Ever notice the emerging body of male singer/song-writers on the market these days?
Look at an average morning of music videos, and you'll notice an interesting trend - the return of the simplistic dude-and-a-keyboard genre.
What's up with this?
I'm inclined to believe that somewhere along the line, all of the market analysis that these record labels do showed that a goodly percentage of us people who are not ghetto rockers were getting a little left-out by the urban take-over of the popular radio waves.
So is this the industry's answer? I'm not necesssarily complaining, mind you. Most of this music has been far more interesting and valid than most of the mindless hip-hop music bombarding the air waves. It has to be. A song featuring just piano and voice can't exist only on I, IV, V chords and remain interesting.
But quickly, a list of a few of the artists who have come to the light in the spirit of this new trend: Aqualung, Jamie Kallum, Gavin DeGraw, Keane, and John Legend. I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting, but hopefully you all will recognize at least one of those people so that you can understand my drift.

Many of these artists are being released on jazz albums or being touted as "jazz artists or vocalists" which is truer to the spirit of their music than "rock artist" and for the moment, their music is more engaging to a musician's ear than most stuff on the air waves. Their musical instincts won't let them get away with tedium, repetition, and their musical heroes and idols prompt them to probe more complex and interesting musical routes. Good for the listener.

Now let us not forget that these boys are all part of the American music machine, however, so it would be foolish of us to assume that these artists entire albums are gems - more than likely, there are the few songs on the radio that we see, and then there's eight songs of filler on the rest of the album. Sad, but true.

Not really an opinion piece this time - just interesting, don't you think? Check out Jamie Cullum's "Get Your Way" for a really fun song. Really harkening back to an older, grander era in song-writing and arranging. The horn parts are great.

All for now. Back on the road...

T.