The 1% Jazz Invasion or How I Helped to Kill Roy Campbell. Part 2. Guardians of Gates to Nowhere.

One of the more pernicious problems afflicting the core community turns on certification. On the surface this is easily ridiculous and should be. Beyond traditional peer review, most musical idioms outside the purview of formal institutions aren't subject to much of a credentials process involving six figure price tags.

This credential fabrication is a connivance of gate keepers on the 'commerce' side and the educational side. Old media maintained a retinue of credential makers now increasingly bypassed by the ability to just click on a You Tube of the artist in question and decide for your own damned self.

The 1% Jazz Invasion or How I Helped to Kill Roy Campbell. Part 1 Contours of the Problem.

Roy Sinclair Campbell Junior essentially gave his whole life to the music of his home community, the African American community, from his early days as a community college student with a Fletcher Henderson alumnus, Dick Vance.

From there he learned more trumpet craft from Lee Morgan. And so it went across the bright arc of his moments.

Roy was the ultimate musical working stiff and roamed New York to find work in stage and show bands, parade gigs, probably even a fashion show or two, (it's an actual gig description item in the musician's union rate book).

And through all that he kept faith with his world and participated to the greatest degree he could.