Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - Godfathers and Sons

Rating:
Summary: Music finds its future in its roots
Review: It is all about music on one hand and the emergence of the Blacks through music in the US on the other hand. As for music, it clearly shows how hip hop or rap are not a musical genres that come from nowhere but that they were prepared by and they inherit a lot from the blues, even maybe gospels, and I would even say jazz. The main idea developed by the film is that any musical form sums up older forms and trespasses their limits. It is true of Black music as well as any other form of art anywhere in the world. Black music is as so noit different at all from Mozart, Purcell or Verdi. Even the most revolutionary form is nothing but the descendent of previous forms. On the other hand, and this is essential, the emergence of the Blues in Chicago was due to the confluence of the same ambition, to emerge from poverty and segregation, among Blacks and Jews, in this case a certain Muddy Waters and a Polish Jewish immigrant (and his family) after WW2, the latter creating the first record label, Chess, that launched the Blues in the world, on radios, on record players, on TV later, and of course in various bars and clubs. It also shows how the Blues was black in its majority but not only and that some Whites took part from the very start, meaning that the Bluies was a music coming from the Blacks, but not only, carried by the Blacks, but not only, and directed at the Blacks, but not only and by far. And it finally shows how the Blues of these old bluesmen can be easily merged with rap or hip hop. The general idea then is that music is a way for down-trodden people to recapture their pride and to conquer a position in the culture of the oppressive society they live in and eventually a position in this society. Culture is a way to liberate energies in people and to liberate people from their humiliation. Culture is also and necessarily a blend of various elements that come from different experiences and people, different historical and geographical backgrounds. Merging is a vast movement that brings together the past and the present to create the future. There is no future for any cultural form if it does not have roots. It is from the roots that the fruits come.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU