Phil's Seminal Jazz Rock and Politics Videoblog

I've watched Mr. Hudlin for years now and I'm very impressed with his talent and his abilities...but I have to say I hate what's being done with BET on J. It's terrible. You've taken a station that was arguably the best music channel on the air (with material that was not being replicated anyplace else) and turned it into a wasteland of BET reject shows (The Christies? Good lord...how bored would I have to be to watch that?) and bad music that you repeat over and over and over again. Here's a thought: r and b isn't as good as jazz repeats because jazz is more complicated and it bears repeat listenings. You can get something out of Brad Mehldau solo on your seventh hearing...not so much for India Arie...Here's a question I'd love to know the answer to: are the ratings better for BET on J than they were for BET on Jazz? Even if they are better, who is the high brow audience for that awful model show? Golf doesn't win the ratings war because it get the most viewers, it wins because it gets the weathiest viewers. Jazz and classical probably won't beat american idol, but you'll get a better educated and wealthier audience.

Here's the small thing I'm asking for: Can you run Jazz Central, one of the best live jazz shows ever, more than once a day? how about two different jazz centrals a day? Also, could you please start playing jazz again on Sunday, the best day to play jazz? Or at night? Instead of repeating that awful 2 cents talk show could you play jazz central after 2 am, maybe even a different one than you played at 8 am? Ditto for the Knitting Factory, uncut with Williard Jenkins and your old World Music jazz show? I have other ideas as well, but I noticed that my posts have been deleted from the BET on J forum and all of my suggestions were ignored. If its different here, then I'll throw in my two cents about why you haven't asked Bill Cosby, who worships jazz, to do a weekly jazz show or why you ha haven't you tried to recreate poliitically incorrect (or any real news content for that matter) or why you don't play jazz dvds on the station, even on a once a week basis? It's just shocking...Do you hate jazz? If the answer is yes then I guess that explains the station...

Sincerely,

Philip Shropshire
http://www.threeriversonline.com/

By the way, look, someone is posting copyrighted BET on Jazz material on the Internets! Imagine that. That might be a bad thing if you gave a frack about jazz but of course you don't.

http://www.dailymotion.com/Steelydan/video/x7vce_acunalive

Actually, since you don't care about or even like Jazz I should just upload all this material, and I've got about 30 hours worth, online. Someone should notice what a great singer Claudia Acuna is....

Stop whining, you presumptuous idiot.

And by the way: "It's presumptious idiot". Guess some black men don't be knowin' their jazz or their grammar...snap!

Hello Reggie suckup. Actually, I'm a freelance writer who works at home so unfortunately I can see firsthand about what's happening to the channel.

I'll simplify things for you. There are no more Jazz Centrals on Bet on J, except for this Sunday for one hour during what will only be Black History month. There are very few Knitting Factories being run (also an excellent show) and as far as I can tell no new jazz productions coming out of the channel. The Club Js aren't as well recorded as the Jazz Centrals were and features minor artists or great artists (Ron Isley) badly recorded. The R and B show Soul Sessions features vids I can see on VH1 Soul and sometimes even VH1 classic and are repeated so often that they literally make you angry. The non music shows are terrible both in premise and performance, and again, they're repeated over and over and over again.

Now, in Mr. Hudlin's defense, he may not have a budget to create new decent shows or even pay performance fees for old shows like those Jazz Centrals that hold up under repeat viewings. This is why I suggested Bill Cosby, who's close to being to billionaire, and who loves jazz as a financier of New Jazz Centrals that he would host (Bill Cosby introduced me to Sonny Sharrock a long time ago on some PBS production....). I might also note that billionaire Clint Eastwood is also a big jazz fan. They would probably want Dave Chappelle deals on the DVD backend but that's fine...I'm just saying that Mr. Hudlin is in a position to ask these guys whereas some negro freelancer probably isn't...

Does that make sense to you overly exaggerated black hero in yellow spandex dude?

Wow, he said "snap" to me...I am destroyed.

So basically you sit at the house eating bon bons and you go online to put on blast network execs? Does this happen to white tv execs? Reg do you know this nigga? If so I can step out and let him do his thing if not why has his account not been deleted yet. If I was reg, I would find out who you are and make sure the only media you would be writting for is your local public access station. The internet sheesh.