THE MEANING OF FUNK ….
FUNK!
FUNK!
FUNK!
FUNK!
THE MEANING OF FUNK
Before I was a retired Free Blues guru, I had to make a buck somehow sometimes. So I got taught to teach English as a foreign language (TEFL) and got a job in Italy. This piece is based on my TEFL diploma course presentation. We were required to present a short lecture about grammar and meanings and stuff. I did the presentation, grabbed my certificate and left town. After Italy I taught the meaning and usage of funk and other four letter words to confused business persons in Paris and bored German teenagers in Brighton.
Well Tim, maybe I can help. The funk is what’s happening. Funk! Funk! It’s a good word. It’s a baaad word. What the fuck does it mean? Follow me then now into the garden of groove grammar. We gonna dig out some roots. In Odhams Modern Standard Dictionary of 1936, the word 'funk' is defined as 'Great fear and shrinking back ; panic ; to be in great fear and shrink back.' Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary 1972 has similar definitions plus ’to stifle with smoke ; to smoke and/or cause a strong unpleasant smell’. Collins Concise, 1990, has similar, with the variation 'to avoid or make a mess of something'. It also has an entirely new meaning for the word 'funk' ... 'A type of polyrhythmic Black dance music with heavy syncopation.' Now we gettin down to it! The Oxford English Dictionary, 2001 edition … here we get the previous meanings and a new meaning for an adjective form: to be ‘funky’ in the 21st century is to be 'Modern and stylish in an unconventional or striking way.' So the question is and always will be "How do we get from shrinking back in panic to steppin out in style?"
GEORGE CLINTON : PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC
Back in the 17th century, so the good books say, the word 'funk' probably originated from a French or Flemish root and was most often used to refer to 'a musty smell, particularly of tobacco'. Four hundred years later and I’m in England, and my understanding of the word 'funky' derives from its use by descendants of the African slaves stolen and shipped out by my ancestors to work the tobacco plantations of America. African-Americans are apparently first noted using the word ‘funky’ in the early 20th century, in the context of earthy, natural smells and their environment in general. And sometimes in connection with that most natural and earthy of human inter-gender activities. Any negative niffs present in the European understanding of the word soon wafted away. By the 1950's, it's being applied by Black musicians to rhythm and blues and hard bop as a way of asserting these musical forms' links with a uniquely African-American culture and tradition, a way of asserting their Blackness. And in the 21st century over here in England, my use of the words 'funk' and 'funky' is all about the next generation of African-American musicians from the 1960’s and 70’s.
Funk is what happened when James Brown invited soul and gospel and rhythm 'n blues up to his room for a little four-way action. James had his way, and soon an insistent, hypnotic, superheavy groove was born. This music was designed to make you move, to make it almost impossible not to dance. And is it earthy and natural to dance your way out of your constriction? I should say so. And were the pioneers of funk music stylish in an unconventional or striking way? Damn right! Their music, their hiptalkin wordplay, their wild costumes are the source of our current use and understanding of the words 'funk' and 'funky'. They are the meaning of funk.
Funk! Funk! What it is! What is it?
It's fun with a k!
It's
straight gone hip!
Sure feel fine when the funk hit the fan
Everybody
happy now they underfuckinstand ...
the meaning of FUNK.
( from 'The Meaning of Funk' by Johnny Twelvebar*)
*Johhny Twelvebar is the identical twin brother of Delta Del
If anyone is still confused about what the funk is, here’s a link to a cardboard box full of old tapes. These are offered for educational research type purposes. If you find something you like in the box, please support the artists if they’re still around. Buy their music on CD or vinyl, preferably at your local record shop. Search for their deleted albums. Spread the word. The word is ‘funk’.
THE MEANING OF DISCO ….
And now a free trial lesson from Delta Del’s Deadly Dancefloor Moves,
a 16 week course designed to ensure your survival at the discotheque and beyond …
a 16 week course designed to ensure your survival at the discotheque and beyond …
Eddie Harris was a piano-playin, scat-singin, electronics-pioneerin tenor saxman from Chicago. He was one funny, funky motherfucker.
Saw Eddie live 3 times including 2 London Jazz Cafe gigs. The world would be a better place if we still had Eddie. Below is a link to a rare and very lo-fi audience recording of part of this 1995 show
The track below uses Eddie's tune and voice from 2 of the videos above ...
BACK TO THE FRONT
No comments:
Post a Comment