what is the blues?

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Permalink Reply by Shad Harris on July 16, 2009 at 3:14am

Coming from a American Jazz background, I can relate to the three songs you uploaded. I also enjoyed them very much.I'm going to learn "Thinking", I like the changes and the lyric. Is that an original?
I think what happens or what has happened over the many hundreds of years since the "founding" of America is the original American Blues has permeated the rest of the world. The original American Blues was a mixture of West African and European melodies, rhythms, and cultures in the first place. People like to "claim" the music but those of us who really understand, know that the music can NEVER be claimed. The music claims you!
But that's a whole different subject.
I feel that every genre that is identified from Western Origin is related in one way or another to the Blues. But having said that, I do recognize and acknowledge the FACT that is American Blues. It's regional and totally American and it is the foundation of a plethora of subsequent "genres". Including Rock N Roll, Jazz, and all Modern Popular American music.
You can listen to music from the older cultures in Africa or Europe and you will hear echos that point to the music that became the American Blues, but you can't stop there because, there was a thriving culture already on this continent before America was founded and the music of that culture which was a conglomeration of many other cultures including far Eastern also had a real heavy influence on what became the American Blues.
Today, the Blues is played and interpreted by the entire world. It's like a good gumbo or bouillabaisse. Sometimes it's a simple 1 - 4 - 5 chord progression, sometimes it's just a one chord boogie. But it can be a complex 12 - bar Charles Brown progression too.
Everybody wants to claim it as "their own" which makes me think that in the final analysis is just Priceless!

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Permalink Reply by vladimir yarovinsky on July 16, 2009 at 6:00am

,thinking is original,would you talk about blues jazz relationship,ITS HARD FOR ME AS A UKRAINIAN TO SEE WHEN ONE STARTS AND THE EITHER endsi started listening to beatles and stones ,there was something in them i liked, did not k now what, until l came to Chicago it was the blues ,,thank you so much,,,

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Permalink Reply by Shad Harris on July 16, 2009 at 3:12pm

The term "blues" as it applies to a musical genre, relatively speaking is not that old. When one compares the histories of other cultures, America, although dynamically impressive, is not yet a great example of longevity. It is, in fact, that dynamism that led to the development of what became the music we call the Blues.
There are several very good books available that give specific dates and relate specific events and incidents that chronicle the relationship of the Blues to all other music including Jazz. I like Julio Finn's "The Bluesman" and "Blues People" by Amiri Baraka a.k.a. (LeRoi Jones).
As to the specific relationship of Blues and Jazz, I can give you some generalizations that may be interesting.
Our country got its official start in 1776. The culture at that time was a wide-opened mix of older traditional cultures that until the advent of the "New World", [which actually occurred in 1492, (arguable but irrelevant)] only had limited contact. So from 1500 to almost 1800 is a 300 year period where people from ALL points east converged to the accessible points of entry to this "New World" and brought with them all of their traditions, histories, and cultures, including their music. Remember this was a "wide-opened" societal format. Ostensibly the British Empire was "in-charge" but the French, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and anyone else who could afford to put a ship in the water and defend it, were pretty much free to capitalize on whatever opportunities that were presented.
So after 300 years of "societal to and fro" the hierarchy becomes apparent. Everyone knows the "rules" and the "roles". It just so happened that the pickings were ripe for a rebellion and that's what occurred, but that's a whole different subject.
The music that was being "popularized" by the mid-1700's was the music of the dominant societal class. (By the way, that's always been the case.) The "folk music" was and still is pretty much regional. Where the "high society" had orchestras with violins and horn sections, and percussion sections including the newly invented piano, "folk music" was created with limited instrumental accompaniment. That's why the drum, and guitar are so prevalent in the Blues.
Anyway, from 1800 to 1900 America went through its "birthing pains". Once the fact was established that the country was official, the "societal to and fro" had to occur to determine the hierarchy. What makes this country unique is that to and fro occurred during a time when industry was changing dramatically. Electricity, the bio-sciences, psychology/religion, global commerce, all of these and more were undergoing dynamic and drastic changes, a renaissance as it were. And so was the music.
Many historians point to the song "St. Louis Blues" by William Handy as the advent of what is played today and called Jazz. If you study the structure of the song you will find several characteristics that are common to today's jazz or Blues compositions, but at the time he wrote the song, 1914, it was considered by various segments of the newly forming American society as "provocative".
Nevertheless, it is a good point of reference for the student of the Blues because its a watershed event that delineates a point in time when Jazz originates.
The Blues has never been the source of its parts. Jazz, Rock and Roll, and the ambiguous American Pop, genres can look to the Blues and find the source of their "DNA" but the Blues is the umbrella under which all of the cultures come that made up and continue to make up, America.
It's not our only contribution to world culture but it is definitely our most significant to the world's music.

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Permalink Reply by Jacqueline Telford on July 16, 2009 at 4:39am

blues is like the word love.
everybody's different so everybody got their own blues.
it's not what it sounds like,
it's what it feels like..

you can have the blues even tho you don play or sing

it's a reflexion of yourself

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Permalink Reply by Pat Trembeth on July 16, 2009 at 8:47am

Yep... The Blues is a feeling and like art; if you interlectualise them they aren't what they are anymore. Good call Jaqueline

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Permalink Reply by vladimir yarovinsky on July 16, 2009 at 10:40am

first time i went to see homeopathic doctor, he asked me /what you feel,/,i dint have a clue what it meant. most of the time i don't know, how i feel,, but i feel ,without thinking about it,it took me years to be able to now what my feelings are,but when you channeling muse of the blues,, it comes to you like a wave of bliss
and its way more, that you brain can deal with,its between you heart and soul.....

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