Idiom Killed American Art

Remember back to your Kindergarten days when you’d learn a new song based on the melody or tune of an old song? Well, 1981 gave us “Video Killed the Radio Star” and it was not only the first music video to air on MTV, but the chorus melody works well with the title of this muse on culture. Idiom killed American art. Try it, you’ll see.

Like most years, I watched the 49th Annual Grammy Awards this year on television with hopes of getting to see some of my favorite artists perform live. And that did happen a few times. Other times it felt like the Grammy’s had become a parody of itself. More often than not, it seemed a little surreal to me.

At a certain point during the television broadcast, vocalist Natalie Cole and jazz artist Ornette Coleman came up to the stage. Natalie Cole was giving Ornette Coleman a Lifetime Achievement Award for is impact and contribution to jazz music. Ornette Coleman is the father of free jazz – it’s a major part of jazz history. Now please keep in the back of your mind that jazz music is an American art form. Rock and roll and most other forms of American music find their roots in jazz music – it is truly American. During the presentation of this award to Ornette, you could see the show producers scooting vocalist Carrie Underwood to her seat for her camera shot when her name was to be announced as a nominee for the upcoming award. After Ornette got his ‘15 seconds of fame’, he and Natalie Cole proceeded to announce the nominees for the Best New Artist category. The award for Best New Artist went to Carrie Underwood. At this point, Carrie Underwood comes up to the stage and right when you think she was going to say something to either Natalie Cole or Ornette Coleman, she blazes a trail right past them, takes her award and begins her acceptance speech.

Now I totally understand that Ms. Underwood was under a time constraint for her acceptance speech, but most of the time, the award recipient does say something to the folks announcing the award category. It’s almost a given, right?

At that moment, I heard in my head “American Idol does not recognize an American artist”. I kept thinking about it. America’s idols are not able to recognize American artists. I continued to ponder and watch.

Ornette Coleman received a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the American art form of jazz music. But, somehow in that moment, I felt like I was watching a mock-umentary when Ms. Underwood received her Grammy from Ornette and said NOTHING to him. She went straight to her acceptance speech.....

Ignorance is bliss, right? Or is it just ignorance.

A few weeks ago, I was watching PBS and they were showing the Ken Burns special about the history of jazz music. While talking about Louis Armstrong (the great jazz trumpeter and vocalist), they told the story about how Louis did all that he could to show his disgust with the racial tension in the South during the 1960’s. His public display of disagreement got to the point where promoters were canceling Louis’ performances and his wife was even questioning him. The narrator mentioned that it was because Louis saw that jazz music represented the ultimate of freedom available in America that he felt it necessary to take a stand against racism.

The combination of this Grammy encounter and the thoughts about Louis Armstrong brought about these questions:

First, if jazz music represents the ultimate of freedom available to us as Americans, what does pop music (or culture) represent? And secondly, if jazz music represents the ultimate of freedom available to us as Americans, what is being passed along to the next generation?

Is ignorance is bliss. Or is it just ignorance?

My friends, who know me well, know that I'm not a ‘jazz nazi’ or a jazz purist. I have a very broad taste in music, so don’t let the musical genre’s represented in this story or the artists mentioned get in the way of my larger concern. My concern is for our general lack of appreciating what is truly beautiful in life. Whether it is jazz music, art, nature, different cultures and peoples…the list could go on and on.

Has idiom killed America’s ability to appreciate art or things that are truly beautiful?

Has the American market place educated us to such a degree that we are in fact ignorant of real beauty?

What will keep you and I level headed and passionate about life when and if what we thought was real beauty was only a parody of the real thing?

More importantly, what are you and I passing on to the next generation of Americans?