The Jazz.com Blog
May 19, 2009 · 26 comments
Talking to Myself About the State of Jazz Music
Almost a year ago, I was caught talking to myself in print. It's a warning sign, huh? Maybe I should call a doctor, because last night I started talking to myself again. I was half in a dream and half awake, and the conversation went like this . . .
Is the jazz world in a state of crisis?
If this isn't a crisis, I would hate to see what a real one would looks like.
Aren't you over-reacting? Economic cycles go up and down. There is still plenty of jazz out there. Maybe more than ever before. And that new Lovano CD really kicks . . .
The crisis here is not on the supply side. It is on the demand side. The number of musicians and CDs is increasing, but the audience is shrinking. Reversing this trend is the single biggest challenge facing the jazz world.
How many jazz artists—even well-known ones—can sell ten thousand copies of a CD? How many concert halls can book jazz acts and fill the seats? Hardly a week goes by without news of a jazz radio station switching formats, a jazz club closing, a jazz magazine shutting down. These are all measures of a declining audience. And it has been shrinking faster than the GDP for a long, long time.
When you ask people about the health of the jazz scene, they tend to measure it by the quality of the sax solos, or by how much they enjoyed the last batch of CDs they bought. But these measures are hardly relevant, if there is no audience to support the music.
I think I understand. You're saying: if a sax plays in a forest and no one hears it, can it still play a great solo?
Huh? I don't think I understood that.
Never mind. . . . Back to your comments about the audience—is this situation really so different from the past?
The problem of the shrinking audience is masked by various subsidies and supports that didn't exist a few decades ago. If you strip those away, you see how small the market for jazz really is.
Let me cite one example. Many musicians now make a significant proportion of their income from performing outside the US—sometimes this is more than half of their annual earnings from gigs. There are several hundred festivals in Europe that are crucial to the global jazz economy. Without them, a lot of name players would no longer be able to pay their rent.
Yet these festivals are heavily subsidized by governments and other organizations with deep pockets. These subsidies are, of course, a good thing for the art form. But they mask the true level of the crisis. The brutal truth is that jazz is not surviving because it has a loyal audience of fans. It is a charity case now, relying on the kindness of strangers, if I may quote Blanche DuBois.
Nice New Orleans angle there . . .
On the other hand, when a jazz festival decides that it needs to make some money, the first thing it does . . . is get rid of the jazz. Did you see the press release for the Montreal Jazz Festival? It announced the main acts on the bill. Here were the names: "Jeff Beck, Harlem Gospel Choir, Buddy Guy, Mos Def, Pink Martini, The Dears, The Orb, Burning Spear, Toots & The Maytals and Many More." Thanks goodness for the "many more" at the end of the list, because there is no jazz represented in that line-up.
This is not an isolated instance. Have you seen the line-up for the Sonoma Jazz Festival? It should be called the Sonoma No-Jazz Festival. Here the list of its headliners: "Joe Cocker, Lyle Lovett And His Large Band, Ziggy Marley, Chris Isaak, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Shelby Lynne, Keb' Mo' And More."
This is a dangerous situation. As this trend continues in the Americas, the European circuit becomes more and more important. Yet—as has been highlighted frequently in this column—the European festivals are increasingly booking European musicians. Even more surprising: the recent Mumbai festival in India showed a pronounced tilt towards booking European artists. We can't just blithely assume that foreign governments will continue to bankroll American jazz. They have their own local scenes to support.
You are saying that jazz is like treasury bonds . . . too dependent on foreign money?
And not enough interest.
Ugh! That was a bad pun, even by your low standards. Back to brass tacks—what would happen if the subsidies disappeared?
Fifty years ago jazz could survive without subsidies. In fact, it did survive without subsidies. For the most part, there was no government support back then, no academic support, no foundation support. Yet an audience existed who paid all the bills for the music. Imagine how much larger the audience must have been back in the 1950s to cover the full cost for the art form, with more clubs, more airplay, more visibility than we have now.
And today? By my estimate, half of the jazz world would disappear overnight if it were forced to cover its costs by its own inherent ability to draw an audience. I hope the subsidies continue forever, and grow each year. But let's not kid ourselves. An art form without a vibrant growing audience is not healthy no matter how big the life support machinery surrounding it.
Are there any heroes in this story?
Although a lot has been done to support jazz music in recent years, very little has been done to nurture and grow the audience. Everyone just assumes that supporting the art form means supporting the musicians. But that is only half the equation, and actually the least important half. We don't need more sax solos. We don't need more CDs. We need more fans to support the fine artists who are already out there producing first rate music.
Surely someone is out there building the next generation of fans.
The groups that have probably done the most good during the last decade—the alphabet soup folks like the IAJE, JALC, the NEA—are often highly criticized. Yet they have played a key role in audience development. And now the IAJE is gone. Some people seem to gloat over that fact. That shows you how shortsighted many members of the jazz community are. There are probably others who would celebrate if JALC ran into problems. Freud called it thanatos, the death wish, and apparently it can afflict art forms as much as individuals.
As hard as it may be to believe, there is an influential contingent in the jazz world that would like to keep the art form small and untainted by the need to please an audience.
Of course, you probably think jazz writers are the good guys here?
I only wish that were true. Jazz critics are key factors in educating the audience and keeping the art form healthy. But critics need to realize that their main responsibility is to the audience. Not to their friends among the musicians, or to other critics, whom they try to impress. How many jazz writers today really demonstrate that commitment to the audience?
A half-century ago, the critical function got corrupted. This happened around the time art critic Clement Greenberg found that he could make his name and reputation by jumping on the bandwagon for Jackson Pollock.
What was so wrong about that?
Nothing was inherently wrong about it—at least at first. But the rules of the game changed, and critics learned that they could enhance their reputations if they were the first to jump on the next new thing.
Critics have to make choices. Do they write about the serious artist who is quietly building a body of outstanding work over a period of years? Or do they constantly jump from fad to fad, trying to pinpoint what is going to be hot during the next six months. I would suggest that a critic frequently must make a choice between these two goals. Either you focus primarily on work of the highest quality, or you try to anticipate the next flavor of the month.
"Did you ever have to make up your mind," as the old song goes. Many critics eventually decided to do the thing that enhanced their own reputation the most. Guess which choice they made.
You make it sound so bad.
In truth, the jazz critics handled this dilemma better than critics in other art forms. At least for the most part. Jazz has always prided itself on judging music by how it sounds. But that isn't always the case in other forms of music. I recently met a scholar who had written a paper on John Cage, and found that it caused some controversy, because he analyzed Cage's music on the basis of how it sounded, rather than on the basis of its "compositional strategies."
How strange, that a music writer would get called to the carpet for paying attention to the sound of the music. Isn't music all about how it sounds? Yet this tells you something about the state of mind across the fence in the world of contemporary classical music. Fortunately things never got quite that bad on the jazz scene. The jazz critics still listen to the music, for the most part, and are influenced by what their ears tell them when they write their reviews. Of course, that begs the question of how much they hear . . .
Sorry to cut you off. But does it really matter what the critics say?
It certainly does. When critics try to impress each other, rather than fulfill their responsibility to the audience, the audience feels shortchanged. And, eventually, the audience shrinks.
How often have you bought a CD because of a critic's recommendation, only to find that it was almost unlistenable? More often than you want to admit, huh? If you are a dedicated fan, you might keep on buying more CDs even after that experience. But many intelligent members of the general public, who might have become serious jazz fans, got turned away by this corruption of critical standards.
Isn't this just a matter of taste? You talk about intelligent members of the public who might become jazz fans. But who are these mysterious people?
Let's face it, the jazz audience has always had a disproportionate share of musicians in its ranks. Just listen to the conversations of the people sitting at the tables around you at the jazz clubs. The chairs are filled with guitarists, pianists, saxophonists, and other players. This is a good thing for the art form.
You listen to the people at other tables at the clubs? I thought you went out to hear the music?
The jazz audience is a smart audience. These people understand music. You can't insult their intelligence with some jive act. And I fear it is precisely this group of people—with discerning ears and a good grasp of musical structure and potentiality—who have been turned off by a critical establishment that jumps blindly from fad to fad.
You sound very pessimistic.
Actually I have high hopes—over the long run. And they are based on the amazing strength and vitality of the music itself. Jazz is honest music. It is exciting music. It allows more scope for individuality than any other musical genre. It offers more surprises too. I don't think it is possible to kill it. But it would be best if we put away the knives and stopped stabbing. After all, it wouldn't take much to bring back an audience for this music.
What else are they gonna do with their ears? On second thought, don't answer that . . .
Me? You're the one with the bad jokes. I'm going back to sleep.
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia
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"A half-century ago, the critical function got corrupted. This happened around the time art critic Clement Greenberg found that he could make his name and reputation by jumping on the bandwagon for Jackson Pollock." Read a book, dude. Greenberg was already an established successful writer by the time he came upon, and brought to fame, the unknown Jacksom Pollock. In other words, you have it exactly bass-ackwards.
I've read plenty of Greenberg, my friend. If you don't think that he tied his reputation to Mr. Pollock's, you don't know Greenberg very well. Of course, Greenberg wrote criticism before he started pushing Pollock, but nowadays almost any time people mention Greenberg, the word Pollock is almost sure to come out of their mouth within the next few seconds. Here is the opening of Greenberg's Wikipedia entry: "Clement Greenberg (January 16, 1909 - May 7, 1994) was an influential American art critic closely associated with Modern art in the United States. In particular, he promoted the abstract expressionist movement and was among the first critics to praise the work of painter Jackson Pollock." As you can see, they can't get beyond the second sentence without linking this critic to his most famous cause. Not surprising. Greenberg jumped on this bandwagon and rode for all it was worth. My point is that critics learned from this. They saw that being the first to push the "next new thing" would enhance their own reputation. I even think it would be fair to call this the "Greenberg phenomenon."
Ted, I've also thought much about these issues, perhaps not with enough clarity to know much about what it is I'm trying to understand. The idea of a "jazz community" is an abstraction that is difficult to define. What is jazz? It's many things to many people. Some people feel that it is related primarily to the African-American experience. To others, it its a universal form of musical expression. Some naive people think that it is the only form of music in which the musicians improvise. One thing I do know is that the average consumer of music doesn't care a whit about it. It's not on their radar. They don't feel curious about it nor do they feel that they "should" know anything about it. They don't know who Yusef Lateef, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz, Shafi Hadi, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Johnny Hodges and all of the other jazz greats were and are, and don't feel self-conscious or ignorant about the fact that they don't know. The remaining few jazz devotees are deeply involved as listeners or players because they have the ability to process the musical information in a way that elicits an emotional response. Some of these people seek to exploit whatever means are available to create a livelihood out of playing. Many of these are "jazz educators" who are part of an industry that has flourished for a while and which was able to put money into the pockets of some musicians. But jazz is not popular music, as it was in the 1930s and 40s, and I don't believe it ever will, just as I don't believe that the music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern will ever have mass appeal. Jazz is somewhat esoteric and just not accessible to people in the environment in which we live, one in which those who control the media feed people "American Idol", "Dancing With the Stars" and other mass media hype programming. Those in control of the media don't champion jazz because they believe there is no money to be made. And in a culture whose values do not promote awareness, respect and veneration for fine arts, I believe that they are correct.
Good points, Pat. Your last comment is all too true. "Those in control of the media don't champion jazz because they believe there is no money to be made. And in a culture whose values do not promote awareness, respect and veneration for fine arts, I believe that they are correct."
The number of reasons for today's dilemma are quite extensive. As a professional in the business of Jazz for more than 40 years, I've often tried to call attention to the growing problem for more than half of them. Rather than go into all of it here, I can suggest reading a 3-part piece I posted at allaboutjazz.com entitled: Hello....I Must Be Going Prelude to a Kiss-off With Friends Like These... And these were written a few years ago. They discuss where we are, what was on the table - and lost - back about 25 years ago, and why it happened. I'm not hawking anything here, just looking to provide some clarity from the inside. On the bright side, I am really amazed by how many young people I run into here in Tucson who are profoundly into Jazz. But they aren't paying any attention to the current scene, nor are they wasting their time and money attending any of these artificial and uninspiring "all-star" aggregations that are being rammed down the throats of the high-level arts presenters by a couple of big-time and greedy surviving agencies. They are listening to Trane, Miles, Mingus and the eternally compelling legends of Jazz. Is there an opportunity here? Undoubtedly. But just as with the challenges that President Obama faces, it's going to take an enormous change in the mindset of everybody involved to give it substance.
Great blog, Ted, but I wish you would call people out by name. You identify those (IAJE, JALC, NEA) who have done the most good. Yet the "influential contingent in the jazz world that would like to keep the art form small and untainted by the need to please an audience" remains murkily anonymous. You blame critics in general for striving to please musician friends, enhancing their reputations by pushing the flavor of the month, and corruptly recommending unlistenable CDs. But who are these villains? Where does their work appear? The New York Times? Downbeat? AllAboutJazz? Until you indict the offenders by name and offer into evidence specific examples of their crimes, you give us merely a conspiracy theory. Those are fun, but ultimately unenlightening.
Ah, Alan, you want me to name names. But I refuse to be a snitch. I do draw the line somewhere.
Regarding the last e-mail, I have mixed feelings about the statement that the young listeners are not paying attention to the current scene. I agree with the feeling that they should be listening to "real" music and not aggregations/all-star assemblies put out there to just make money, but believe that the extreme focus on past masters and reissues also creates its own issues regarding the support of jazz today, and the creativity of new, young masters. Record companies support this stance, providing constant reissues every month, new Van Gelder or Keepnews editions, special boxes of historic releases, etc., and then spending more money promoting these historic artifacts than new releases by young up and coming artists. And note that, with regard to promoting youth, when one reads the notes to a Blue Note or Riverside release from the 50s, one discovers that many of the artists now considered giants were in their teens when they produced these rightly recognized masterworks. So what about the young artists today -- why not grab onto them in the same way? How do we get listeners to focus on new artists, smaller labels (Origin and Smalls come to mind immediately), and original artistry? Radio stations are disappearing and those that are left are increasingly playing from limited playlists. Clubs outside of major cities are disappearing at a rapid rate, and old fashioned record stores are dinosaurs while most music seems to be bought off the internet. How does one hear new things these days except in 30 second snatches from the internet (kudos here for Palmetto and others for giving longer or complete songs to hear)or from the few radio stations around (many of which stream), or the occasional real music store? I can only answer for myself. I came to jazz recently again after a long absence, and only within the past five years have I really concentrated on listening and learning. I find the internet sites great -- some for learning what is being produced -- All About Jazz comes to mind along with this site -- and some for learning about jazz history --- Jazz Wax, Bop and Beyond, etc. With those sites and others, the magazines, small snatches of recordings, and the help of my local record store owner, it still comes back to curiosity and my own reading of the materials. Who do they say a new person sounds like? What are multiple critics saying? What does 30 seconds tell me? Who is playing in support of the leader? Why not listen to them as well? Should I take a chance? Unfortunately, I am not sure how many people are willing to take the time and effort. I have found it a great education, a great hobby, and of course great music to listen to. Do I make errors -- sure, but they may only be errors to the critics in some cases and not to my ears (I do make those errors as well). I guess ultimately it is a mindset that I am presenting, a mindset to be open to new artists and music while embracing the past masters and using them as a foundation. How we get there I have no idea, except by putting it out there and writing about it, through small clubs, and through publicity for new recordings that makes a stronger link to the past.
Contrivance is the enemy of jazz, whether it be the all-star aggregations, the faddish mixing of ingredients for novelty's sake, or a comely countenance cleverly packaged. Young listeners are keener detectors of artifice than we sometimes give them credit for. Give them emotional authenticity--whatever the style--and they'll be more inclined to check it out.
Ted, you wrote: "Critics have to make choices. Do they write about the serious artist who is quietly building a body of outstanding work over a period of years? Or do they constantly jump from fad to fad [...] Either you focus primarily on work of the highest quality, or you try to anticipate the next flavor of the month." I'm not convinced that's an either/or proposition. Certainly the accomplished veteran players should not be neglected. And there are a great many unsung veterans out there who deserve some attention. But there's a lot of youthful innovation happening too, and while some of it may be faddish, your article seems unnecessarily dismissive of what are usually sincere efforts to grow and adapt the music to the ideas of a new generation. Those young players who do so successfully should be sought out and exposed: if anyone is going to expand the audience, it will be them. There is undoubtedly an epidemic of glowing reviews for mediocre work, but that's a separate issue. Old masters release clunkers to widespread praise too. I suspect this is less a result of bandwagon-jumping writers attempting to impress their peers as it is a result of surface listening, the sort of philosophical agendas you mentioned with regard to classical music, and/or a simple unwillingness to say anything negative.
Forrest, you're right that this issue should not be positioned as young versus old musicians. But young artists are not served if they are celebrated for a few months and then abandoned as the jazz media embraces the next hot new name or pretty face. I have no problem with young talents getting recognition. The problems arise when the critics think it's more important to be seen touting the newest new thing rather than celebrating excellence wherever they find it.
As a writer about music, I listen, I respond and make an effort to interpret. Shaping how I do all that at best allows the reader to understand my language about the music and hopefully the music from my point of view. I try to be as clear as possible. My choices for what I write about are based on what is interesting to me. I enjoy following the development of certain musicians. It educates me. Yet, I am open to everything that comes my way. My response mechanisms are different from those of other folks. I can only hope that what I do helps to bring listeners into the music even more; that is the reason I do it. I am not interested in judgment nor condemnation. My writing means to be a vehicle to craft an art that does justice to the music, that is equally as poetic, as moving and spirited as the subject matter.
oops! I just noticed that Ted referred to JALC, IAJE and the NEA as the "good guys" - YIKES!!! - If that's the perception here, there's really no need to identify who the "bad guys" may be, as this indicates a really poor assessment of the big picture. Now I really suggest that everybody - especially you Ted - read the pieces I posted. All in all, it doesn't really matter though. The barn door can be closed, but the horses are all dead.
I think that considerable also is the changing demographic, i.e. different branches of that demographic. How technology fits in as well. There are new solutions to the situation in question. People involved with jazz have to stay involved for the best reasons. Keeping the music alive. Somehow. (Remember all those academics in Quelph, and what about the JJA?)
Well, Marty, there is no more IAJE. So you must be happy with that. And maybe some day there will be no NEA and JALC, and then you can really celebrate. Who else do you want eliminate to improve the state of jazz?
Nice, Ted. Always a good idea to reduce an issue to blind accusation. This is one of the reasons why we are where we are, for all the hand-wringing you may wish to do about it. Read my pieces if you want to take me on, don't just take a stupid cheap shot like that. Those pieces and every other thing I've written on this subject are clearly delineated behind specific information from the trenches, not the bleachers. If you read what I'd written 10 years ago, it would seem eerily prophetic. But it isn't. It's just deductive reasoning combined with arithmetic. Or don't read them. No matter. Jazz writers have never really wanted to take a clear look at the business. They'd rather just pop off about it, like blind men with shotguns. You want to have an intelligent conversation about it, you have my e-mail. I'm outta here, pal.
Great article, sobering reading. I honestly feel that Jazz has the potential to be huge right now. There are so many issues, but one basic one is marketing. Kids don't want to hear Flinty McGee and his Swingin Orchestra, or Sylvester Smithers Smokin at the Palace, and this is the image of Jazz that is entrenched and clung to. However, imagine if a performance video of the Vandermark 5, William Parker, Greg Osby or Mathew Shipp or even Cecil Taylor came on MTV after the latest Britney Video: it would blow minds. Some Would dig it, Some Wouldn't but im sure it would attract new fans. It would be like throwing an artistic grenade into the malaise out there. We have nothing to lose, come out with all guns blazing. Of course, how we could get Jazz on MTV (i'm speaking generically: whatever people are watching these days... maybe even a 30 second spot during prime time?) i have no idea. I have no problem with people having different taste in music, but when they are making a decision out of ignorance, that they haven't had a chance to hear all the amazing Jazz being produced today, that is frustrating to me. I still feel positive though... whatever it's current state, as long as we keep the home fires burning and ride out the storm there will always be the potential to rebuild the audience. Thanks again for a thought provoking article.
Marty, I did read your articles after you first mentioned them. I saw your many suggestions about what you could do with all the money JALC has raised for jazz. But the difference is that JALC actually raised that money for jazz, and all you did was rant. Forgive me if I don't find much insight in reading another armchair critic ranting about JALC. The anti-Wynton jazz wars are dead, and they didn't accomplish anything while they were going on. Let me repeat that for emphasis: they did not accomplish a single thing. Meanwhile JALC has done a lot to advance jazz in New York and elsewhere.
Once again, an interesting and refreshing article. Thanks for speaking the truth when so many are avoiding the real issues.
I'm not in the jazz world on a daily basis, but I have grown up with a limited jazz education. So I'm not the expert here, but this conversation is fascinating to me due to the element of audience development and marketing that is needed. I think one point that was left out is the fact that some people equate Kenny G and all those other "Smooth Jazz" artists as being jazz. Very sad indeed! I'm not sure people really know what jazz is anymore. Also, the perception that jazz is music from and for an older generation seems to be mainstream now. So, how do you change the mainstream? Is part of the problem the fact that jazz has refused to take the mainstream opportunities? Is it uncool for jazz to market and do audience development? Is jazz afraid to try new things? Or, is jazz waiting to be hip again without doing the work like the other industries? I'm not a big pop fan, but you have to marvel at their marketing think tanks. They can take a relatively untalented "singer" and turn them into the next sensation. Imagine what they can do with someone that does have talent! Jazz artists, real jazz artists have talent. So where are the marketing/audience development think tanks? Jazz was very fortunate in the 30's and 40's since it had the personalities that made jazz mainstream. Where are these personalities now? Mostly I see jazz musicians keeping to themselves and being intellectual introverts. I think jazz needs another Louis Armstrong personality to shake things up. I certainly have been waiting for a talented jazz musician to have that charismatic personality that lights up the media. And some of you will probably think that they are selling out, but they may save the jazz industry in the process. Again, I'm not a jazz expert, and I'm certainly not pretending to be one, but I do know about marketing and audience development. You may need to add some education and start out with easier more understandable riffs, but the audience can and will learn. You can change the way jazz is promoted without changing jazz itself. Unless, does jazz also mean anti-promotion? Look around and you will see some interesting talents and people that normally wouldn't get a second thought suddenly burst on the mainstream scene. I think you guys need to find the most promising personalities and up and coming jazz artists (dare I see younger generation artists?) and then make some incredible jazz noise!
An essential conversation is going on here, since in the twelve steps of jazz, acknowledging that you have a problem will be the first step towards finding a solution. I'm not sure I agree that booking pop or rock acts in jazz fests is a sign of the apocalypse. This has been the norm in Europe and even at Newport for many years. When used thoughtfully, this can in itself help build new audiences. I also love the idea of MTV having a late-night jazz hour. Remember that this is what they did with hip-hop back in the day (which at the time was out of their purview) and look how that took off. I believe there is a real opportunity to reach out to a rising generation which doesn't inherently care about or understand the genre borders of the past, and to hip them to jazz, if it is presented to them as something other than other than their parents' (or grandparents') music. As a sign of this possibility, these kids are interested in, and support, the "art" projects of their favorite pop groups (such as Arcade Fire's Bell Orchestre). However, getting the same kids to pay for music is a different story. That's why the labels concentrate on reissues, as it's only fogies, mostly, who have been willing to pay for music lately. Kids do turn out, however, to support live music, so if jazz can regain some underground buzz, it can prevail if not fully prosper in these hard times.
hello-here is some good advice for the musicians from Houston Person and Lou Donaldson. People really love to here a good song, a good melody. Also don't forget the blues. The jazz fan and their friends want to enjoy the show so give them some of the beautiful stuff that they recognize-hey I know that song!
Good discussion on both sides. It is clear the current approach for jazz marketing/ promotion has caused the demise of the music. Unfortunately artists, critics, and promoters became very comfortable with the state of affairs; they were very comfortable with the idea that the "big names" could go to one or two major festivals a year either here or in Europe and be paid handsomely. They no longer needed to take roadtrips through all the smaller cities here in this country. The problem is that once the musicians stopped visiting all the smaller towns, interest overall in the music waned. Radio stations started to change; and there was no inherent fan base to protest. The festivals had become the major way for the "name" artists to disseminate their music. The problem with all festivals (and as was stated previously), is that it gave the artists and audience a false sense of security. The artists were paid exorbitant fees, and the fans saw the artists at reduced prices or free because of sponsorships. Well lo and behold, the sponsors controlled the music. NYC just found out about that when the major sponsors pulled out of the JVC festival in NY; the first time NY will be without a major festival in 37 years. The fans will not pay the actual ticket price needed to pay the artist's fees. So the music cannot be supported in its current form and structure. I submit there are still great numbers of jazz fans, only an increasingly smaller number willing to pay for the privilege to listen. What is the solution? Exposure. If this music is exposed to the young people, they will listen and appreciate it. It is a misnomer to think that the music is too complicated for the young people to understand; there is essentially no difference between the youth of the early 30's and today. (or of the 50's for that matter). Kids will listen if they are exposed to it. Bottom line, we have to develop a new market for the music. Kids that most of America wrote off in this last election cycle propelled Obama to victory. The same thing can and must happen in jazz. Now before you consider me naive and out of touch with "the real jazz world", it is quite clear the current approach is not working. No one is too big to fail; not General Motors, Chrysler, Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, David Sanborn on anyone else. There must be a fundamental restructuring of how jazz is funded; the days of $40000 artists and festival money is over. The artists might still be able to command those fees individually, but if they are really about the music surviving, they would realize how important it is to perform in smaller venues for lesser fees. This will insure the music begins to become popular again. There is no overnight fix for this. But unless we continue to reach out to the youth, and show them that this music is vibrant, not ancient, we will lose this battle for good. Then you will have the proverbial "greatest solo never heard".
Good points, Doc. B. You are right to call attention to the disappearance of jazz performances by the leading bands in many cities throughout the United States. A jazz act "going on tour" these days usually means a visit to five cities over the course of a few days. What a change from years ago, when tours often lasted several months. For many people in the United States, there is not a single club within driving distance that brings in leading out-of-town jazz acts on a regular basis. And this all boils down to economics. I can't see how the jazz audience can grow if fans don't have the ability to see the leading artists of the day.
I agree with what Doc B said. Like some people noted "jazz" is often associated with kenny g, and honestly... old people. So its probably up to the teachers and the musicians to get "jazz" into the ears of young people, and I don't think we ("jazz" land) are doing enough. "jazz" communities are strong because people who are in to the music are IN to the music but this usually makes it more exclusive and turns some people off. I think the issue is more simple. I think we just need to re-name the art form. We need to help ourselves, who cares if festivals are folding, or that they book Joe cocker instead of wayne shorter. In fact this is probably the best opportunity to rethink the way things are done in the "jazz" world. As far as another name, use any you want I guess, just don't use "jazz" anymore.
I find it interesting that there are folks even on this blog that are in disagreement as to what should be catagorized as "real" jazz. As oppose to the mainstream jazz musicians/fans knocking the smooth jazz musicians/fans, why can there be a mixture that might appeal to a larger fan base. One size nor type of music will never ever appeal to all listeners, so why can't there be a open field of musicians and musical styles all under the umbrella of the jazz title. The elitism is not doing anything to propel the music to a higher level or gain a larger fan base for the artists and the musical form.