A date which marked the death of a young man, who was killed for no other reason than he was different from the men who killed him. Matthew Shepard was gay, and it cost him his life.Sometime after midnight on October 7th, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson drove Matthew Shepard to a remote area of Laramie, Wyoming. He was beaten so severely, his brainstem was affected. Matthew was tied to a fence and left to die. Eighteen hours later, his comatose body was discovered by a bicyclist, who at first thought his limp body was a scarecrow. All because he was gay.
Matthew died a few days later, never regaining consciousness. His death brought outrage and deservedly so.
Legislation was introduced to create a hate crime bill which would be inclusive of bias attacks concerning sexual orientation. After several failures, the Matthew Shepard Act was signed into law by President Obama on October 28, 2009.
When thinking about a song for today, I remembered one which dealt with another type of prejudice. Written by a teenager in 1965, "Society's Child" dealt with interracial romance. While today, a relationship between different races barely causes the blink of an eye, in the 60's it was unacceptable, even illegal in some places, and was spoken of in hushed tones.
Though the struggle between being accepted as gay is not the same as loving someone with a different skin color, the old mores and narrow-mindedness come clearly into the picture. Prejudice is prejudice.
On the anniversary of his death, let's shine some light on the issue of fear and hate of other human beings for no other reason than they are different.
Please read the lyrics as you listen to the song.
Janis Ian "Society's Child"
"Come to my door, baby,Face is clean and shining black as night.My mother went to answer you knowThat you looked so fine.Now I could understand your tears and your shame,She called you "boy" instead of your name.When she wouldn't let you inside,When she turned and said"But honey, he's not our kind."
She saysI can't see you any more, baby,Can't see you anymore.
Walk me down to school, baby,Everybody's acting deaf and blind.Until they turn and say, "Why don't you stick to your own kind."My teachers all laugh, the smirking stares,Cutting deep down in our affairs.Preachers of equality,Think they believe it, then why won't they just let us be?
They say I can't see you anymore baby,Can't see you anymore.
One of these days I'm gonna stop my listeningGonna raise my head up high.One of these days I'm gonna raise up my glistening wings and fly.But that day will have to wait for a while.Baby I'm only society's child.When we're older things may change,But for now this is the way, they must remain.
I say I can't see you anymore baby,Can't see you anymore.No, I don't want to see you anymore, baby."
Matthew Shepard may have died for no reason, but he did not die in vain.
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Dave "Double Yellow" Lilley, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, is a long-term collaborator with Diesler (AKA Jonathan Radford). With completely different approaches towards making music, and after many late night muso-chats, Dave Lilley and Jonathan Radford embarked on numerous collaborations that formed the backbone of most of Diesler's album outputs. Together they wrote much of Diesler's best-selling 2006 album, Keepie Uppies, which was shortlisted for Best Album in Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards for Radio 1 and received global exposure. And now the two are responsible for the Double Yellow album combining ingredients from a rich and deep larder of Barrelhouse Honky Tonk, Club Funk, Dixieland Jazz-Stomp, Swing, Rock, Reggae, Indie and Latin flavours.
His All-Star Bay Area Band Includes Dayna Stephens, Matt Clark, Marcus Shelby, Howard Wiley, & Danny Armstrong
ALAIDE COSTA - AMIGA DE VERDADE
SO SAMBA QUEM TEM - VARIOUS ARTISTS
THE HURST SELECTION 2 - VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Jason Miles-produced album is a jazzy R&B throwback; radio grooving to “Forever Funk”
A visit to the Billboard Hot 100 today yields only two songs in the top 20 that could be argued to be “rock”. Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger” (#13) sounds utterly not like rock (dancebeat bass drum, the tinge of auto-tune, a chirping synth hook), and Gavin DeGraw’s “Not Over You” comes a little closer though it seems more like a pop throwback tune than anything with a genuine edge. Further down the chart there’s a little country and one indie-rock hit (Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”) and that’s about it. The Black Keys in position 67 are pretty much the flag-wavers for “rock” in early 2012.
“I’m Hip” is a monologue by a deluded beat-era hipster who thinks he’s utterly cool because “I even call my girlfriend ‘Man’”, set to a series of chord changes so tricky that the song is nearly unsingable. “Peel Me a Grape”, more recently done to sultry extreme by Diana Krall, is written in the voice of a woman who is perfectly up-front about the fact that she’s using her man for luxury and little more (“Don’t outthink me—just mink me”). And “My Attorney Bernie” is a celebration of an unscrupulous lawyer: “Thanks to you, my attorney Bernie / Thanks to you I’m considered well to do / Sure, I made out like a bandit exactly like you planned it / But like Murray, my accountant, told me yesterday—I owe it all to you”.
Indeed, as a solo performer and singer, the Frishberg-Woody comparison seems utterly on target. Frishberg’s appearance and age are similar to Allen’s. Both come off as spectacled nebbishes, perhaps—balding guys with a facility for smart wordplay and a weakness for New York City. Take a listen to Frishberg’s brilliant “Do You Miss New York” written from the point of view of someone who fled Gotham for the west coast (“Do you miss New York—the anger the action? Does this laidback lifestyle lack a certain satisfaction?”), and just try not to think of Allen’s take of Los Angeles from Annie Hall, a movie that Frishberg references in the song’s last verse. 
Luciana Souza is arguably the most impressive jazz singer working today. Four of her solo recordings have been nominated for Grammy awards, and she has managed to forge an instantly identifiable individual sound while still working across several disparate musical styles. Late August brings the release of two new recordings—her first in three years—that feature jazz standards on the one hand and classic Brazilian bossa nova on the other.
Souza was born and raised in Sao Paolo, Brazil, by parents who were musicians and composers. Literally exposed from birth to the initial flowering of the Brazilian bossa nova spirit, she came to the US at 18, attended Berklee for her BA and then earned a Masters in “jazz studies” at the New England Conservatory. She is authentically Brazilian and utterly jazz, utterly American at the same time.
Well, let me recommend something in a husky yet pliant singing voice, good with a ballad like “Midnight in Harlem” but also game and glorious on an Elmore James blues like “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”. Let me suggest that such a voice—owned and used with authority by the lovely Susan Tedeschi—is just the ticket to getting your temperature rising. It growls and shouts as necessary but is equally capable of a caress. And this quality, of being multifaceted in a world that prefers pigeonholed pop stars who sing the same song over and over again, it’s too rare lately. It’s great.
Back to politics. ugh.
Today I'm going to return the favor and shine the light on a fellow blogger and music maniac, who also happens to be having a birthday. So for today's musical selections, I thought we might listen to a few of his favorites. Since one of his posts on music was how I originally found him, deciding on a few songs won't be too hard.
It had been a pair, but sometime around the breakup one had been misplaced. In her foolish heart, she hoped he had taken it...as a reminder of a time when the heat was intense, the love deep. But as she saw it shining in the bedroom light, she knew he had not.
The songwriting team of Lennon-McCartney was my first and perhaps my greatest musical influence. If you were alive when The Beatles entered the picture, you would know they changed everything. The sound, the look, the attitude of the era...all turned on its head.
“Swingin’ In The Snow” showcases a stellar cast on timeless seasonal classics with album sales benefiting the Autism Society of America
MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO – POUR UNE AME SOUVERAINE: A DEDICATION TO NINA SIMONE
VIVIAN GREEN – GREEN ROOM
SWING OUT SISTER – PRIVATE VIEW
A killer array of funky grooves from Fela Kuti – served up in a 6LP box set, with records chosen by Ginger Baker! Baker's a key choice to work on the set – given his famous recordings with Fela, heard here on the album's leadoff record – Fela & Ginger Baker Live! 
BIRELI LANGRENE - MOUVEMENTS
THE PYRAMIDS - OTHERWORLDLY
JIMI TENOR AND KABUKABU - THE MYSTERY OF AETHER
Following up on the hugely successful reggae tribute albums of Dub Side of the Moon, Radiodread and Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band comes the reggae adaptation of the greatest selling record of all time – Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The album titled Easy Star’s Thrillah brings back several of the reggae stars from previous albums, such as vocalists Michael Rose, Steel Pulse, Luciano, Mojo Morgan, alongside the diverse playing of guests Yossi Fine, Joe Tomino, Andy Farag, and horn tracks courtesy of Israel’s highly-acclaimed funk/hip-hop band Hadag Nachash. 
The best band in jazz has made the best album of the year—or of the decade. Pianist Vijay Iyer and his trio (with Stefan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums) have been making great music, alone or with others, for some time. But Accelerando is an instant jazz classic, a record that is both accessible and daring at once, both in the tradition and wholly new.
The Heatwave tune, “The Star of the Story” (written by Rod Temperton in the ‘70s) is a classic piece of sophisticated groove music, and Iyer seems to understand it from the inside out. The trio begins by playing it with great fidelity to the original but then sets off into a wild section that is grounded by a pounding Gilmore pattern setting off a bowed bass solo that grows under a set of stuttering cross rhythms on piano. Once Crump drops back to playing a series of funky low notes, Iyer returns with a set of variations on the tune’s theme that, again, build to amazing unity of purpose.
Nothing like regular “jazz”, this finds the rhythm section deepening the way it lurches through this groove, while Iyer plays largely like a drummer, striking his right hand in staccato jabs while his left thumps in an octave pattern. And this combination of elements evolves and builds until the waves of contrasting rhythms simply can’t be any more intense. And after a brief moment of silence, the melody returns until a long slow fade allows the song to begin all over again at the piano lick. Magically, it means that the band can intensify even more greatly the second time and into a shattering, beautiful ending.