MLK Day 2014: The MLK Blues

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8T61tG172Y (1:28)

Recently in class we have been studying (and confronting) the origins of Blues, Ragtime, and Jazz music...during our investigation we listened to this thought provoking quote:

"The Blues is about sculpting meaning (and freedom) out of a 

situation that seems to defy your being able to find meaning in it..."

Blues music must have feeling...it must come from way down deep...it must be one's very soul singing out.

This leads me to ask myself...am I using my life to sing out?  

Can my life sound like Buddy Bolden's coronet...Louis Armstrong's scat...the style of Duke Ellington or virtuosity of Ella Fitzgerald...can we really do "the common things in life in an uncommon way" to help sculpt meaning in this world... 

 

 

Listen to Wynton Marsalis play the "Buddy Bolden Blues"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g-1Gpwx9EE (2:24)

 

January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

 

Mountaintop Speech Excerpt - April 3, 1968

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oehry1JC9Rk (2:38)

Isn't this what Dr. King (and generations of others) did?  

His dream for freedom and justice came from way down deep... 

He cried for us to confront our past...present...and future...

He called us to sculpt meaning and dreams out of a situation that defied meaning...

Can we avoid the great task of Killing the Jellyfish?!?

 

MLK Day 2014...Dream.