Mr.Motown

I think Branford Marsalis said it best when he said somehing along the lines of " We live in a society where the idiea of what you are is actually more important then what you really are."

JunkyT

Jazz has been "dying" since the 40's. That's quite a long death, my friends.

In fact, jazz is NOT dying. Jazz is, as it always has been, changing, morphing, assimilating and trying to find it's connection to the current cultural climate. And if the amount of amazing CDs released in 2009 is any indication, 2010 may just be the year that it figures this out. See the Village Voice's amazing list of Top CDs of 2009, complied from the list of 99 jazz writers/critics: New York Music - 2009 Voice Jazz Critics' Poll: The Results - page 1

I write about this topic a lot, as I'm a working jazz musician. I see/hear so many of my peers and even heroes talk about the death of jazz. Why do we do this? Partly, I think, it's that jazz has always thought of itself as the underdog, and we've grown accustomed and comfortable with that yoke around our neck.

But also, and I mean no offense by this, I think it points to a misunderstand of the our job. If people aren't coming to our shows, buying our CDs, praising our music, its our fault and nobody elses. This was pointed out with great acumen by Benjamin Zander in a TED talk I saw recently, and wrote about on my blog. He is talking about classical music, but it applies 100% to jazz as well. Here's a quote:

“You know, my profession, the music profession doesn’t see it that way. They say 3 percent of the population likes classical music. If only we could move it to 4 percent our problems would be over. I say, “How would you walk? How would you talk? How would you be if you thought 3 percent of the population likes classical music? If only we could move it to 4 percent. How would you walk? How would you talk? How would you be if you thought everybody loves classical music — they just haven’t found out about it yet.” See, these are totally different worlds. “

If you care to, you can read my blog post about the video and view the 20 minute talk (WELL worth the time) here: Jazz Music Is For Everyone

My wish for 2010 is that we jazz musicians take our fate into our own hands and realize that we need to give people some kind of context into which to put our music. And share our passion. Jazz musicians are some of the most passionate people I know, and yet so many don't share this passion with the audience. It's not enough to stand on stage and play all your best stuff and then leave. We've lost touch with humanity, and it is US that needs to get it back, not the audience.

So next time you're playing, trying smiling. Try talking to the audience. Try to explain to them what you're playing and why you're playing it. Like Zander does in the TED talk, get them understand the context and you'll make new fans for yourself and for the music.

I guarantee it.

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Flugel: 1970's Couesnon
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Jason Parker Quartet
Jason Parker Music

ltg_trumpet

Jazz is dying(and it really is dying), because the only people that listen to jazz are those that are trying to play it.

Crowley put one up right there...

The Jazz? Its a flavor. When I was younger, a preteen, i HATED jazz with a passion. It didn't put out like all the other cute groups. over time, I have felt my passion grow and change to this brand new thing. I love jazz with my heart man. I feel it. I was talking to my dad about how empty a lot of pop groups are because they're missing a fundamental piece of the band, a keyboard. Keyboards are that meat. they give that chordal structure thats needed fill the gap left by the base and guitar. Honestly? I think we're looking at it wrong. I think metallica is playing jazz. I think rhianna is playin jazz. I think... were all playin jazz. Its new, Its fresh. ITS WHAT THE PEOPLE LIKE. isnt that what its always been about? entertaining the people? think about the small increments that music has evolve in. Rock and Roll was jazz. it just morphed. We're hangin on to the past. Don't get me wrong, I love the past, i was just listening to an Al Hirt record tonight, and i loved it. my entire ipod is the old jazz. the old music. We have to give them what they like. we have to give them something they respect. because in the end? we're a bunch of trumpet players. thats it.

I was at a jazz competition. Our combo performed the charts, the judge came over, and the first thing he said was, "do you have any questions?"

"Did you enjoy it?" I asked, almost jumping the question before it left his lips... because i performed the hell out of it for him. i wanted him to like it. i wanted everyone there to like it. because that's what its about.

He laughed...
turned to the small crowd and said
"does this dress make me look fat"
it was a joke, an icebreaker. I smiled for him.
I was sad.
I did that for him and i get a joke.
and then he continued to say that jazz isn't just for the crowd, and at that point, he lost me. i listened and learned some about soloing, but i was sad, because this is whats happening to our music. its not about the listener.

sad.

but? I gig with my mom and we do some jazz fusion stuff, and its tight, and the little group we get to listen always enjoys the intimate conversations, and the trumpet/conga/trombone improv and you know what? I enjoy those little nights a lot more than I'm going to enjoy playing with the all state jazz band.

that's my thought.

By the way... anyone here ever listen to "Streetlight Manifesto"? haha, ska is a very cool style.

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super collegiate tri-tone (raw brass)

cloudnine

As a young jazz student in Toronto, it is somewhat disheartening in a supposedly "world-class" city, considered cultured and diverse, of 6+ million people, to have one dedicated jazz club. Just one!

I think the points that people have made so far have been spot-on. The onus is on us as musicians to create music and the environment in which we play it that people want to listen to. I don't believe that jazz somehow stopped reaching people between 1959 and 1964.

One of the major factors, I believe, is how people get their first/continued exposure to jazz. It's usually in the context of "background" music, "dinner" music, etcetera - jazz is almost never presented as a real music that you put on headphones and really LISTEN to. The stuff they do hear is also usually tinkly piano or "adult contemporary" type stuff. I think people sense the lack of passion that goes into this music and associate it with the entire genre. I think if people were introduced to it in a different fashion rather than the standard "dinner jazz" or "old timey music" contexts, they would have a different attitude. It's up to us to come up with an approach that is both true to the spirit of pushing musical boundaries and appeals to people.

Whenever I've introduced people to jazz I love, they've been surprised by it. They may not love it right away or even like it right then, but they are more often than not pleasantly intrigued by it (especially when they hear live jazz) and want to hear more and often ask me why they have "never heard this type of stuff before". It's a pity to think that so much music is out there that people could really get into that they just haven't heard yet for whatever reason. It also takes time to get into the music - it's a very different sound for most people, and we have to be okay with that and the fact that maybe they just aren't into crazy running of the changes.

I also see a lot of backlash whenever the word "accessible" is mentioned, as if communicating with people and letting them "in" is somehow a four-letter word. I see a lot of what I call "for the sake of" music - i.e, "let's play Stella in 7". Well, why? How will playing this tune in a weird time signature allow the music to be better communicated to an audience? It seems like jazz musicians are becoming more and more insulated as the public at large becomes more and more disinterested. In this sense, it seems kind of like a Catch-22: the public at large ignores jazz, so we jazz folk move further and further underground and create more of a "wall" and a distrusting and dismissive nature toward the public, which continues the cycle.

"Audience". A bad word nowadays, it seems. I unashamedly try (and try, and try, and often fail) to play in a way that gets across some part of me to the audience. I want to get them into the music. I want them to see how much I care about the music. Most of all, my goal is to make people who hear me play music feel something. ANYTHING - other than feel lost and bewildered by the technicality of it all.

I see all sorts of focus on "hipness" among musicians around me. The "best" player in my school is a guitarist who does little else but learn all the "exotic" scales and alterations and proceed to play them end-to-end at blinding speed throughout his improv. It's technically impressive as hell; but I've personally never felt a god-damned thing when he plays except boredom.

No disrespect intended, but I think it's also a view of our culture at large that jazz is strictly a repertoire music and a tradition rather than a living breathing art form. When the popular world needs an opinion, they seem to head straight to Wynton (no disrespect intended) and get his view of jazz as some kind of museum piece on a pedestal. Say what you will about Miles Davis - when he was the figurehead of jazz, people paid more attention, it seems. We need to stop treating jazz with kid gloves and take chances with it.

Apologies for the ramble.

Pedal C

The form of (most) small group jazz is pretty repetitive...I LIKE jazz, and it even bores me sometimes. Head, solo, solo, solo, solo, head. Head, solo, solo, solo, solo, head. Etc. Even will all the creativity it takes to play jazz, most people stick to that same old form where a real melody is just a vehicle for (often indulgent, self gratifiying) improvisation. Some groups like that have as much (or more!) fun practicing than playing for an audience because the audience is unnecessary. Most rock/pop/hip hop etc. artists seem to actually ENJOY the audience! Of course, some jazz artists do too, but I've seen too many that couldn't care less if anyone's out there. (Someone mentioned that all the jazz players coming out of music schools isn't helping either, and I think that indifferent attitude and devotion to form is especially common in students.)

My opinion, anyway.

Edit - No disrespect to CloudNine as a jazz student...I didn't even see your post until mine posted.

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"The oboe's A is to make sure we still play it 1 and 2" - Bud Herseth

"One way or another, every patient stops bleeding." - Scrubs

ltg_trumpet

Dude... yea.

Something I love about Buddy Rich is the form they take. He Leaves improv open, but, its part of the ride. His charts usually seem to morph and morph until what you have at the end is different, but reminiscent of the original musical idea.

that's my little rant on him. Ive always loved listening to channel one suite.

I like cloudnine's outlook. Its much like my own. I just want people to like the music. Ha, who are we to judge the perspective of an audience though? Some audiences recognize the passion behind a solo that is simple, a solo that isnt scales, or even notes. a solo where you close your eyes and say "what the hell man?" and play what you're thinking. "lets hear this idea" you say and boom, there it is. some people really admire that. In other cases? youve got an audience that sees mr. "guitar with blinding exotic scales" as a god. what does it matter? you give the people what they want one way or the other. in the end? you have to be able to connect with the audience and see them for what they are... not an audience, but a group of individuals, much like yourself, who live lives. lives that are much like your own. lives with love, hate, bills ect.

you ever drive down the road and look at all the other cars around you and think about their lives all intertwined?

thats what i think about when Im making music. making those people smile a little. We get so lost in ourselves that sometimes? we lose that out look. it happens. we just gotta pick it back up. Humility. being humble. learning your place.

wynton marsalis has some great literature on this stuff. it gets you thinking.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that... at some point, we gotta lose the generalities. we've gotta pick up our horn and decide that we're different. You're not another number. You hold in your hands the ability to please. the ability to change something that's been changing for the last thousand years. music has a deep part in peoples hearts, and we're the people who can step up and say "what the hell man?" boom. there it is.

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super collegiate tri-tone (raw brass)

jazz9

Great conversation here, guys. :) Now I'll insert my two cents.

My whole thing with jazz is the struggle between what I want to play to make me feel expressed and creative and blah blah blah, and what the audience wants to hear. Now, I am not claiming to be a jazz musician......... yet. However, I do love jazz in most of its forms. So when I take a jazz lesson and am told that the way to play jazz is to listen and learn from the greats, I get excited. How great is it to spend hours learning a lick and finally playing it at tempo with the recording? I think everyone who plays can relate to that. But, what does the audience necessarily want to hear in this era of hip hop and rap and all that? Do they want to hear Freddie Hubbard licks at top speed? Maybe, but really I think it takes a compromise between you and the audience.

I must now bring up Chris Botti. I heard him for the first time (on CD of course, not live) when I was young and was changed forever. Sure, when I listen now, I think of it as a sort of audience-pleasing, money-making, commercial type of music. Still, I've seen and been thrilled with a few little break-out solos by Chris in live shows on television. He plays these tunes that the audience falls in love with, but sometimes I get the feeling he is holding back some awesome jazz. Maybe I'm totally wrong; maybe that type of music is completely his style and has been his plan to play since he began. Still, I feel he has a lot of jazz skill that he maybe holds back to please a more generalized crowd. He's figured out how to make himself known to more than just the jazz world and become successful.

I think it all comes down to what you want to say with your music. I want to express myself and present my own unique ideas, and I want others to be moved by the experience. As cloudnine was saying, people generally do have some sort of appreciation for the music. The interaction between musicians and listeners in jazz is unique. I always have felt like a person expressing something through music is beautiful. Even subconsciously, people percept a different part of your personality, of your soul, of YOU through music. This is why I'm doing it in the first place. I want to hear great musicians and become one myself. I love the thought of giving the audience part of me through my music, and I can't wait to be technically gifted enough to transfer thoughts directly from my brain to my fingers to the end of the bell and into people's ears.

Ok, back on topic. I think my plan of business when I get into the jazz scene somewhere is to completely invent a new genre. I have this sound in my mind that I can't quite translate to a page of music yet. I am sure it's jazz, just a unique kind. I really enjoy Christian Scott and Russell Gunn because of their different kinds of music, and I think that's where jazz is going now. So, as a summary of all that, I think the future of jazz is going to depend on compromise between musician and audience. Or it may not have to. If people would give jazz some time, they may find that there has to be no compromise. Whatever new sort of music forms (and there pretty much has to be some new form, or we'll never keep going) should be pretty interesting, and I'm just happy to be living in a time to see and be a part of it.

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Ty Sheets
Gardner-Webb University
sheetstrumpet@gmail.com

“Always look ahead, but never look back.”
“Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

cloudnine

No disrespect taken. I agree with you on a lot of points, and I see the devotion to tradition and form every day at school. I try to ease us towards more interesting stuff occasionally in workshop - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I also concur with the idea that compromise isn't a bad word and good taste runs both ways - not giving a damn about the audience and being "true to your music" isn't good taste, and neither is being a shill and a clown.