Music Sweet Music

Lots of thoughts about music today. Several events have inspired this somewhat random collection of music meandering.

I just brought a new netbook. Whenever I buy a new computer, one of the things that I have to do is add my entire music collection to it. I have thousands of cd's , so this is no one or two hour task. I discovered on this go round that the artists that have the most cds in my collection are Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Funkadelic, Various Brazilian artists, Prince(Symbol included), Fishbone,U2,George Duke,Marvin Gaye , Herbie Hancock, Jay Z, Cassandra Wilson, and Eryka Badu. Two surprises were Dianne Reeves and Keb Mo. I didn't realize that I liked them like that. Oh yeah I also have more than my share of Marley music( Bob, Ziggy, Damien, Kymani)

I mourn the inevitable death of record stores. My best friend after High School owned a small shop twenty years ago. He turned me on to so many sounds. Before his tutelage I thought that Jazz was just for old people. Although his shop didn't last, it gave me a lifelong love for music stores. I loved Tower Records for it's listening stations that included written invitations/descriptions to try out music that was new or outside of the square boxes of pop. A third of my collection probally resulted from either browsing through the store or listening at the stations. R.I.P Tower. Virgin Records is now closing in NYC. Floors of CD's, posters, memorabilia, Music DVD's, and all of the visceral pleasures that are part of walking through a music store will be gone forever. In NYC we've also lost The Wiz, HMV , and The Record Shack on 125th in Harlem. I Tunes can't replace that.

Tonight I Saw the Jazz At Lincoln Center Orchestra here in NYC and run by Wynton Marseilles. I have a real respect for Mr Marseilles' mission. He is making sure that there is a home that allows living masters of Jazz to play in an institution completely devoted to its art form. He has players of all ages and many cultures in the orchestra. They all solo.They all do arrangements. They all can play their asses off. He also gives so much history in both the music, and his spoken intros before the tunes. I have experienced some serious concerts there.

Grab a person under the age of 25 and force them to listen to an entire CD from start to finish. Imagine separating Joni Mitchell's Blue, Mile's Kind Of Blue, Parliament's Mothership Connection, Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band, John Coltrane's Love Supreme, Stevie Wonder's Innervisions(or any 70's Stevie for that matter) Lenny Kratviz's Mama Said,Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, Hendrix's Electric Lady Land, Bob Marley's Exodus,Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?, or any work of music that is connected into a beginning middle, or end into singles for ring tones? Many of the above mentioned albums are before my time. Some older person(s) pulled my coat and said "check this out"