“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
This might be my favorite Joe Cocker song. (and it doesn't hurt that it has Kim Basinger in it.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
If only he would have just moved his body some and not been such a statue.
I know that physicality has its appeal, but I've never been opposed to the "plant & play" types. I'm Old School that way, I guess. My Classical heroes are guys like Henryk Szering, Leonard Rose and Nathan Milstein... all from the previous generations of great virtuosi. Plant. Play. Knock it outta the park. Night after night, for 50+ years, all of them. Every physical gesture they made was in service to the sound they produced. No wasted movement.
Jazz is my first love... even before I took up the cello and adopted 'Classical' as my voice. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams- all were fabulous singers who'd never think of splitting their attention on stage moves. Even energetic Bebop players like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie stood stock-still during their solos, so they could focus their entire attention on making the right sounds the right way.
So far, there's a theme in my post: ALL these artists are from an earlier generation, and none of them are from the rock genre.
Even so, when we look at film footage from the era that gave us Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, they still were pretty stationary onstage. The emotive quality of their music was more than enough to get the audience moving, but they were really quite boring by today's standards.
I don't remember when big body movement became a feature of live stage shows (probably the big arena rock shows of the mid 70's), but Big Movement seems to dominate nowadays, especially in the Pop world. 3-chord thrash groups are big on jumping around, too.
Now, that said... Joe could pull off the physical as well as anyone, and could really "sell" a song, but I've often wondered how much more he'd have brought to the mic if he was more like the old school folks I mentioned.
well, I'm starting to ramble and free-associate, so I'll draw this one to a close:
When they music's very good, that's all the artist needs to bring for me to be satisfied. I listen with my ears, head and heart before I ever listen with my eyes.
Uhmmm Clem, not sure if you ever watched Joe Cocker perform, but my comment was totally facetious.
"Now, that said... Joe could pull off the physical as well as anyone, and could really "sell" a song,
yup... I got it. Your smiley at the end was merely icing on the cake. (BTW... I LOVED John Belushi's JC.)
I actually laughed out loud when I read your bit.... then went onto my own riff about stage presence. I should have done a better job of separating the two. Here ya go.....
My bad, I didn't read all of your previous post. I'm sorry.
I love jazz, too. I am not an expert so I don't want to get into it w/you because you will quickly prove how ignorant I am on the topic.
I listen to Thaddeus Monk, Dizzy, Charlie Parker--Birdman, Duke, Ella, Billy Holiday, Miles, Sarah Vaughn, Etta James, Lionel Hampton, etc a lot. I know these dudes aren't jazz, but I put them in a similar category...even though I know they are blues...............by favorite musician ever......BB King, Muddy Waters, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy, Albert King, and even John Mayal.
When I lived close to Detroit, I went downtown to a blues/jazz club and this old-timer told me that if you can play jazz guitar, you can play anything. It was all about speed. Never forgot that and have always loved the genius of the genre.
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