there are a lot of reasons that
we don't have any great bands anymore...
(bands like the funk bros, p-funk, EWF, or whoever you want to insert)


but i think the BIGGEST reason we don't have them anymore
is b/c there is no scene that can nurture the talent.

you have to understand... the funk brother and all of the rest of the session musicans were jazz players.

they came from an era when you could just go down the street
and jam w/ some of the best jazz player in the business.


i was reading the miles davis autobiography, and he was saying
that the area he started playing at had dive spots on every corner,
and you could go and listen to/ play with some of the greatest players of all time.


i mean, we don't have those types of spots anymore.
so where are these musicians going to grow?
where will their genius be developed?




i think that's why you don't see the bands the way we used to.
that's why we can't have another parliament-funkadelic.

because wehre are you going to find a band
that has experience with creating doo-wop harmonies?
AND has the experience of creating a james brown rhythm section?
AND has the experience of a classicaly trained pianist like bernie worrell?
AND has experience just jamming w/ a jazz band down the corner?



i mean, it's just not possible.

wasn't maurice white a session drummer for stax?
look at the talent he was exposed to before
he went on to create EWF.



the closest thing black folks had to that kind of exposore to talent
was when hip hop was starting, and you had
folks all rapping and DJing the same clubs/ parties
together before it became big.


but what kind of scene is there nowadays
to support that kind of talent?



i'm sure it will pop up again,
but it won't be like it was.



so i think that's what folks are talking about
when they mention the "decline" in black music.

i'm sure folks that dug jazz felt the same way
when the jazz scene dried up.




but i believe everything comes back around.
there will be a scene that will pop up
and make music "great" again.

hell, for all i know... it's already out there.
it's just in some kind of new context that makes it hard
for me to recognize it for what it is.






>where we tried to pretend that bands didn't matter in r&b and
>soul. I let it slide because it helped push another agenda
>but c'mon yall... look at these cats and you know they were
>integral. look at the memphis sound aretha got and the band
>was integral. stax's sound... all the way around. And its
>the little subtlties like tamborine play which just can't be
>appreciated enough. Try and find a kid today that's gonna be
>the tamborine guy who's name nobody knows but holds all the
>tracks together. I'll wait....
>________
>Big PEMFin H & z's
>█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
>http://concretesoundsystem.com
>Mo'Nium - http://monium.tumblr.com/
>
>"When the music stops he falls back into this abyss."