OK, maybe it wasn’t very moving in the usual way this week. No hostility and no kicking around the local politicos. But it’s what’s going on in my life right now. And after all, moving sucks! Hope you enjoy the column, either way.
Frankly, the moving experience is about as much fun as losing a major limb in a wheat thresher.
Feel sorry for me.
Here is a short slideshow I created concerning 15 Place, one of the Homeless Shelters in Mobile. Its about a minute long and worth your time.
For some reason our blog will not take the embed code, so you can view it here.
cheers -Dan Anderson
The recent crime spree in Mobile has a lot of people, particularly some of my brethren in the news media, pointing the finger at downtown and it’s nearby neighborhoods. And yes, there have been some crimes in my Oakleigh neighborhood and in downtown, but it’s happening all over town. In my latest column I talk about this situation. The Loop has been hard hit, and there have even been holdups in tony Spring Hill. People try to keep it quiet.
I know the company line at City Hall is that crime really hasn’t risen, but I’m not buying that. Maybe the number of armed robberies is the same, but no one cares when someone hanging out at a juke joint on Michigan Avenue at midnight gets robbed. When it’s the Blockbuster at the Loop that’s held up, that’s another story.
The cops I’ve talked to all say they need more help. More people patrolling. That’s the answer. Stop the stupid roadblocks and trying to catch people with expired insurance, and patrol more. Get more guys and gals out there with handcuffs, tasers and pistols. That’s what we need.
As alluded to in this issue’s Artifice, Mobile’s jazz scene is vexing and slim.
In 2001, I decided to start a local jazz society. At the time, I found it strange that Pensacola, a town noticeably smaller than Mobile, had an active organization that staged an annual multi-day festival while over here you had to search hard to find the music.
My reasoning then was that if jazz sales comprised four percent of the annual national music sales, then that might translate to a couple hundred folks in Mobile who would support jazz. If a couple hundred fans made it a point to get out, to actively get involved, they could affect change.
In my steps toward coalescing the idea, I received warnings aplenty. The leadership of the Jazz Society of Pensacola told me history showed it would be nearly impossible to get such a thing going in Mobile. Members of the Mobile Jazz/Blues Circle, a support group that formed in the 1990s and fell apart after five years, echoed those sentiments. Even one prominent arts observer told me my four percent figure was outlandishly optimistic and described Mobile as a place too “hardscrabble” for jazz to take root.
My experience and research during the last seven years has told me that person was pretty accurate.
All towns have music forms to which they naturally gravitate. In Mobile, that’s traditionally been pop, country, blues and R&B. In contemporary times, hip-hop has been added to that mix as it has ascended in popular stature.
Older aficionados tell me the local antipathy toward jazz is partially rooted in racial division and in social anti-intellectualism. Yet, I don’t think that’s a complete answer.
Folks hereabouts seem to like stuff to which they can either scream/sing the lyrics while in the throes of inebriation or tunes they use as live background music and ignore. Really good jazz is neither of those things. It dares and challenges you. It is everything but comfortable and blasé.
As a result, a lot of folks are turned off by it. And I think that’s likely not just endemic to Mobile, that’s everywhere. Otherwise, Kenny G wouldn’t outsell Wayne Shorter.
I heard an excerpt from an Amy Winehouse interview where she compared the difference between London’s hip-hop and jazz clubs. She said that the hip-hop joints were more of a social scene whereas the jazz clubs were a “more personal thing,” that she would see people sitting and listening to the music above most all else.
And we all know how incredibly socially-oriented Mobilians are. They like their alcohol and they love their hobnobbing. See and be seen.
Another thing working against the health of Mobile’s jazz scene is a matter of the town’s modest size. Even in markets much larger, jazz musicians have a hard time making a living. Gigs are scarce and pay is slim. That is magnified in Mobile. Musicians possessing the chops to make better money invariably leave for more fertile ground.
Thing is, no genre exposes virtuosity or the lack of it like jazz does. You have to really know your stuff to take the incredible risks involved in playing it because it will blatantly lay all your shortcomings in plain view. I know classically trained artists who have been immersed in music all their lives that shy away from the challenges of jazz. Mediocre talent can meet a minimal level of tolerance, but it certainly doesn’t grab your attention.
As a result, a good deal of the live music heard around here is passable, but not much beyond that. Not to say that there aren’t some jewels hidden in Mobile’s scene, but they’re uncommon.
On top of all of this, you have the influence of something I feel has done a grave disservice to potential fans in the region: smooth jazz.
I will admit to a personal bias in this area but among the various sub-genres of jazz, I will listen to a great deal of it. Traditional jazz, be-bop, hard bop, post-bop, cool, free, modal, fusion, I have all of it in my library.
But smooth jazz? Well, let’s just say the stuff I have that could pass for smooth jazz is more correctly categorized as “instrumental R&B,” which is what most of it actually is.
Smooth jazz, in my opinion, is music that attempts to cash in on the cachet of something more esoteric without making the sacrifices it demands. It’s Kenny G using circular breathing to stretch a note out over a million measures without challenging himself to the inventiveness required to keep a dynamic moving along. It’s someone grooving along to a voiceless version of a Bill Withers hit with little exploration involved.
So many Mobilians have only been exposed to this, they frankly don’t know better. I’ve personally seen people who swear they don’t like what they think is jazz flip out when you play some hard-driving Art Blakey or John Coltrane for them. If you feed someone McDonald’s burgers all their days and then plop a filet mignon down in front of them, what else would you expect?
I’ve heard the allegations that I’m a “music snob” and I will admit it in some regards. I’m not going to call something that which it is not. I love Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder as much as the next guy—I think the albums “What’s Going On” and “Songs In the Key of Life” are absolute masterpieces—but while some of it may be jazz-influenced, it’s not jazz. There’s a difference.
And I listen to plenty of stuff that would never be confused with “fine arts” fare. Thievery Corporation, Suba, Ray Charles, White Stripes, Nouvelle Vague, The Clash, Chet Atkins, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Portishead, Elmore James, The Raveonettes, Regina Spektor, Hank Williams, Curtis Mayfield, Asleep At the Wheel, Neil Young and The Velvet Underground all reside on my iPod. I’ll listen to anything I feel is honest and creative and expressive.
But don’t tell me it’s something it’s not. Appreciate it for what it is.
Will Mobile ever change? Will it ever develop a greater yen for jazz? It’s doubtful. If it didn’t exist in the ‘40s and ‘50s, it’s unlikely to sprout now.
However, if there is an influx of non-Mobilians due to start coming in, especially Europeans, that might change somewhat. Oddly enough, folks from “over the pond” seem to dig jazz far more than citizens of the nation that spawned it. And if there’s any French and German influence bound for town, that would be a welcome one.
It’s a rather bizarre place for local activism, but this morning I got a Facebook invitation to join a group “Support Northrop Grumman.”
The online group, (linked here if you have an account) urges its members to participate in an online survey set up by the House’s Web site.
“As you will notice, the numbers are rather skewed at the moment and if we don’t stand up and shout, we may lose something that is extremely valuable to Mobile, Alabama and the entire Gulf Coast,” the group’s page says.
MySpace has Eliot Spitzer’s call girl. Facebook has Northrop Grumman. How’s that for social networking?
There are times when I feel like I’m writing for The Onion when I am reporting what happened at city council – you know, times like when I have to write about a councilor’s desire to throw marshmallow confections off the top of the RSA Tower on New Year’s Eve. Yeah, times like those times.
And yet another one of those times came at the March 4 meeting. There was an ordinance on the agenda for the council to “amend the Mobile City Code relating to noise generally.”
And now Fred Richardson has an idea for noise flags to get people to bring it down a notch.
The folks in Mobile have plenty to celebrate this evening.
An estimated $40 billion U.S. Air Force contract was awarded to a Northrop Grumman/EADS partnership which includes 179 planes to be delivered over the next 10-15 years, with the manufacturing facilities to be located at Mobile’s Brookley Field.
Most expected the Northrop Grumman/EADS partnership to do no better than splitting a contract with Boeing, the heavy favorite for the bid, but Northrop and EADS won it outright.
“Today marks the dawn of a new era for Mobile, and I couldn’t be more proud of our city and our state than I am right now,” Rep. Jo Bonner said immediately following the announcement. “We are so very excited about having the opportunity to help the Air Force acquire the most modern and capable refueling tanker – a tanker assembled in America – by Americans.”
The project received hefty lobbying efforts from Mobile’s congressional delegation - including Bonner and Sens. Jeff Session and Richard Shelby.
“The decision by Northrop Grumman/EADS to manufacture the KC-30 in Mobile was a clear endorsement of our state’s workforce, and today’s contract award represents a huge investment in our state,” Sessions said. “The assembly of over 170 tankers in Alabama solidifies our state’s growing reputation as a national leader in defense technology. From one end of the state to the other, Alabama workers are proudly providing our men and women in uniform with the best and most advanced defense technology available. “
Our web guru Kyle Craig approached me a couple of years ago and pitched the idea of me doing a blog. Since my life is a snowball that has the tendency to simultaneously gather and release snow, it was became a challenge to:
A. Find time to create a blog
and
B. Learn the mystical ways of the Blogosphere
I found Craig’s offer extremely appealing because of the impersonal format a journalist must follow. Even though you can find my personality snuggled deep within my articles, it’s still very hard (and not kosher in a way) to display the opinions and emotions that I have concerning both the local and national music scene, but life sometimes has other plans. Today, I became excited when Rob Holbert’s email concerning the Nappie Blogs arrived in my in-box. Now that someone has gone to the trouble to create a blog for me, I feel that the only way that the debt can be paid is by using this popular mode of communication to the fullest extent, which I will do as much as my numerous occupations will allow.
Currently, I have worked in many different facets of the music world. I’ve promoted shows and done graphics for a couple of CD’s and many posters. I’ve managed bands, been a fan, sold merch, and (of course) been a music journalist. Over the past few years, I’ve even been a member of two local bands. About the only thing that I’ve never done is run a label, which at this point is not attractive to me whatsoever. Does that make some kind of music expert? Hell, no! Do I fancy myself some sort of undiscovered music industry genius? Yeah, right! But I have seen some interesting shit and can give some insight into the industry. So, I plan on using this blog to give both music veterans and scene newbies a taste of my personal opinion on the music world, an insight into some of my experiences that I can’t really write about in the Nappie due to content and length, and try to expose some of the negative sides of the music industry. Believe me, there are plenty!
Please feel free to give feedback. I’m not scared of criticism. In this line of work, the complaints are to be expected and noted, and the compliments will be welcomed with open arms because they can be few and far between. I didn’t even really think people read my stuff until people came up and told me, “Hey, I read what you wrote…”
So, kick off your shoes and sit a spell. I look forward to hearing from each and every one of you!
OK, I’ve been hearing all week that “Today’s the Day” for the Northrop/EADS v. Boeing announcement. So I’m skeptical. But I did hear again this a.m. from a quasi-reliable source that it’s going to happen after the stock market closes today and will be a split of the contract between us and them.
I’ve thought all along this baby will eventually be split. It’s too much money and too big an opportunity for Washington to make everyone happy. (Unless you start thinking about how much money is being spent.)
Even a split would be HUGE for Mobile. It gets us into real aerospace production and puts lots of jobs just five minutes from downtown.
If you drive by Bienville Square and see the Chamber of Commerce leadership doing cannonballs into the fountain at about 5 p.m., you’ll know we got it.
Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed.