14 DAY TRIAL // Have you ever asked yourselves what's with all this music that you listen to almost everywhere you go? Where does it come from? What generated it? Does it have a message?
Have you ever thought about the fact that art is, as it always was, a reflection of present times and that you are subjected, unwillingly, to a huge dose of news everyday? You go on a bus and listen to the music, you go out and you simply have to listen to the music, even on TV, especially during commercial breaks you get to hear the latest tunes. You are being exposed daily to other people's view on the world; you are up-to-date no matter what you do. And you don't even know it.
Music is a form of art. And you get to confront it everyday
Art, in any of its forms, is generated by a person, or a group of talented yet usually ordinary people, that express, willingly or not, an opinion regarding present times. People tend to think that great artists have always been ahead of their times. Personally, I disagree. If someone, in a certain time, has manifested knowledge and talent it's mainly because it was a perfect time for such an expression.
Music is a form of art and art is a mirror of the times it's being created in
But what changes throughout history? What makes the world turn? Do people evolve or we just move into bigger houses, drive faster cars, work in taller buildings? Is this an ever-changing world filled with never-changing people?
In 1927, Saul Williams composed a brilliant song that was to become a must have in every jazz performer's repertoire. In 1929, Louis Armstrong recorded that song for the first time. Since then, "Basin Street Blues" has been adapted, recorded, re-recorded, re-mixed to suit every singer, taste and trend. It's one of those songs which you can't ever get enough of. It needs no presentation because its title, pretty much, says it all.
We all know what "the blues" is. It's been quite a while since this name stopped to be associated with music only, but rather to a general state of mind present in all our lives at one point or another. This particular state of mind is universal. It does not belong to jazz, it never did. Jazz just borrowed it for a while. It belongs to every one of us. It is us that have inspired all the great jazz performers and composers. So even if you've never heard the tune in your life you can still have a pretty good idea of how it might sound like.
But can you turn jazz to scratch? Can you pull it from the beginning of the 20th century, from New Orleans, drag it into the 21st century and still keep... the blues? Sure you can because New Orleans is "the land of dreams", a common ground to every world and every culture. In 2005 Kid Koala, aka Erik San, a master of the turntable, took some samples of old records, did some scratching and produced a new version of "Basin Street Blues". Every note that you hear has been individually cut from several records to recompose the original and the lyrics have been replaced by Kid Koala's scratching of the trumpet line. Rather than being a trip down memory lane this song is a new interpretation given to a feeling that has been around much longer than jazz. It's a wonderful example of the fact that nothing is new, nothing is old, things stay the same, we just change the interpretation and the interpreter from time to time.
