Michael Jackson... "Just leave me alone..."

Even in death Michael Jackson.... is being persecuted by the media which both adored and despised him. I just thought that this very song written by MJ... spelled out what people should do at this time. We should... treat him like we would want to be treated.... remember the good things about him and his career.

"Leave Me Alone" Written and Composed by Michael Jackson.

"Aaow!-Hoo hoo!

I don't care what you talkin' 'bout baby
I don't care what you say
Don't you come walkin' beggin' back mama
I don't care anyway
Time after time I gave you all of my money
No excuses to make
Ain't no mountain that I can't climb baby
All is going my way

('Cause there's a time when you're right)
(And you know you must fight)
Who's laughing baby, don't you know
(And there's the choice that we make)
(And this choice you will take)
Who's laughin' baby

So just leave me alone girl-leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Leave me alone-stop it!
Just stop doggin' me around
(Just stop doggin' me)

There was a time I used to say girl I need you
But who is sorry now
You really hurt, you used to take and deceive me
Now who is sorry now
You got a way of making me feel so sorry
I found out right away
Don't you come walkin'-beggin' I ain't lovin' you
Don't you get in my way

'Cause
(There's a time when you're right)
(And you know you must fight)
Who's laughing baby-don't you know?
(And there's the choice that we make)
(And this choice you must take)
Who's laughin' baby?

So just leave me alone-girl-leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Leave me alone-girl-leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Stop it!
Just stop doggin' me around
(Just stop doggin' me)

('Cause there's a time when you're right)
(And you know you must fight)
Who's laughing baby, don't you know, girl
(It's the choice that we make)
(And this choice you will take)
Who's laughin' baby

So just leave me alone-girl-leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Leave me alone-girl-leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Stop it!
Just stop doggin' me around
Leave me alone-girl-leave me alone
(Leave me alone)
(Leave me alone)
Leave me alone, girl
(Leave me alone)
Leave me alone-stop it!

Just stop doggin' me around
(Just stop doggin' me)
Don't come beggin' me
Don't come beggin'
Don't come lovin' me
Don't come beggin'
I love you
I don't want it
I don't...
I don't...
I don't...
I..., I..., I..., aaow!
Hee hee!
Don't come beggin' me
Don't come beggin'
Don't come lovin' me
Don't come beggin'
I love you
I don't want it
I don't need it."

Hard-bopping w/ Derrick Gardner and the Jazz Prophets

Here is the article, and I truly hope you enjoy it... Check it out at ( http://www.jazzreview.com/article/review-7176.html )

WWW.JAZZREVIEW.COM

Artist Interview by: Jarritt A Sheel


June 1, 2009 -
It’s Monday June 1, 2009 at approximately 6:14 pm and Derrick Gardner, the proverbial titan of hard-bop, is on a journey. After visiting his mother Dr. Effie Gardner (classically trained pianist) and a week long stint (gigging) in New York City, he is traveling across country to do what he does best… playing JAZZ! Gardner, at full speed, has hit the road literally…traveling almost nonstop for the past couple of weeks to promote his latest work, Echoes of Ethnicity.

Gardner recently gave up his professorship at Michigan State University to pursue his performing career full-time again. Over the years, he found himself splitting his duties of teaching at MSU with a stellar jazz studies faculty headed by Rodney Whitaker (bass), and performing with some of the most sought after musicians around the world. . .along with writing/performing with his own great band over the course of 18 years of his professional career. His recording as leader of the Jazz Prophets on Echoes of Ethnicity proves to be another spectacular high point in a career that has placed him among such awe-inspiring bands as Harry Connick, Jr., the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, Frank Foster, Slide Hampton, Stefon Harris, and last, but definitely not least, the Count Basie Orchestra. In this, the 18th year of the Jazz Prophets' voyage is where our interview begins.

For a brief moment ,Gardner’s GPS system interrupts us as it mechanically barks out directions. This however, doesn’t stop Derrick from spitting out pearls of wisdom about jazz music for the audience at JAZZREVIEW. The Echoes of Ethnicity sound is soulful, funky, and the epitome of what hard-bop would have become in the setting of a five horn front line. Sultry, sensuous, and very reminiscent of the late 1950’s and 60’s, hard-bop ensembles blend with a hint of the new and refreshing mix of unexplored territory interjected by Gardner himself.

When asked about his musical influences and who really helped mold him in regards to compositing and arranging, Gardner replied, “My father would definitely have to be the first on my list. He was arranging and composing way back when I was a child. He has given me advice and help over the years with creativity and [how to develop] a listening ear. . .”

Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley, David Baker and Frank Foster round out the list of Gardner's other arranging/compositional influences. He recounts his time with Foster. “‘Fost’ would be in front of the band bus (Basie) with a book of manuscript paper and a felt tip pen... without a keyboard. I would ask him to check out the score and when I finally got it back, the new ‘Frank Foster Picasso’ would help open up my hearing and creativity as far as the voicings were concerned and instrumentation. I would go back to the front of the bus until I didn’t have as much blood on the canvas.”

Baker had a huge influence on Gardner’s composition as a musician. He says of that experience and others like it, “I was very fortunate to be able to get all the information directly from the horse’s mouth. Talking directly to the greats and asking question is an invaluable opportunity. The music recordings of Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Orchestra, Oliver Nelson, Horace Silver, Slide Hampton, and Frank Foster have heavily influenced me. What really impressed me the most was that they all had a distinct sound. You have to develop a voice, and the easiest way would be through improvisation, and that ranges to the hardest composition."

As to the writing influences on the Jazz Prophet’s newest album Echoes of Ethnicity, they range from Afro-Cuban music, Freddie Hubbard, Parliament Funkadelics, Sam Rivers, Bar Clays, Thad Jones, Earth Wind & Fire, Sly and the Family Stone, Woody Shaw, Miles Davis, and Roberta Flack…definitely an eclectic mix, a mix where the listener is treated to a variety of ethnic musical tastes. “I didn’t really come up with the name of the CD until I finished and saw that the tunes and subject matter harkened back to the various cultures. The title basically comes from the programming of the tunes, of which five various ethnicities harken back to Freddie Hubbard’s Melting Pot.

Derrick leads the writing for the ensemble cast, but the composition/arranging is rounded out by a set of great writers, brother Vince Gardner(trombone) and Rob Dixon (tenor sax). All three writers take this revamped ensemble on a trek that ultimately takes the listener to a variety of destinations. The first thing that pulls the listener in is the rich and full sound that the five horn line up gives the arranger/composer. The ensemble, plus two, has added alto and baritone sax to the line up, which adds a depth and fullness not easily attained with the usual three-horn line up the band has enjoyed for the past 17 years. “I always wanted to do an octet recording that was due the harmonic possibilities that having five horns out front has, but my true writing style lies within the sextet with three horn up front.”

This album marks a new place in Gardner’s career. He is refreshed and ready for the challenge of stepping back onto the scene full-time. “Right now, I am in a very great place. This moment I am in a kind of transition of sorts…venturing out of the educational world and into the full-time performing world once more. I feel very good about getting back on the hustle and getting in the chow line.” Derrick Gardner has now stepped back into the line for more chow.




Jarritt Ahmed Sheel
B.S. Music '05
M.M. Jazz Studies '08
jsheelmusic@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/jarrittsheelmusic
815-793-6179

This is the prose of Antonia Sheel, my wife, which she wrote about my master degree graduate recital a little more than a year ago. I love you Antonia!!!

The Recital

-by Mrs. Antonia Sheel (then Antonia Winston)

"Every note he played was for me. His love blared through that horn and I knew… He was the man I would spend the rest of my life with. The only man for me and somehow even with the distance...with him on stage and me there in my seat, we were connected. Deep, strong, eternally. My heart fluttered at the thought. How was it possible that such melodic sounds could come out of a piece of metal?

“It’s a piece of metal.…Do you know how hard it is to blow through a piece of metal and make a sound…I mean, it’s unnatural.”

Yet, as unnatural as it was, he made it sound absolutely heavenly.

I was awakened from my trance-like state of bliss by soft baby strokes on my back. He patted it like he was saying goodbye and for a brief moment I felt like it really was. Confusion set in because how could I be feeling so good, yet so bad all within the same moment. We both knew this was our end. Tears welled up in my eyes and one rolled gently down my chubby cheek and landed in my lap. I was no longer his little girl and I could feel it. I was indeed a woman.

Part of me wanted to look over and see if his eyes were filled too, but he’s a man and ‘men aren’t supposed to cry’ as he had told me before…so we laughed instead.

The laugh was deep and hard…like it was coming from the gut. You know how your 8^th grade drama teacher tells you to belt out lines from the gut…’with some bravdo.’ It was a laugh like that…a laugh to hide the pain.

The set ended and we clapped wildly. Although, we would never be the same again, that quiet moment in the loud bar, filled with those precious sounds of love reverberating off of a gold trumpet, spoke volumes.

Tears could not and would not ruin such a divine evening."

“Fat Time” New Morning: The Paris Concert by Jarritt Sheel

Mike Stern plays the guitar! (Space)…. This is a simple understatement, and if you don’t know anything about Mike Stern, and his amazing ability to take the electric guitar and turn a tune on its ear then… saying “Mike Stern plays the guitar” will be lost on you. This fantastic conduit to creativity we call Mike Stern, stands straddling several musical genres with feet firmly planted in blues and swing. All the while he remains a member of the vanguard of jazz music and electric guitar. Stern delivers platinum with his latest documented effort, a DVD called “New Morning: The Paris Concert.” Within the DVD the viewer will find definitive proof that this alumni ofBilly Cobham’s Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Miles Davis’s 80’s band, Michael Brecker’squintet, and Joe Henderson’s group is a certified jazz legend. The Thursday evening that I spoke with Mr. Stern, he was either on the way from or trying to rest from the hectic schedule of recording new compositions or touring around the world. This evening he was happy to talk about his music career, the experience playing with Miles Davis, his musical heroes, being sober well over a decade and counting, and family. He sounded tired, but he still was gracious and inviting to this fellow musician that was and still is enamored of his playing. We spoke for most of the evening about his new DVD which features such great musicians as Dave Weckl on Drums, Tom Kennedy on Electric Bass, Bob Franceschini on Saxophone, and Mike Stern on Electric Guitar. We spoke about what a great cast of characters he had assembled for this recording date, the original tunes, and their influences. The vibe created by the band on stage seemed effortless and very comfortable from the first tune of the set “Tumble Home”, all the way to the last number “Chromazone.” You can tell that the group was seasoned and well acquainted. Each member had an enduring association with Mike from back in the day. When asking Stern about the chemistry that the band had on stage his reply was, “Chemistry, well this band is a great grouping of authenticity. Authentic love of the music is important when you perform for an audience. The audience can tell when you aren’t being truthful with yourself or more importantly with them. Each member of the band has a real love of music and I truly believe that music should come straight from the heart.” When watching the DVD you can tell that Stern has been influenced by some really great musicians that are still here on earth and some great musical legends that have past on to the great festival in the sky. You can see and hear him being hugely influenced by musical legends such as Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, to name a few, in his every performance. So, what does Stern want people to walk away with after they see him perform, “When I was performing with Miles he would always say ‘You might catch some one tonight’. I want the music to connect to people reach people every time I or my group performs. I want them to walk away with the same joy, hope and love that I put into my music.” With some one of Stern’s stature, you have to truly admire his talent, his ability to communicate a beautiful line, his talent for writing great songs, his indomitable spirit to over come drug addiction, and above all his love for life and music. During the interview Mike spoke candidly about his family & life. When asked about inspiration to create and grow as a musician he attributed a great majority to his mother, a classically trained pianist, who played a huge role in his musical maturation, along with his adoring wife Leni that has been by his side, for the ride, for the past 30 years. “I have found that life influences music, and that it is not just music influencing other music. I’ve learned from music and life that you should be positive, and that the deeper you get into the music, it allows you the ability to appreciate art and all other forms of expression.” With this new concert DVD “New Morning-The Paris Concert” and his soon to be released LP “Big Neighborhood” through Heads Up Records, Stern has knowingly or unknowingly followed in the footsteps of his mentor/former bandleader Miles Davis. Like Miles he has continued to be in the vanguard leading the way for the innovation and progress of jazz music over 5 continents for the last 3 decades. This progress has been evident in every CD, DVD, and live performance that Stern is part of. No longer can his success be soli attributed to these great musical association with the likes of Miles, Brecker, Henderson, Cobham but rather he has become the association to be made with. Stern has pasted from the status of great side-man into the status of jazz great during the past 30 years. “New Morning - The Paris Concert DVD” is a documentation of what Miles Davis once called his “Fat Time” referring to Stern’s ability to interpret any groove or tempo into a lay back swinging solo. Again… Stern has delivered the “Fat Time.”

Getting Married... is GREAT!!!

Ode to Antonia...

I just wanted to send you this message today. I wanted to take time and draw this elaborate picture of who you are to me and how I feel. I thought and thought and thought about the best words and phrases that would make you smile. I pondered about the affect my selection and order of these words would affect the total outcome of this email. I then thought back about first time I ever sent you a message on facebook. I thought how I was so relaxed and casual about leaving a poke or message for someone that would one day become so important in my life. Someone whom I could build life with and around. Someone I could have children with and grow old.

I then threw all that conjecture and mulled ideas away and just thought from the heart. I could only come up with one phrase that would sum up how I feel in a succinct way. "I LOVE YOU." I really and truly do love you in a unequivocal way. With out doubt... no second thought or worries. I only carry with me the thoughts that I want to make you happier than you've ever been. I want to treat you better than better, and better than best. "I LOVE YOU" is the only phrase that give life to the air I breath and spring in my step. It is a freeing moment... something that only comes around when you speak it into existence. You are the epitome of beauty and elegance. You radiate charm, class and intelligence. You are the woman that men only dream about and wish upon a star for. You are my one true "LOVE."

I leave you with this poem I wrote... over two years ago after poking you...

POEM by Jarritt Sheel

"This day and Time
Tippy toeing down the stairs
SHE began to realize
The world was a bigger place
It wasn't small as a bread box nor big as the universe
But big all the same
SHE stared in the mirror
And peered into HER own eyes
Pupils widening with transfixed glare
Listening to a kettle boiling over

SHE turns HER attention to the willows outside of HER window
Contemplating opening the glass SHE is looking thru
Hooked in place SHE is
Like a 160 pound marlin off the coast of New Guinea
The rhythm of the weeds is reeling HER in
The thicket waves to HER
Mocking HER
The sound of waves crashing invites HER in
Mesmerizing HER and hypnotically putting HER in a trance
SHE finally wakes up
Standing on the edge of reality and allusion
One foot here and one foot there
SHE steps forward into the light

SHE blinks and blinks
Blinks, blinks, blinks, blinks...
And then carefully widens here glance to see the beach
Waters sparkling and salty smells of brine and fresh air swirling all around
Delighting HER nose
Sunshine beaming down on HER
At that very moment SHE realizes that the WORLD was a bigger place than she once believed
It is bigger than a bread box and smaller than the universe
SHE is okay with that"

Alyssa Marie Aviles Photo Shoot 2009

Government Bail-Out of the Economy

Bail-Out....

I never thought I would live to see another great recession which may or may not lead to another depression in the economy of the United States of America. I also thought I might not live to see person of mixed heritage, yes he is African (Kenyan) and Caucasian, become the 44th president of the U.S. of A., but it happened! The world is this very unpredictable place and who knows what can happen at any given time or place.  

What is money? The money we hold, in some of our hands..., daily is merely a note of tender that is like a weird bartering system. We barter our time in our daily lives spent at mindless jobs for these notes of tender. We then turn around and places these bills,.. in the hands of others, bill collectors and businesses we shop at,  in their possession in trade of product. The value of these bills is invested in the up or down turn of the petroleum market... which at this moment is being phased out of the majority strangle hold it has had on the world's economy since just after the industrial revolution. WOW... that all seems more like a scam everyday ... right? 

Well, right now the economy s under distress and needs our, citizens of the USA help, We need to change of the next several years, the way we operate and more importantly spend these notes of purchase/tender. Well... the senators and representatives we have elected into office are faced with an overwhelming decision to pass a 800 Billion dollar bill to invest our money back into our economy. This bill will, in a very brief summation, give us back the freedom and independence we once shared as the most revolutionary state in the free world. We haven't they passed it? Lobbyist, the fear that it might not be popular and therefore make them unelectable the next term, further push the economy into the hole, or...? The reality is that no one truly knows what will happen and one thing is for sure... that no one knows anything. I'm so surprised that experts are really not the absolute know-everything in their subject areas. At best we should really call them "know-alots-but-not-absolutely-sure-perts." 

So, lets put pressure on the people that represent us and make them pass the bill and amend the areas of that need fixing through out the process and stop making us wait for some cure all answer that might not come in time. the reality is that for every moment we wait the amount of debt that every American holds expands by like dollars. this amount most likely is beyond the amount that typically each of us earn per hour. Support your new president and help yourself, because no matter what you do... what your profession is, investments you've made, your wealth... this down turn will affect everyone. 

Please push the bill!!!!

  

 

The Dreamer

"The Dreamer"

by Jarritt Sheel 

I have a dream
The dream that only a dreamer can dream
A dream of a revolution
I dream of a revolution that tears asunder
The bonds that bind our hands and feet

These bonds have dug in and cut deep
Deep into the meat of the matter
The perpetrator takes out gun and splatters
Gray matter on wall

Of those standing up to stand against all wrong

The prepetrator

Whips and beats
Making us contort and eat 

Humble pie
Denying us life and what comes with it
HE covers mine eyes
Then trys to hide the horrors performed on us
Presenting one hand to deceive and the other one to trick
Not treat
Putting up fences
That seperate me from you.

The revolution

That was televised and has been in reruns for 30 years
That revolves, evolves, and progresses
The idea of being people
Shout, scream, pout, taut, cry
Stand up..... getting outta my chair
To
Stand up and say something, something...
Do more than dream
Lead, fight for rights, and do right
By every human.

This is more than a mere dream
I live in realistic reality
Knowing that life is but a mirror of your inner being
What we dream inside comes out
No longer is it filmed in black and white
Now... filmed in color
Giving us the full spectrum of what we are

What we can be
We can even go back and change what was written about the past and put it in
Technicolor

I dream in color most nights
Even when I think of the fights
For my rights and yours
Knowing that knowing wasn't enough
Grade school bullies still get away with murder

But now the dream is real
We take two steps forward and none back
There is no more get out of jail free card for the elite
We are all fucked...
Because a shrub smaller than a tree decided for me

But there is light at the end of the tunnel
It is faith... not in one man
The faith I have is in God 
The faith that God has given us inner beauty
Each one of us knows right from wrong
Bad from Good

So
Now it is our time to live out those dreams

Making dreams into reality
And to make reality live like it were a dream
Stand up and shout
Continue to fight for our rights
And the dream

The Politics of Hip Hop Movement: How Barck Obama's election to the highest political post on earth is the direct reflection of the music

Hip Hop:
Pronunciation:\ˈhip-ˌhäp\
Function:noun
Etymology: perhaps from 4hip + 1hop
Date: 1982
1: a subculture especially of inner-city youths who are typically devotees of rap music
2: the stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rap ; also : rap together with this music— hip–hop adjective


America is a beautiful shining beacon in the political landscape we call the World. Ever since 1776, we have been a land of opportunity and change. Rebels,... from the start and the epicenter of the greatest example of democracy ever perpetrated in the last 300 years of human existence. AMERICA.. the land of the free and the home of the brave. 305 Million people from different places around the world. Who would've thought that one day in the history of mankind... people would decided to live together in harmony. Now it ain't pretty all the tine nor is it perfect, but freedom and the ability to share with others of backgrounds different than yours... could only be described as a dream over 400 years ago. 

Like many other countries we are home to many folk music, and some of the most loved in all the world. Blue Grass, Country, Rock & Roll, Blues, Jazz, and most recently Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop is not just a genre of popular American music, but a form of folk music that speaks to the American experience. Like all folk music, there is usually a message wrapped inside every song. It matters not how deep the message is, but it matters that the speaker has the opportunity to say it. Hip-Hop , like Jazz, Funk, Rock & Roll has its own culture. 

"Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society."[3] As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, games, norms of behavior such as law and morality, and systems of belief as well as the art."  

Culture is made up of 5 different elements which are; Dance, Politics, Clothing, Music, and Art. Culture and the combining of the various elements contained in American society is beautiful. America, the melting pot of culture and social norms. America, which saw the beginning of integration on a mass level and the place where all the racial intolerance's have to be destroyed. The history of this music comes from parties and social gatherings in the Bronx area of New York City. This is where the community would get together on weekends or evenings and celebrate with a dee jay who would spin hits and pop favorites. The later development would be a rap element to the hip and hop of the beat. Later the technique of the turntablist would develop into a virtuoso level and become Scratching. After almost 40 years of existence Hip-Hop has still retained some of its original sting and pop. this music still has artist that make it there point to create danceable hits and while doing that remain a tool of the people and speak out about various injustices. Even though, this is not the popular sentiment among artist there are still many that hold the torch of individuality/rebellion that was present in Hip-Hop from the very beginning. 

Hip-Hopcracy, .... is the politic commentary and movement that is part of the hip-hop culture specifically.  Political commentary about the hip hop generation and its affect on the American political system is a hot topic these days. People are starting to realize that the music and culture is something that is shared among more than African-American audiences. This is the first music to has its beginning exposed to global audiences via TV and Internet. The audience encompasses such a huge variety of racial & cultural background, and sexual preferences. Hip-Hop is everyone and has a type or brand that fits you. It is one if the only forms of music that does not need to be fused with others in order to have elements of some many other forms. The foundation of Hip-Hop is the Sample, so... you can have anything present in a track just as long as it is hot. The politics of Hip-Hop are all about the youth movement in America. Political change or unrest typically comes from the youth movement just like Hip-Hop... is a youthful culture. You can see it in the fact that most hip-hop artist are under the age of 30 years old and their fame usually fades after the age of 35. Many artist find it hard to stay new and different, but this art form is about Change and being revolutionary. It is about technological advances i.e. turntables, pro tools, sampling, beat machines, etc. 

Enter the 2008 presidential election where John McCain and Barack Obama were the republican and democratic nominees. From the beginning many knew that John McCain represented the Old Gard and Barack Obama represented, even though he is 47 years old, the state of the art and revolutionary change that must take place in America. The change that is needed for this country to survive in this new era of human existence. That is where the Hip- Hop political movement comes in.  Youth, the young, the young people of America finally took a hold of the changes that happen in America. They stood up and instead of fighting the bureaucracy that is government, they became united and used it to their advantage. This is what Hip-Hop is all about. This music, we call Hip-Hop, like all other folk musics is about telling a story of the people. This folk story finally came to a head and we finally decided out of despearation,.. to do something about. This time we all decided to... face the music and stand up and vote our conscience. 

This is the beginning of how Hip-Hop music changed the political climate of the world! Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Hip-Hopcracy...!!!!

Freddie Hubbard, a jazz legend dies at 70

Today the world mourns the death of a great jazz musician. Freddie Hubbard, who suffered a heart attack on Nov 26, 2008, dies at age 70 in Sherman Oaks, CA. Hubbard, whose career looks like a "whose who" of jazz music, played with such jazz greats as John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey to name a few. Hubbard, who had recently begun performing semi-regularly, again has had a long and storied career.

Born on April 7, 1938 in Indianapolis, IN Freddie Hubbard has been hailed as one of the seminal voices in Hard-Bop, and Post-Bop jazz styles. An extraordinary trumpet player who began his music career in the Indianapolis area studying with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra's principal trumpet player and working alongside the Montgomery brothers (Wes & Monk Montgomery). In 1958 at the age 20, he moved to New York city where he began working with jazz greats like Philly Jo Jones, Quincy Jones, Sony Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Eric Dolphy, & Slide Hampton helped polish this young man into a ferocious lion of a musician. From there Hubbard would go onto release; Open Sesame, Goin' Up, Hub Cap, Ole Coltrane, Africa Brass, Ready for Freddie.

After playing with Hank Mobley, Jimmy Heath, and going onto replace Lee Morgan in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Hubbard would change his style to reflect less of the Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan and more of the modern day influences in music. During the 60’s Freddie would be apart of some of the greatest jazz recordings ever; Maiden Voyage, Free Jazz, Ascension, Speak No Evil, and The Blues and the Abstract Truth. This experience during this portion of Hubbard’s career would prove important. During this time he would be bandleader on eight albums, sideman on twenty-eight albums.

The 1970’s would the era of Hubbard’s career that would gain him the most acclaim as member of the VSOP (Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams) band and his recordings with CTI records. While with CTI records Hubbard would record First Light (which garnered him a Grammy award in 1972), Straight Life, and Sky Dive. This period is when he would embrace free jazz even more and eventually venture into mixing Funk, R&B, and Jazz together in his most celebrated recording Red Clay.

The 1980’s would again prove to be an important period in Hubbard’s career. This time he would tour to no end and do a furious festival schedule with the likes of Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, teaming up and recording again with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Elvin Jones, Woody Shaw, and Rufus Reid to name a few. This hectic schedule would lead to the health problems he would face in the early 1990’s. Abuse to his body from a number of sources would contribute to his decline in playing during this period. In 1992 he would cause a almost career ending injury to his lips and never again record at the same level or virtuosity, even though his spot in jazz history had all ready been assured through his long list of recordings.

In 2006 Hubbard would again be honored like so many other times in his life, this time by the National Endowment of the Arts with the Jazz Masters Award. Since then he would have a small number of recording dates and performances with younger jazz musicians, but would never again see glory years like earlier in his career.

On December 29, 2008, Hubbard’s hometown newspaper, the Indianapolis Star reported that Hubbard had passed away in Sherman Oaks, California from complications due to the heart attack suffered in November of this year. The music world morns a huge lost in jazz and an even larger lose in the jazz trumpet lineage. In a time in American Music history when music is no longer taught at the level it was in Hubbard’s day, we have lost a great iconic member of the music jazz family and part of the fabric of jazz music history. He will be missed

Please watch this...

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1381640171/bclid1385224672/bctid1385609639

Please watch this...

Nov. 4, 2008--

A new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

President-elect Barack Obama

We have all heard stories about those few magical transformative moments in African-American history, extraordinary ritual occasions through which the geographically and socially diverse black community—a nation within a nation, really—molds itself into one united body, determined to achieve one great social purpose and to bear witness to the process by which this grand achievement occurs.

The first time was New Year's Day in 1863, when tens of thousands of black people huddled together all over the North waiting to see if Abraham Lincoln would sign the Emancipation Proclamation. The second was the night of June 22, 1938, the storied rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, when black families and friends crowded around radios to listen and cheer as the Brown Bomber knocked out Schmeling in the first round. The third, of course, was Aug. 28, 1963, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed to the world that he had a dream, in the shadow of a brooding Lincoln, peering down on the assembled throng, while those of us who couldn't be with him in Washington sat around our black-and-white television sets, bound together by King's melodious voice through our tears and with quickened-flesh.


But we have never seen anything like this. Nothing could have prepared any of us for the eruption (and, yes, that is the word) of spontaneous celebration that manifested itself in black homes, gathering places and the streets of our communities when Sen. Barack Obama was declared President-elect Obama. From Harlem to Harvard, from Maine to Hawaii—and even Alaska—from "the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire … [to] Stone Mountain of Georgia," as Dr. King put it, each of us will always remember this moment, as will our children, whom we woke up to watch history being made.

My colleagues and I laughed and shouted, whooped and hollered, hugged each other and cried. My father waited 95 years to see this day happen, and when he called as results came in, I silently thanked God for allowing him to live long enough to cast his vote for the first black man to become president. And even he still can't quite believe it!

How many of our ancestors have given their lives—how many millions of slaves toiled in the fields in endlessly thankless and mindless labor—before this generation could live to see a black person become president? "How long, Lord?" the spiritual goes; "not long!" is the resounding response. What would Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois say if they could know what our people had at long last achieved? What would Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman say? What would Dr. King himself say? Would they say that all those lost hours of brutalizing toil and labor leading to spent, half-fulfilled lives, all those humiliations that our ancestors had to suffer through each and every day, all those slights and rebuffs and recriminations, all those rapes and murders, lynchings and assassinations, all those Jim Crow laws and protest marches, those snarling dogs and bone-breaking water hoses, all of those beatings and all of those killings, all of those black collective dreams deferred—that the unbearable pain of all of those tragedies had, in the end, been assuaged at least somewhat through Barack Obama's election? This certainly doesn't wipe that bloody slate clean. His victory is not redemption for all of this suffering; rather, it is the symbolic culmination of the black freedom struggle, the grand achievement of a great, collective dream. Would they say that surviving these horrors, hope against hope, was the price we had to pay to become truly free, to live to see—exactly 389 years after the first African slaves landed on these shores—that "great gettin' up morning" in 2008 when a black man—Barack Hussein Obama—was elected the first African-American president of the United States?

I think they would, resoundingly and with one voice proclaim, "Yes! Yes! And yes, again!" I believe they would tell us that it had been worth the price that we, collectively, have had to pay—the price of President-elect Obama's ticket.

On that first transformative day, when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Frederick Douglass, the greatest black orator in our history before Martin Luther King Jr., said that the day was not a day for speeches and "scarcely a day for prose." Rather, he noted, "it is a day for poetry and song, a new song." Over 3,000 people, black and white abolitionists together, waited for the news all day in Tremont Temple, a Baptist church a block from Boston Common. When a messenger burst in, after 11 p.m., and shouted, "It is coming! It is on the wires," the church went mad; Douglass recalled that "I never saw enthusiasm before. I never saw joy." And then he spontaneously led the crowd in singing "Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow," John Brown's favorite hymn:

Blow ye the trumpet, blow!

The gladly solemn sound

Let all the nations know,

To earth's remotest bound:



The year of jubilee is come!

The year of jubilee is come!

Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

t that moment, an entire race, one that in 1863 in the United States comprised 4.4 million souls, became a unified people, breathing with one heart, speaking with one voice, united in mind and spirit, all their aspirations concentrated into a laser beam of almost blind hope and desperate anticipation.

It is astounding to think that many of us today—myself included—can remember when it was a huge deal for a black man or woman to enter the White House through the front door, and not through the servants' entrance. Paul Cuffe, the wealthy sea captain, shipping merchant, and the earliest "Back to Africa" black colonist, will forever have the distinction of being the first black person to be invited to the White House for an audience with the president. Cuffe saw President James Madison at the White House on May 2, 1812, at precisely 11 a.m. and asked the president's intervention in recovering his famous brig Traveller, which had been impounded because officials said he had violated the embargo with Britain. Cuffe, after the Quaker fashion, called Madison "James"; "James," in turn, got Paul's brig back for him, probably because Cuffe and Madison both favored the emigration of freed slaves back to Africa. (Three years later, on Dec. 10, 1815, Cuffe used this ship to carry 38 black people from the United States to Sierra Leone.)

From Frederick Douglass, who visited Lincoln three times during his presidency (and every president thereafter until his death in 1895), to Soujourner Truth and Booker T. Washington, each prominent black visitor to the White House caused people to celebrate another "victory for the race." Blacks became frequent visitors to Franklin Roosevelt's White House; FDR even had a "Kitchen Cabinet" through which blacks could communicate the needs of their people. Because of the civil rights movement, Lyndon Johnson had a slew of black visitors, as well. During Bill Clinton's presidency, I attended a White House reception with so many black political, academic and community leaders that it occurred to me that there hadn't been as many black people in the Executive Mansion perhaps since slavery. Everyone laughed at the joke, because they knew, painfully, that it was true.

Visiting the White House is one thing; occupying the White House is quite another. And yet, African-American aspirations to the White House date back generations. The first black man put forward on a ticket as a political party's nominee for U.S. president was George Edwin Taylor, on the National Liberty Party ticket in 1904. Portions of his campaign document could have been written by Barack Obama:

"… in the light of the history of the past four years, with a Republican president in the executive chair, and both branches of Congress and a majority of the Supreme Court of the same political faith, we are confronted with the amazing fact that more than one-fifth of the race are actually disfranchised, robbed of all the rights, powers and benefits of true citizenship, we are forced to lay aside our prejudices, indeed, our personal wishes, and consult the higher demands of our manhood, the true interests of the country and our posterity, and act while we yet live, 'ere the time when it shall be too late. No other race of our strength would have quietly submitted to what we have during the past four years without a rebellion, a revolution, or an uprising."

The revolution that Taylor goes on to propose, he says, is one "not by physical force, but by the ballot," with the ultimate sign of the success being the election of the nation's first black president.


But given all of the racism to which black people were subjected following Reconstruction and throughout the first half of the 20th century, no one could actually envision a Negro becoming president—"not in our lifetimes," as our ancestors used to say. When James Earl Jones became America's first black fictional president in the 1972 film, "The Man," I remember thinking, "Imagine that!" His character, Douglass Dilman, the president pro tempore of the Senate, ascends to the presidency after the president and the speaker of the House are killed in a building collapse, and after the vice president declines the office due to advanced age and ill health. A fantasy if ever there was one, we thought. But that year, life would imitate art: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm attempted to transform "The Man" into "The Woman," becoming the first black woman to run for president in the Democratic Party. She received 152 first-ballot votes at the Democratic National Convention. Then, in 1988, Jesse Jackson got 1,219 delegate votes at the Democratic convention, 29 percent of the total, coming in second only to the nominee, Michael Dukakis.

The award for prescience, however, goes to Jacob K. Javits, the liberal Republican senator from New York who, incredibly, just a year after the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, predicted that the first black president would be elected in the year 2000. In an essay titled "Integration from the Top Down" printed in Esquire magazine in 1958, he wrote:

"What manner of man will this be, this possible Negro Presidential candidate of 2000? Undoubtedly, he will be well-educated. He will be well-traveled and have a keen grasp of his country's role in the world and its relationships. He will be a dedicated internationalist with working comprehension of the intricacies of foreign aid, technical assistance and reciprocal trade. … Assuredly, though, despite his other characteristics, he will have developed the fortitude to withstand the vicious smear attacks that came his way as he fought to the top in government and politics … those in the vanguard may expect to be the targets for scurrilous attacks, as the hate mongers, in the last ditch efforts, spew their verbal and written poison."

In the same essay, Javits predicted both the election of a black senator and the appointment of the first black Supreme Court justice by 1968. Edward Brooke was elected to the Senate by Massachusetts voters in 1966. Thurgood Marshall was confirmed in 1967. Javits also predicted that the House of Representatives would have "between thirty and forty qualified Negroes" in the 106th Congress in 2000. In fact, there were 37 black U.S. representatives, among them 12 women.

Sen. Javits was one very keen prognosticator. When we consider the characteristics that he insisted the first black president must possess—he must be well-educated, well-traveled, have a keen grasp of his country's role in the world, be a dedicated internationalist and have a very thick skin—it is astonishing how accurately he is describing the background and character of Barack Obama.

I wish we could say that Barack Obama's election will magically reduce the numbers of teenage pregnancies or the level of drug addiction in the black community. I wish we could say that what happened last night will suddenly make black children learn to read and write as if their lives depended on it, and that their high school completion rates will become the best in the country. I wish we could say that these things are about to happen, but I doubt that they will.

But there is one thing we can proclaim today, without question: that the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America means that "The Ultimate Color Line," as the subtitle of Javits' Esquire essay put it, has, at long last, been crossed. It has been crossed by our very first postmodern Race Man, a man who embraces his African cultural and genetic heritage so securely that he can transcend it, becoming the candidate of choice to tens of millions of Americans who do not look like him.

How does that make me feel? Like I've always imagined my father and his friends felt back in 1938, on the day that Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling. But ten thousand times better than that. All I can say is "Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound."

Changes has happened.... AMERICA!!!!

Obama:

Hello, Chicago.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.


We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Sen. McCain.

Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady Michelle Obama.

Sasha and Malia I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the new White House.

And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe, the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.

To my chief strategist David Axelrod who's been a partner with me every step of the way.

To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.

There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.

But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.


Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.