A Love Supreme was a one shot recording, recorded on December 9, 1964 by Coltrane’s cutting-edge Hard Bop, Free Jazz Quintet. Recorded in a single session, and an alternate version of “Acknowledgement” the next day, the album has only been known to be performed once on, July 26, 1965 at the Festival Mondial du Jazz Antibes, Juan-les-Pins, France.

            I really enjoyed this album not only because it’s a beautiful piece on work, but because of the personal struggles Coltrane was experiencing at the time, and the amount of dedication he put forth. To record an album in one session, and have it become one of the greatest albums of all time is a feat not many have the privilege of doing. Coltrane was experiencing an ongoing battle with drug addiction he eventually lost, but during he managed to produce some of the most influential music, who inspired many big names in the music scene today.

Herbie Mann, born Herbert Jay Solomon is a world renowned flutist actively participating in the music scene for close to 60 years, accomplishing over 30 albums. The Best of Herbie Mann released October 25, 1990 through Rhino, ironically contains six of his best tracks including a breath taking live version of “Comin’ Home Baby.” Herbie got his start playing flute in the Brooklyn, New York jazz scene, quickly switching over to a more world approach taking in elements from the Bossa Nova, African Music, and dabbling a little in Disco.

The first track on this album is a studio version of “Comin’ Home Baby” which starts off pretty mellow with a smooth Baseline and Drums to compliment. Herbie eases his way in taking the stand right away, but without making it completely known he’s entered the track. The song keeps up a pretty nice “groove” for about three or so minutes until the Vibraphone comes in, not necessarily taking the floor but letting Herbie know it’s time to take a break. According to Wikipeidia, Herbie describes the “groove” as,” finding the waves that are comfortable to float on top of.”

Followed by “Memphis Underground” the music takes a turn towards Jazz Fusion, allowing instruments like the Electric Guitar, and again the Vibraphone take solos. By doing so Herbie says these instruments are “gracefully adding to the groove.” Herbie mentions this Album [Memphis Underground] being the height of his groove. (Wiki) The album picks up and doesn’t let you down until the last note is played. This album has personally inspired me to collect more of Herbie Mann’s music, and hopefully it will encourage you too.

I think I got a better perspective of music out of this class. I enjoyed listening to every type of music. I liked the rock n roll part, and the classical part. I didn’t know there was so much history behind all the music and how it all started. So I liked learning about that. I got to understand the meaning of music, and that in most of the songs there are story lines that go with it. I liked that week we had to find a song with a story line, because I really like listening to lyrics of a song.

This is a video of No Doubt the  song named Ex-  Girlfriend is obviously that she is talking about a relationship that has ended.  since in the beginning she new the situation of the relationship and the point of the video in my opinion is getting revenge. not accepting been another girl in the list therefore she has to get her way. The Video doesn’t look like a big budget video they have kept it simple but at the same time the lyric help allot on getting the point across. The important thing of the video is getting revenge tracking the person who she feel has betrayed her. Well the reason that i like this video is that is simple its different tours other video were they are talking about a relationship gone bad. Yet in those videos they show them self to blame or a person who is suffering a lot but, in this video she wants to get revenge and have no mercy on the person who has betray her.

I think one of the most profondest artist with his own style and voice is Louis Armstrong. His jazz music has a lot of sway in it to me. It is also easy to tell that he puts his all into his songs and performances. A perfect example of this is his song What a Wonderful World.

There are many artists who use music as an avenue to put forth a message of importance to them.  Artists such as Public enemy, 2Pac, Mos Def, Ice Cube, Nas, and Dead Prez have integrated controversial messages in their songs.  One song that comes to mind is Nas’ song – One Mic.  I interpret this song as the artist’s voice and eyes of what he has endure and seen in his lifetime.  Witnessing discrimination, inequality, corruption, poverty, racism, brutality and other issues that commonly affect many urban cities.  How many situations have we witness unjust behavior ensued and we just turn our heads and look away or too slow to take action.  The song One Mic, the lyrics and video grabs the audiences attention without displaying nudity, club scene or other ideas that are commonly associated with todays popular “hip hop” music.  

Lyrics – One Mic

All I need is one blunt, one page, and one pen
One prayer – tell God forgive for one sin
Matter fact maybe more than one, look back
at all the hatred against me, fuck alla them
Jesus died at age 33, there’s thirty-three shots
from twin glocks there’s sixteen apiece, that’s thirty-two
Which means, one of my guns was holdin 17
Twenty-seven hit your crew, six went into you
Everybody gotta die sometime; hope your funeral
never gets shot up, bullets tear through the innocent
Nothin is fair, niggaz roll up, shootin from wheelchairs
My heart is racin, tastin revenge in the air
I let the shit slide for too many years, too many times
Now I’m strapped with a couple of macs, too many nines…

The genre I found most interesting to listen in class that I had never cared for before was country. I found myself actually enjoying country music by select artist, such as Carrie Underwood. I enjoyed all the lectures pertaining to blues and jazz. I feel really good about what I learned about pop and rock during the course. I love hearing the different kinds of music that I had never heard before that other classmates brought to the class’s attention. I really love this class and would take it again anytime.

Lady Marmalade by Patti Labelle, was a song sampled and it was performed by four other artist, Pink, Lil’ Kim, Christina Aguilara, and Mya. The sample is used mostly in a way of pop/rock/and rap form. When Patti Labelle created it it was oringinally a soul/r&b song. I think maybe the producers chose to sample this particular song because it identifies a strong message that stands out more so today than it did when it was created. And with using the artist that it did to perform it, it was sure to attract the audience for which the new version on it was targeting. Both versions of the song are talking about the same thing only difference is the modern version is more straight forward with its lyrics.

Before this class I didn’t really pay attention to Nirvana, I knew that Kurt Cobain committed suicide and that Cortney Love was in some way associated with him.  Since I’m not a big fan of suicide or Cortney Love, I pretty much just assumed Nirvana wasn’t for me.  I always heard the name a lot and I know that I had heard their music but I couldn’t begin to name a song.  After we listened to them in class, I went to buy one of their CDs, this was one of the first CDs that I had bought in months! 

Bad music to me is music that is supposed to support one sex or gender and degrade another. This is most common in rap songs whereas men rappers talk about women in a bad way. Their lyrics usually are explicit and contain sexual content. These are the rappers that usually use such words like h**, or b***h offten in their songs.  For Rap to be such a mainstream, it should want to attract attention and support from all angles, but with what some of the rap artist are stating in their songs, the only kind of women they are receiving as supporters are those who do not have respect for themselves.

Bad music is also music that has no real message behide it within it’s lyrical content. I consider this type of music to be a fad, because it seems like when musicians make songs that are not really talking about anything important, such as popping and snapping your fingers, hips, necks or whatever, they ok to little to for a little while til they’re played out on the radio. Then hear comes someone else making a song about how they spend their time unproductively.