharashka, together with Tupolev, Korolev and other well-known scientists and engineers on several tasks. He was rehabilitated in 1956.


Some have suggested that he designed the first "bug" or covert listening device but this is not exactly the case. Theremin's bug was the first to use inducted energy from radio waves of one frequency to transmit an audio signal on another. This made the device, known as a passive cavity resonator, difficult to detect since it did not radiate any signal unless it was actively being powered and listened to remotely. This feature also endowed it with (potentially) unlimited operational life. "The Thing", as it was called, was very simple by today's standards, having only a capacitive membrane (a condenser microphone) connected to an antenna. Thus the impedance seen by the quarter-wavelength antenna was altered by sound, and the reflections of the 330 MHz signal impinging on the device were modulated, allowing the audio to be detected. A bug of this nature was embedded in a wooden plaque of the Great Seal of the United States and presented to the American ambassador in Moscow by Russian schoolchildren where it hung in his office until detected by a professional bug sweeper.


Theremin invented the first motion detector for automated doors and worked on an early burglar alarm.


In the 1970s, Léon Theremin began training his nine-year-old niece Lydia Kavina on the theremin. Kavina was to be Theremin's last protégé. Today, Kavina is considered the one of the most advanced and famous thereminists in the world.

In 1991, Léon Theremin returned to the United States, where he was reunited with Clara Rockmore who performed a number of concerts at this time. He returned to Russia and died in Moscow in 1993 at the age of 97.

Léon Theremin is the subject of the documentary film, Theremin – An Electronic Odyssey, written, directed, and produced by Steven M. Martin. The documentary was a winner at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994. The film features legendary thereminists Clara Rockmore and Lydia Kavina, as well as electronic instrument pioneer Robert Moog, Nicolas Slonimsky, The Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, and Theremin himself.






....
[Edited 8/7/06 23:01pm]