Tag Archives: blues

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appropriation

From the Centrum Voiceworks conference, Reverend Robert B Jones, Sr’s hands and guitar. Previous post about him here.

He was teaching blues history class in the morning and gospel in the afternoon, linked. One person asks about cultural appropriation. The Reverend says that he thinks songs and history are important. He asked if there are songs that he should not sing because they are “white” songs. He says there ARE songs that he WON’T sing because they are racist or sexist. But that if a white person does not sing a song because it’s “black”, he doesn’t think that makes any sense. And he traces history in his classes of how musicians of many races and genders influenced each other and continue to influence each other.

He and other instructors talk about musical skills and guitar and acoustic instrument skills and singing styles that are being forgotten and lost. We are blessed with recordings and he gave us a four page list of people to listen to…. I knew some, Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson, and others I’ve heard of and others I don’t know at all. Homework for the next year!

Blessings on this day for you and everyone, all the world.

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Music to heal by

Centrum Voiceworks last week. I did not get a wonderful photograph of the Reverend Robert B. Jones, Sr. He was moving and I did not want to use a flash! He did two classes a day, an am blues class and an afternoon gospel class. They wove together. He talked about how the pentatonic scale came with enslaved Africans and met the European music and produced spirituals, praise songs, the blues and gospel. He also spoke about how the early blues musicians were playing acoustic guitar in noisy places, so the guitar was rhythm, harmony and bass, all at once. He traced how the changes in circumstances is reflected in the changes in music in the United States and how musicians of all races and creeds influence each other. He talks about the history of music as healing.

I didn’t get a great photograph of him, but here is another student:

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And here is the teacher, engaged:

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Thank you, Reverend, for your amazing classes, singing, guitar playing and the final blues jam after the concert on Friday night!

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Jump blues

Jump is the daily prompt today  and that makes me think of JUMP BLUES!

I have been dancing jitterbug and swing and zydeco and salsa for more than 30 years. Met my kids’ father swing dancing. A friend made us a tape of Jump blues: It ain’t the meat by the Swallows is one of my favorites. GREAT song to dance too as well as being appreciative of all sizes and shapes of the opposite sex…Here is a more Jump blues: http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/jump-blues-ma0000002678

I took the photograph at  Synchronized Swimming Nationals in 2012… speaking of jumping. This double lift is done by the other six swimmers under the water, never touching bottom.