Quote:
Originally Posted by bas  Jazz is an art music and most art is unaccessible intellectually to most of the American public. Mayba more of a social statement that a statement about academia's role. |
If we as Jazz musicians think of our music as "art music", we are doomed.
Jazz is soul music. And I don't mean like Otis Redding. I mean music that comes from, and should stir, the soul. Why should that be "unaccessible (sic) intellectually to most of the American public"?
Read some of the writings of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, hell, even Wynton Marsalis. They all talk about playing music FOR the audience, not for themselves or other musicians.
Until we get over our inferiority complexes and view our music just as much "for the people" as pop, hip-hop or country music, we are relegating
ourselves to the museums.
Academia is only one part of the equation, and I think a small one at that (as far as bringing the music to the masses). Academic institutions can help, but it's up to us as players of Jazz to find, cultivate and grow our own audiences.
IMHO. ;)