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slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
 Posted - 02/23/2010 : 07:14:31 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Kapila Kane
I wish to apologize...
Joni was a part of a Laurel Canyon scene I wished I'd been part of...Star Smoking youth/creators of new paths amidst the craziest times...sorta like now...
creating legends...but really just creating life and poetry in motion.
and for her, her art always shows through, whether through the beauty of her original poetry and song in her youthful folk style (using tunings), her grand leap into Tom Scott and Jazz forms, art, strong, intelligent political beliefs, and always finding artistic, poetic and musical innovations and new ways to illuminate an aspect of truth.
of course, we all get taken out of context, just I'm lucky enough to stay under the radar.
or is it off the radar?
till now.
and, of course, Lawrence is always clever, funny and within 20 ft. of the hoop/ ears.
Aloha truly,
fan of: Square roots people, and of Canadian blend.
I got into the periphery of that scene when I was working at McCabe's Guitar in Santa Monica and playing bass and Dobro for Mary McCaslin and Jim Ringer and others. It was very exciting - groups formed and morphed into other groups, and the level of songwriting was truly awesome! There were constant jam sessions around the table in the front room of McCabes, at the Troubador in Hollywood and various bars uo and down the canyons (Laurel and Topanga), concerts on the weekends, and parties! |
keaka |
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Lawrence
Ha`aha`a
USA
1597 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2010 : 10:57:37 AM
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quote:
Lawrence is always clever, funny and within 20 ft. of the hoop
20 feet!? Hey - I resemble that remark!! 
Anyway I never was any good at dribbling while running. Ain't no "Bassetball Jones" in me.
But I did get excited last year when album of the year was Herbie Hancock's "River", the first jazz album to win that category in about 40 years! Went right out and bought it, needless to say it consists mostly of Herbie's arrangements of Joni's works (with one Herbie original). Nice album, pretty "laid-back" (to use that old Laurel and Topanga Canyon slang).
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Mahope Kākou...
...El Lorenzo de Ondas Sonoras |
Edited by - Lawrence on 02/23/2010 10:58:33 AM |
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Tetapu
Akahai
China
98 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2010 : 4:25:23 PM
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i'm definitely one guy who hears personalities of artists within their songs.
and I totally will stop listening to an artist or group, or even watching their movies etc, if they come out with comments which reflect poorly on themselves, or their art in general
the thing about most musicians and all actors alike, is that we usually end up liking or even loving them based on someone else's work, the writers and producers mainly.
writers are the true heroes and should get get real credit, just because someone can act the part they wrote, read their words, sing their lines in a song, etc, we always seem to give them all the credit.
and its also the reason their personalities never line up with the song ethics.
so usually i dont hold them accountable to the song or movie itself, but i will just hate seeing or hearing their particular face or voice.
if they did write their own music or script, you wonder if you haven;t been following the pied piper or something, when its revealed that the music you love was created by some kook
its also the reason i love Hawaiian music so much, It's the spirit of the people, their aloha, their generosity, grace, etc..
in fact, i dont remember exactly the circumstances now, but I stopped listening to Willie K for some reason, some kind of personal characteristics i really disdained about his behavior, and i have no interest in listening to him until he changes his tune or something.
and whenever i hear the artist i dont like i just feel sick about the music and have to change it or turn it off, i cant even sit through a song..
but that's the only singer i can think of in Hawaiian music that made me feel like that. its also the reason I like Ozzie Kotani so much, he's such a nice likable guy.
I'm quite certain that if Ozzie was NOT a nice guy, some bad guy who hurts people or something, that i wouldnt even read his books or dvd anymore..
I bought Mark Hansens book, glad to see another Haole working to perpetuate Hawaiian Culture, i was really excited about it, and even though he seems like a good guy in general, i was turned off by his seemingly selfish, mainland, detached interests in creating his book, for his own little bookshop or something, that I have found it hard to study it at all, simply for that reason, and even his own renditions of spouting horn, and i think its aloha 'oe or something, i dont hear with much enthusiasm, i dont really like them actually, and i think its mainly to do with the artists personality. probably if those renditions were played created by Ozzie or someone with aloha, caring, empathy, and concern for the state of Hawaiian culture they would be my favorite renditions
its not that i want to dislike it, it just works on a more natural feeling, a subconscious level or something
you lose the feeling for the music.. u know what i mean?
and comments and attitudes like Joni's do the exact same thing.
over it.
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Na Ke Akua E Malama Kakou |
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Tetapu
Akahai
China
98 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2010 : 4:56:58 PM
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you know what this reminds me of?
that haole kid from maui or something who won the music contest hosted by paula abdul and that australian and the black guy, i forget the name..
anyway, it's probably not HE did this, but anyway, i was hanging around some mainlanders and they were playing the Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World song from that kid, or from a singer that was just like him, and they were telling me it was the original tune, and i told them, NO WAY, and i played IZ's version for them, and in a bout of racial inferiority, they actually got angry and tried to force the conversation to be that this kid was the original, and you know, just from the expressions on their faces etc, i know they already heard IZ's song, and they were tying to sweep it under the rug or something, so a white mainlander could get the credit, and that - only because they were unwilling to accept that it was done by a Hawaiian, a Hawaiian song.
that's what this Joni thing reminds me of, just some racist bigotry where the local natives are entertaining, amusing at best, but that they are incapable of receiving credit where a white person can fit in and take "legitimate" credit
i see this as blatant racism, and its definitely not the first of its kind, i've seen this kind of thing going on for a long time.
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Na Ke Akua E Malama Kakou |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2010 : 8:50:36 PM
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What about good people who make bad art? Clumsy lyrics, trite melodies, ill-formed sculptures, boring novels, predictable movies. Does their worthiness as humans make their art worthy? Why should the reverse be true?
The relationship between the person we interact with and who or whatever it is that creates the art work is complex and often paradoxical. Plenty of unpleasant or deeply flawed people have made very fine and moving works--Wagner was a stinker and an anti-Semite, Beethoven was bad-tempered, Liszt was a womanizer (though a priest), Elvis was drug-addled (hell, half the jazz world was drug-addled), John Lennon was known to be less than gracious. . . and the list goes on. (As did Liszt.)
At the risk of setting off a hoohah, I guarantee that among the creators of Hawaiian music one can find the whole range of human virtue and weakness, responsibility and irresponsibility, fidelity and faithlessness, selfishness and generosity. The fact that flawed, even deeply flawed people can still create works of great beauty is one of the mysteries and miracles of human nature. It's possible to deplore bad behavior without rejecting whatever good might come out of the same person.
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Tetapu
Akahai
China
98 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2010 : 9:41:53 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Russell Letson
What about good people who make bad art? Clumsy lyrics, trite melodies, ill-formed sculptures, boring novels, predictable movies. Does their worthiness as humans make their art worthy? Why should the reverse be true?
hmm
i dont tend to listen to crappy music, though i can appreciate that they put their sincere effort into it.
the 'reverse' of crappy music is good music, but then, that, like all art, is subjective. your definition of good music might be anything you can 'get down' to.
mine is slightly different.
likewise, your definition of 'good art' is no doubt world's apart from mine.
and i take it as a whole. the more i learn about something, the more i may or may not like it.
if i heard a poem, i might like it, but then if i learned that it was written by a man wrongly in prison, sentenced to die, separated from his true love forever, I would like it alot more.
thats taking it as a whole, and my view of it changes the more i learn about it.
i liked George Clooney until i learned more about his personality, and how its the opposite of most of the roles he portrays on film, so now i dislike him.
i found his acting was great in "O Brother, Where Art thou", when, in my ignorance, i took him for a person of similar characteristics to that which he was portraying in the film. In fact, it can be said that I liked him based on my ignorance, and my perceptions of him as a person. When I learned the truth about his personality, that knowledge brought more clarity to my opinion of whether or not i thought he was a good actor, and I dont like him anymore. in fact, i quite disdain him. nor do i even think his role in that movie is at all interesting any more, based on that knowledge and fuller truth which I've obtained.
same can be said for all art, music, poetry, philosophy, teachings, writings, etc.
if you discovered the leader of your education or religion, or even the leader of your country, was a corrupt dirty person who exploited small children and worse, would you continue to 'dig' his philosophies and teachings and cling to his doctrines?
no, because you take the person together with the creation.
quote:
Originally posted by Russell Letson
The relationship between the person we interact with and who or whatever it is that creates the art work is complex and often paradoxical. Plenty of unpleasant or deeply flawed people have made very fine and moving works--Wagner was a stinker and an anti-Semite, Beethoven was bad-tempered, Liszt was a womanizer (though a priest), Elvis was drug-addled (hell, half the jazz world was drug-addled), John Lennon was known to be less than gracious. . . and the list goes on. (As did Liszt.)
we can say that most "Creative People", that is people with a strong tendency towards creativity and expression, poetically, musically, visually, or in any other way, are most often people with a certain degree of trauma in their lives. people who need outlets for their pent up emotions or oppressed expressions, or their needs to let out feelings
a number of things can lead to that, heartbreak and love is the most common catalyst for igniting creative flames, and much poetry and and songs and art has been born out of love and Heart break. Other types of pain include people who have lived through wars or famines, or great oppressions or depressions, poverty, loss of loved ones, being orphaned, abandoned, abused, exploited, conquered, oppressed, and any number of other things.
sometimes, that trauma is self-inflicted, as in the case of the harm caused to the Central Nervous System by the abuse of drugs, and brain trauma caused by drugs and alcohol.
while drugs often lead to creativity, they are most often not the source, the source is the problem which caused the drug or alcohol abuse in the first place. but this isnt the 1970's anymore, and you arent trying to appeal to a nation of heroine addicts who think everything is "cool, man" or "groovy"
at any rate, the quality of what those people create is purely up to the individual exposed to it.
and if i found a piece of art drawn by charlse manson, i dont really care that it fetches a billion dollars, i'm sure to hate it, and that is my right. a right which i reserve.
and same holds true with any piece of music, sculpture, painting, poetry, cooking, writing, philosophy, ideology,
maybe its a good pizza, but if i found out the guy who made it didnt wash his hands after using the restroom before he made it, i'm guaranteed to hate it. even if i had already eaten the same pizza before i found out and said i liked it the first time.
and same goes with Brittney Spears, or Paris Hilton, or Edison Chan, or anyone else.
with the exception of Harrison Ford, i love that guy, i dont really care what kind of problems he has at home.
but that is the risk you run when being supported by millions of people's purchases of your art. you can enjoy the ride while it lasts, until the dirt appears, but depending on your genre and supporting buyers, that may increase sales for you.
it goes with the territory, if you have a "Screw the world" attitude, i hope you can support yourself, or have enough groupies with similar ideologies to buy your expressive art medium and make you money, otherwise, just stay in your garage.
and like wise, if you want to appeal to the mainstream public, or the Hawaiian Islanders, you are going to have to maintain a certain code of conduct, or a certain demeanor, or at least an image.
you can't be Jim Morrison on tour when you get up on a stage in front of Hawaiians. accept it, or get a job to support your radical need for random expression, because I'm NOT supporting it
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Na Ke Akua E Malama Kakou |
Edited by - Tetapu on 03/14/2010 11:43:20 PM |
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Tetapu
Akahai
China
98 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2010 : 10:02:45 PM
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what gets me more than anything is how these people often insult their supporting buyers
Joni was in the mainland, with delusions of grandeur, forgetting that is Islanders and Kama'aina who buy her music
is she just braindead?
she just cared about herself, her little interview, and thought she could get away with anything, like most crappy artists do, without thinking about who her actual supporters are
i hope she can earn enough money from the KKK to support her from now on, because Hawaii should be finished with her |
Na Ke Akua E Malama Kakou |
Edited by - Tetapu on 03/14/2010 10:03:13 PM |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 07:37:18 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Tetapu
anyway, it's probably not HE did this, but anyway, i was hanging around some mainlanders and they were playing the Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World song from that kid, or from a singer that was just like him, and they were telling me it was the original tune, and i told them, NO WAY, and i played IZ's version for them, and in a bout of racial inferiority, they actually got angry and tried to force the conversation to be that this kid was the original, and you know, just from the expressions on their faces etc, i know they already heard IZ's song, and they were tying to sweep it under the rug or something, so a white mainlander could get the credit, and that - only because they were unwilling to accept that it was done by a Hawaiian, a Hawaiian song.
that's what this Joni thing reminds me of, just some racist bigotry where the local natives are entertaining, amusing at best, but that they are incapable of receiving credit where a white person can fit in and take "legitimate" credit
i see this as blatant racism, and its definitely not the first of its kind, i've seen this kind of thing going on for a long time.
I, too, believe in giving credit where credit is due. But I wonder if we're giving credit to the right individuals for the whole "Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World" thing?
You used two turns of phrase which some might consider in conflict with each other: "original" and "Hawaiian song." If "Over The Rainbow" or "What A Wonderful World" were written in Hawai'i or written by Hawaiians, we might debate whether or not these are Hawaiian songs. But they were both written on the mainland before Iz was a glimmer in his mother's heart.
What Iz did to these songs constitutes arrangement - not composition. So while the mainlainders in question may not have given Iz credit for his arrangement, they really cannot be accused of racism. Just ignorance. This happens all the time - not just in Hawaiian music, but in all music. Performers who have never seen the sheet music or heard the original version of a song have no idea what part of the version they know came from the composer's pen and what part came from a performer when they arranged it. (An interesting sidenote to this is Patrick Landeza's article about "Hi'ilawe" in this month's Acoustic Guitar magazine. It's a great article, but one might take issue with stating that "Hi'ilawe" has an "A" section and a "B" section. It does not. What is cited as the "A" section in Patrick's tab is just Gabby noodling. That is arrangement - not composition.) This is part of the problem: Often a recording has been around so long and a performer becomes so identified with a song that a specific performance becomes emblazoned in our brains and we think that what that performer did with the song is the song.
I have never seen the following opinion expressed by anyone else in any public forum - possibly because it is a very unpopular opinion or, at least, a can of worms that others do not wish to open. But I wonder if it can be opened to a musical/intellectual debate that does not veer off into the emotional? Simply put, I have heard often the above argument that Iz is not given his due credit for his arrangements of these songs. I think that is a fair statement. I heard his arrangement used by the barber shop quartet (plus 'ukulele) on the sitcom Scrubs, but nobody credited it as "Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World (as arranged by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole)." But the irony is that Iz's arrangements of these songs in many ways bear no resemblance to the real "originals." The melodies of both songs have been reharmonized, and the lyrics of both songs have been changed - intentionally or unintentionally. So anyone who learned these songs by listening to Iz's versions has no idea what the real words or chords are.
So the question is about composer's intentions... The notion has been shared on this forum many times that a song should not be performed unless the performer knows everything they can know about the song - who wrote it, who it was written for, and under what circumstances, even contacting the haku mele if he or she is still with us. This, I have always assumed, means singing the melody and the lyrics the way the composer wrote them. So why should this not apply to a mainland pop song performed by a Hawaiian performer?
So I think there is a big difference between "a song performed by a Hawaiian" and "a Hawaiian song." Lots of definitions of "Hawaiian music" have been thrown around, and I don't think that "Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World" fits any of those definitions. (If Amy Hanaiali'i sings "Jingle Bells," is it suddenly a Hawaiian song?) Lots of songs have been co-opted by the local Hawaiian community. "Blue Darling," "Drinking Champagne," "Sweet Someone," and "For The Good Times" come to mind as the songs we sang at lu'au when I was growing up. But just because these songs are popular in Hawai'i doesn't make them Hawaiian songs.
Or does it?
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Join me for the history of Hawaiian music and its musicians at Ho`olohe Hou at www.hoolohehou.org. |
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hapakid
Luna Ho`omalu
USA
1533 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 07:49:12 AM
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A friend who grew up in Hawai'i said that for years she thought the Ka'au Crater Boys wrote the song "Brown-Eyed Girl."
Jesse |
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Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 08:05:40 AM
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Questions of authenticity and/or accuracy come up in just about every musical subculture I can think of. Jazz guys argue about how accurate the Real Book transcriptions are; bluegrassers argue about whether you should include a diminished chord; blues people argue endlessly about country and city and skin color; soul fans wonder about the blue-eyed variety; ancient-music people argue about violin bows and whether we really know how a medieval dance was arranged. And music sneaks around category boundaries and winds up modified and retitled, with the serial numbers filed off--lots of gypsy-jazz recordings include retitled and modified version of Tin Pan Alley standards that have been learned from records or on the bandstand and thus passed into the gypsy repertory, folk-style. Once music gets out into the wild, all kinds of wonderful and strange things happen, despite the best efforts of scholars and ASCAP to keep all the critters in the corral and properly branded.
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Peter Medeiros
`Olu`olu
546 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 08:55:19 AM
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| All of the world's music or those performances which could be described as music have these four attributes: melody, harmony, rhythm and form. The question should be What makes the music Hawaiian? |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 09:07:30 AM
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| Na`au |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 10:56:36 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Peter Medeiros
All of the world's music or those performances which could be described as music have these four attributes: melody, harmony, rhythm and form. The question should be What makes the music Hawaiian?
Precisely. Now comes the debate over what aspects of any of these four elements is uniquely Hawaiian and whether or not we can/should weigh one more heavily than another.
A David Nape composition is a thing of beauty. He used harmonic constructs never before used in Hawaiian music up to that point. He also wrote meandering melodies that he could only "bring home" by creating song structure so complex that it comprised an A, B, C, and sometimes a D section to encompass the many different turns in the melody. Was what David Nape wrote Hawaiian?
With regard to form, there is a commonly accepted instrumentation that we might think of as "Hawaiian." It does not include the calliope. If I play "Aloha 'Oe" on the calliope, is it still Hawaiian?
The Puerto Ricans are not an indigenous people of Hawai'i. But the infectious katchi katchi rhythms they brought with them infiltrated Hawaiian music in the 1950s/60s. Is Jesse Kalima's version of "'Ahulili" still Hawaiian?
In my mind, the purpose of the debate is not to answer the question. Answering the question without equivocation could be detrimental since as soon as we agree on what Hawaiian music is, someone is free to attack what Hawaiian music is not. And as soon as we have boundaries as to what a type of music can and cannot be, we stifle creativity, growth, freedom of expression, and the likelihood of perpetuating the culture. (Lao Tzu said that "to give a thing a name is to take away its beauty." He went on to say that as soon as we call a horse a "horse," all other horses will forever be compared to it.)
I am more interested to hear what people think Hawaiian music is not so that we can try to dispel some myths. One of the most ironic descriptions is "traditional Hawaiian music." Because if we pick any point in time as the starting point, what is "traditional" has a completely different meaning than at any other point in time. Lena Machado's recordings are long considered "traditional" Hawaiian music, but when she recorded them, they were considered quite adventurous (or even heretical). And as those of you who know me probably can guess, I am a fan of the heretics. 
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Join me for the history of Hawaiian music and its musicians at Ho`olohe Hou at www.hoolohehou.org. |
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salmonella
Lokahi
240 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 11:33:17 AM
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take a look at this wikipedia page and the list of known recordings of what a wonderful world. Seems like the only person that hasn't recorded it is Joni Mitchell.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Wonderful_World
interestingly to me in light of this current discussion, it was originally written by a couple of caucasians, one a jew, as an antidote to all the racial strife going on in America at the time. First recorded by, you guessed it, Louis Armstrong. The writers were jazz and big band people mostly, Louis, well, you know him. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 2:33:07 PM
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John Hartford ("Gentle on My Mind") said that style is based on limitations. Bats aren't used in basketball, etc. All different styles of music share the 4 things that Peter M mentioned. The ways the 4 things are comprised build the music. Music is communication. Hawaiian music should communicate an affinity to things Hawaiian, even if it's played by a bolohead haole on the mainland. As a communication, people must be kept in mind while playing, if not an audience, then those that taught it.
Music passes down through the years, generation to generation. Patterns can be discerned and added to and altered by personal creativity.
Yesterday's innovation is today's policy and tomorrow's hallowed tradition.
Being a human can be challenging. |
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Joni Mitchell's outrageous ideas about slack key
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