The House that Hip-Hop Built

Was listening to the good WNYC yesterday morning and caught the segment about the new book about Impulse Records, The House That Trane Built (btw I may lobby Eb for Coltrane as the name of our next boy. I know there is that guy who used to work at Ecko, but that is a dope name regardless.  And how dope would be to have 2 boys named Miles and Coltrane.  Only thing better would be 2 kids name Erick and Parish or Darryl and Joe, maybe Kris and Scott, or Kamal and Malik, how about William and Eric, or Pos and Dove Anyhoo…), back to the book.

 

The author made a great point that made me order the book from Amazon today (I saw it in B&N on Sunday, but passed).  He said that one of the main reasons why people still know the Impulse brand is because of Hip-Hop and DJ culture.  Producers sampling Impulse records and DJ’s spinning them out.  Got me thinking…that is one of the great things about our culture.  We are a grand cultural depository.  The nature of sampling immediately transforms us into a national archive.  And via the archive we preserve history, and save as well as resurrect careers.  How many of our elders who are writers and composers have gotten rich or are able to carve out a living thanks to Hip-Hop.  Ask James Brown, Aerosmith, Bob James, Zapp, those characters who Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz sampled, David Axelrod and the list goes on.

 

And if we can keep a great label like Impulse and the legacy of an outright genius like John Coltrane alive? What a blessing

 

Your homework:

Go buy the book

Register for the Festival

Root for the Diesel tomorrow

Visit your favorite blogs

And relax

 

 

Peace