AG’s endorsement. For real. Based On New Information. Bet On It.

11 Comments

1. 

   Arthur Gilroy on February 11, 2008 at 8:25 pm

   I am ON it, now!!!

   Bet on it.

   AG

2. 

   esquimaux on February 11, 2008 at 10:45 pm

   after painstaking study of the candidates’ policies on war, peace, social justice and the economy AG endorses… the one with better taste in music.

   anyway, didn’t your state vote a week ago?

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on February 11, 2008 at 11:14 pm

     Yup.

     Music.

     REAL music.

     All the rest of it is politics.

     Ergo, bullshit.

     And…I HAVE no state.

     Not as far as I am conncerned, anyway.

     Except the state of heightened awareness, of course.

     Everybody needs a hobby.

     AG

     • 

       esquimaux on February 11, 2008 at 11:23 pm

       hey, welcome to the Obama bandwagon, I’m new here myself.

       I will make sure I listen to the Bach cello suites soon.  is there a recording you’d recommend?

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2008 at 1:55 am

         Pablo Casals

         AG

   • 

     northcountry on February 12, 2008 at 10:18 am

     Hey that’s what it really comes down to after all isn’t it?  Music and stories. The most fundamental elements of human existence (right after food and water of course).

     You can tell a lot about a person by their choices in culture.

3. 

   supersoling on February 12, 2008 at 7:03 am

   Get up off the floor,AG. It’s unseemly and disturbing to see an otherwise rational man spill his mables at any politician’s feet, let alone this one.
   Damn shame, it is.

   • 

     Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2008 at 11:20 am

     But here is what I see.

     Here are the possibilities that I see.

     I see the music to which I have dedicated my life, a music that has been dissed beyond belief in its own home for more than 75 years…since the end of the Swing Era…once again taking its rightful place as THE American art music.

     I see a culture reinvigorated on all levels by a President who is actually culturally literate on the highest levels.

     I have made the following point before on the leftiness blogs and more often than not been rewarded with a fairly deafening silence, but if there is anything that marks my personality it is that I DO keep trying.

     The Greeks believed…Plato wrote about it, among many others…that if you change the music of a culture you change that culture.

     Purely commercial interests have dumbed down this culture to the point that…well, to the point that we elected a President whose reading level is not much past the My Pet Goat story that he was reading to a group of his near-peers when 9/11 went down.

     There has not been a truly cultured President in office since FDR. And look at the “coincidence”!!! During his tenure the popular music of the country was among the most sophisticated popular musics”to ever grace a civilization.  It was at the highest level rhythmically, harmonically, melodically, in terms of orchestration and in terms of sheer musicianship. FORGET “idiom”…the people who made the music of the Ellington, Goodman, Dorsey, Basie, Lunceford, Calloway and Shaw bands were musicians who lived on a level of musicianship that is the equal of (and in some ways superior to) that of the greatest Western European and Asian so-called “art” musicians. AND THE PEOPLE WERE DANCING TO THIS SHIT!!!

     Unheard of, supe.

     Absolutely unheard of.

     What came first?

     The chicken, the or egg ? The well-functioning society or the music?

     Hmmmm…

     It scared Hitler so badly that there were actual Nazi rules about performing music that were put together to RESIST the influx of jazz inti the German culture. Really. You could look it up.

     3-As to the tempo, too, preference is to be given to brisk compositions as opposed to slow ones (so-called blues); however, the pace must not exceed a certain degree of allegro commensurate with the Aryan sense for discipline and moderation. On no account will negroid excesses in tempo (so-called hot jazz) be permitted, or in solo performances (so-called breaks);

        4. So-called jazz compositions may contain at the most 10% syncopation; the remainder must form a natural legato movement devoid of hysterical rhythmic references characteristic of the music of the barbarian races and conducive to dark instincts alien to the German people (so-called “riffs”);

        5. Strictly forbidden is the use of instruments alien to the German spirit (e.g. so-called cowbells, flex-a-tone, brushes,etc.) as well as all mutes which turn the noble sound of brass-wind instruments into a Jewish-Freemasonic yell (so-called wa-wa, in hat, etc.)

     And look where THAT got them.

     Crispy critters, eventually.

     Really.

     By some sort of cultural miracle…a miracle that speaks volumes about its intrinsic worth… this music has actually grown and spread both around the world and here at home in terms of the people who play it at a very high level DESPITE the sheer fact that doing so means that one is most likely to live one’s life somewhere around the lower third of the economic ladder. At least that fact is indisputably true here in the U.S., the (relative) financial success of twenty or thirty or even a couple of hundred musicians over the past 60 years notwithstanding.

     And now here comes a man who listens to Miles and ‘Trane for pleasure, within striking distance of becoming the President of The United States of Omertica.

     The mind boggles.

     Just on a purely personal level. supe…one of the things that I do very well is that I can play ALL of the jazz styles that have grown up here over the past 100 years or so, and I am part of a movement that is sometimes called the “Jazz Repertory” movement. In my mid-20s I was privileged to be part of  the first orchestra that was put together specifically to play 100 years’ worth of jazz in an idiomatically authentic manner, Chuck Israels’ National Jazz Ensemble, and I have been a memeber of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra since its inception in 1990.

     Yup.

     1990.

     The Clinton years.

     Largely sponsored by John Conyers.

     In Washington DC.

     And the band flew high during those Clinton years. Why? Among other reasons, because Bill Clinton actually KNEW something about the music. It wasn’t just a way to garner black votes to him; he could play a passable blues on the tenor sax…I know, he sat in with us…even without practicing or playing regularly for 30 years or so.

     And…Quel coïncidence!!!…from the day that Butch got elected until about 4 months ago (now that Butcher Boy AND the Ratpubs seem very likely to be outta there) the orchestra has been on a steady downward trajectory in terms of funding and work.

     Hmmm…

     And now…quite unexpectedly…we are leaving on a State Department-sponsored  tour of Egypt this week.

     HMMMMMMM…

     This WITHOUT a hip in the White House.

     It has been often said that all politics is personal.

     Well…THIS is personal.

     To ME.

     Sue me.

     And it is personal on other levels as well.

     Like, say…the survival of the human race.

     Sue yourself.

     So it goes.

     Later…

     AG

     • 

       supersoling on February 12, 2008 at 11:50 am

       Thanks for the history lesson AG. I’m fully aware of Jazz’s place in our culture and I’m damn aware of your opinion of it’s preeminence as a music genre. Not saying it sucks, but it’s your opinion.

       Anyway, my point was that you’re endorsing a politician based on a mutual preference for music. Come on, AG. That’s too shallow for you. I mean, a few days ago you had me convinced you were an authentic anti-establishment man like Carlin. Remember? Fuckem? Now this. It’s unseemly, Sir. Get hold of your senses man.

       …and enjoy your trip to Egypt :o) Shake the pyramids with that horn of yours. It’s what you do…and should stick too.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2008 at 11:55 am

         as well before I am through.

         Bet on it.

         AG

4. 

   keepinon on February 12, 2008 at 7:24 pm

   I must say AG, as a frequent reader of your posts here, I to am rather surprised at you sudden conversion. But understanding (as much as a non-musician can) your passion for the music, I can relate to your point here. JFK led a new interest in “the arts” during his brief time in the White House. You are right about the 30’s and 40’s too. The Nazi’s hated Jazz, or so they said.

   If Obama speaks to you in your language, so be it. I can’t quibble with the Man’s tastes either. Maybe there is a spot in his administration for a cultural ambassador from NY??

   Bet on it! 😉