Buddy Miles, best known as the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, died last week. He was 60 years old.
In a long and varied career, Miles also worked with The Delfonics, The Ink Spots. Wilson Picket, Mike Bloomfield, Muddy Waters, Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana. He also did some time in prison, where he formed bands and continued to play.
By strange coincidence, Miles was the voice of The California Raisins in the 1980s TV commercials, which I recently blogged about.
* * * *
Canadian musician Jeff Healey died yesterday. I knew Healey from his 1988 debut album "See The Light," when he was strictly playing blues. Allan was writing about music (especially blues) at the time and did a story on him. One thing I remember well is critics asking Healey if he listened to Jose Feliciano, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, since those musicians were also blind!
At the time, I took no notice that Healey was Canadian. Only after moving to Canada and hearing his music on Jazz FM, the great Toronto-based jazz station, and hearing ads for his club, did I make the connection. That's when I learned he had released three CDs of traditional American jazz from the 1920s and 1930s, which was the music he loved best.
Healey had a famed music collection which included more than 25,000 78's. He owned a club in Toronto, where he played with his rock band one night a week and his jazz group on Saturday afternoons.
Healey's blindness was caused by cancer when he was an infant. He died of cancer at age 41.
* * * *
Today, March 3, is Music Freedom Day, a project of the organization Free Muse.
Music Freedom Day is meant to call attention to music censorship around the world, and to honour and highlight musicians who have been censored. Among many terrific pages at the Free Muse website, this one has links to videos of musicians talking about censorship.
If you've never thought about music censorship, here's a little intro.
Imagine the world without music. Or imagine a world where we are told what to play, what to sing and even what we may listen to in the privacy of our own homes. That world already exists. In more countries that you might imagine, musicians and composers are under threat. And that threat is growing.
In countries like Sudan, Afghanistan and China, violations of musician's rights to freedom of expression are commonplace. In the USA and Algeria, lobbying groups have succeeded in keeping popular music off the concert stage, and out of the media and retail. In ex-Yugoslavia musicians are often pawns in political dramas, and the possibility of free expression has been adversely affected.
Why Is Music Censored?
You may wonder why music is being censored. Why have musicians been tortured, jailed, exiled and even killed. Why have certain forms of music been silenced? It may be as simple as South African musician Johnny Clegg has said: "Censorship is based on fear."
Music is a free expression of the ideas, traditions and emotions of individuals and of peoples. It may express musicians' hopes and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, their very identity as a culture. Yet these expressions may conflict with those of people in power. The ideas themselves may simply be unpopular or outside the current thinking or practices of a regime or special interest group. For there are those the world over who are threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas. There are those who will stop at nothing to stifle them.
Music censorship has been implemented by states, religions, educational systems, families, retailers and lobbying groups – and in most cases they violate international conventions of human rights.
Music may be the oldest form of human creative expression. As far as we know, music is universal: every culture, at every time in history, has made music. Its power to provoke emotion - and revolution - are well documented. Music is a basic human right.
No comments:
Post a Comment