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I wonder how thriving the jazz scene is in New York City? There are more places to play, far more musicians, but I wonder if the economics are the same as elsewhere? Even top level players playing for peanuts in restaurants. Like seeing Bobby Broom at Pete Millers steakhouse in Evanston here ?
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03-06-2014 07:14 PM
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McCoy Tyner was doing a hotel lobby gig last I heard. I heard club 55 paid $50/each. From what I understand, NY's the only place with a thriving scene but not many people are making a living playing.
Originally Posted by NSJ
In art schools all across the USA, the kids are predominately rich kids because their parents can afford to send them to art school and then send them back for something else down the road. Artists used to be the derelicts but it seems that now the kids in art school are mostly well off.
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As an art form, no. As a business model, yes I believe it is dead. There will be the opportunity to make a little money here and there from jazz, but it will be very difficult - I do not believe it can be one's primary income source unless one is exceptionally good...I think you need to be the first call guy/gal or else. And you probably need to be a multi-instrumentalist.
I wrote a lot of other stuff but I deleted it because I think it's too depressing and I don't want to rub any pro's the wrong way.
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For most of it's history as an "art form" jazz has occupied a relatively small niche among both musicians and the general public. I don't see that changing. Jazz music can be a little challenging for the unfamiliar listener and very challenging to play. Jazz is by definition an advanced form of musical expression, so these barriers to popularity will always exist. But jazz music is so cool, hopefully there will always be a few people who will play it together.
And yes, art definitely requires an audience because the essence of art is communication. Even if the audience is only the other musicians.
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Media do not want to talk about Art?
May be the key it is a global market.
Jazz is a great music but not everbody like it...
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For that matter, couple of years ago I was in Cleveland Ohio, for couple of days, wanted to check some Jazz club. Originally Posted by kris
Found one on internet, went there by bus, only to find it was closed. I could see chairs turned up onto piano in the middle of the space. I thought maybe it was closed on particular working days.
The next day, I was looking for some odd microphone cable connectors so someone from a downtown music shop (guy asked me if I was from The Journey, who played the gig that night?!) directed me over Columbus Rd. Bridge (I went there on foot, to amazement of our local hosts. Supposedly it was risky deed.) to a second hand electronic shop, across the street from the covered green market, (loads of garbage TV sets, cameras ...), where the owner told me that club was actually closed for some time already, it was fake fancy place anyway, but said he knew one good place, in spite Jazz being almost dead there, and we made a deal to go there together.
However, he did not call me at agreed time. Probably got scared I'd kill him and cook him for dinner. He did not have connectors I was looking for, either.Last edited by Vladan; 03-07-2014 at 10:44 AM.
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Asia and some parts of N. Europe would seem to be where the live music scene is most happening, and growing. There might be a slight turn-around going in the states but this is definitely not the place to look for inspiration. Originally Posted by kris
In my opinion the internet has changed the way people learn music in a big way. We're in the middle of a big transition now. Where I live it's older cats, much older, who are going out and getting the steady gigs. Maybe the audience prefers the original styles of older musicians over the younger generation's virtuosity?
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Jazz it is international musical lunguage...I think always this way.
but..............
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sounds like the bop stop and yeah, they had a terrible business model and did not like to have black musicians play there and didn't serve food so they were doomed. They did donate the space to a music institute so some good came of it. You should have looked me up and we could have jammed! Originally Posted by Vladan
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Bop Stop that was, right. At the time I was not so active on the forum, and could play even less Jazz than I can now, but we could have had a beer, under different circumstances. Thank's for invitation and bringing the name of the place back to memory.
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And it was not Journey gig, it was Rush.
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The writer Stuart Nicholson's book "Is Jazz Dead?" is worth reading if you are interested in looking at this issue. He writes perceptively on the Lincoln Jazz Centre; the re-emergence of popular jazz-toned singers; jazz education and the impact of globalisation on jazz throughout the world.
He's particularly strong on what has been happening in Europe - the book is great - well-written, challenging and illuminating.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Is-Jazz-Dead...s=is+jazz+dead
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Nicholas payton had a strong opinion on the subject, I suggest looking at his blogs, if interested.
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It's hard to believe that it's been almost 5 years since Terry Teachout addressed the subject in The Wall Street Journal. It sure started an active dialogue about it in the jazz community for a long time.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...20303103850572
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The fact that we can have a 3 page thread about it make me suspect that the answer is yes. I doubt that artforms with a growing or stabil audience have these discussions.
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I think because Jazz has very small and specific audience, it just seems like it's fading away from popularity, but I contend that jazz as an art form, has never achieved popularity but to understand this, you would have to distinguish jazz of the 20s, 30s and 40s in which was a means of entertainment and the era when jazz was played with more artistic intent, say from the late 40s to today. I think that jazz as an art does not require an audience, just the artist itself justifies its existence.
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There might be a money problem when jazz is not popular. There are no aesthetic problems though and as long as there is music made as beautiful (maybe only topped by Debussy,, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Erik Satie) as jazz music I have no worries.
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when jazz DID reach plenty of ears--the 20's 30's, 40's you cite--people DANCED to it...and imo such jazz had PLENTY of 'artistic intent'... Originally Posted by nick1994
..like ellington, armstrong, coleman hawkins, lester young, basie, goodman, tatum, artie shaw, waller, eldridge, chick webb et al....
ANY kinda music that gets folks' feet tappin and bodies moving is gonna reach lotsa ears...it just 'feels' good, makes folks wanna hear more...also in older jazz, many jazz artists used pop songs as source material, enlarging their potential receptive audience, without sacrificing the quality of the music...
in my own performing, lifelong, regardless of genre, my fave gigs have ALWAYS been when people danced, not just sat and listened--or sat and DIDNT listen but instead drank or tried to hook up or drank or drank some more and then decided to have another drinkie, before making another doofus pass at yet another unfortunate Object Of Desire Unawares before being rebuffed and then deciding on just one more little drinkie for the road before toppling from the bar stool--meanwhile, in the distant background, some unfortunate musicians are trying to play something worthwhile, tho in sonic competition with ringtones, cash registers, loud conversations about god knows what, fistfights, cries of "check please!" and "last call!" and, yes, the thud of still more bodies toppling offa barstools.
recently on this forum someone shared a youtube vid of a young trio called 'thestepkids'..doing a jazz-vibe arrangement of pharrel william's 'get lucky'...full of swing, smarts, musicality and creativity...such stuff gives evidence that jazz will endure tho, as always with any creative realm, in new and surprising forms.Last edited by janepaints; 03-21-2014 at 09:14 AM. Reason: typo
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See, I disagree with you there, Jane. If you look at swing music, it's purpose was to entertain crowds, then look at someone like Coltrane during the 60s, certainly wasn't trying to please the audience. Entertainers care for the crowds and artists stay for their music regardless if anybody likes it or not. Just because swing is entertainment music as opposed to art music (not all of it is though), shouldn't affect anyone's perceived quality of the music. If you think that it's good music, then that's all the persuasion you should need.
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I don't know or really care if jazz is dead. Jazz is dead......long live jazz....or whatever. I refuse to not be happy today because I just discovered this song;
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my experience is very different. On gigs where people dance, they expect you to play things with a beat and a particular tempo. To me, jazz is art and while it started out as dance music, clearly by the time Bird and Diz created bebop, folks weren't dancing to 1/4 = 300 tempos of salt peanuts. And when Coltrane was playing stuff like Ascension, people weren't dancing either. I would much prefer to play to a listening audience than a dancing audience. Nothing wrong with playing dance music. I have done that and have enjoyed that but for me jazz is about more than that.
I don't recall anyone dancing when I heard Micheal Brecker, Wynton Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, Pat Metheny, etc...
Originally Posted by janepaints
when jazz DID reach plenty of ears--the 20's 30's, 40's you cite--people DANCED to it...and imo such jazz had PLENTY of 'artistic intent'...
..like ellington, armstrong, coleman hawkins, lester young, basie, goodman, tatum, artie shaw, waller, eldridge, chick webb et al....
ANY kinda music that gets folks' feet tappin and bodies moving is gonna reach lotsa ears...it just 'feels' good, makes folks wanna hear more...also in older jazz, many jazz artists used pop songs as source material, enlarging their potential receptive audience, without sacrificing the quality of the music...
in my own performing, lifelong, regardless of genre, my fave gigs have ALWAYS been when people danced, not just sat and listened--or sat and DIDNT listen but instead drank or tried to hook up or drank or drank some more and then decided to have another drinkie, before making another doofus pass at yet another unfortunate Object Of Desire Unawares before being rebuffed and then deciding on just one more little drinkie for the road before toppling from the bar stool--meanwhile, in the distant background, some unfortunate musicians are trying to play something worthwhile, tho in sonic competition with ringtones, cash registers, loud conversations about god knows what, fistfights, cries of "check please!" and "last call!" and, yes, the thud of still more bodies toppling offa barstools.
recently on this forum someone shared a youtube vid of a young trio called 'thestepkids'..doing a jazz-vibe arrangement of pharrel william's 'get lucky'...full of swing, smarts, musicality and creativity...such stuff gives evidence that jazz will endure tho, as always with any creative realm, in new and surprising forms.
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Agreed w/ Jack Z's above post. I think the thing to realize is that people are less impressed w/ musicians in general as a form of entertainment. There was a time when Les Paul along w/ then wife Mary Ford had a weekly T.V. show. And even then most of the music leaned to Country Western influenced peices. Visual as a medium seems to be most popular in most everything. Not that it hasn't always been, but now more than ever people have cheap access to it (smart phones) Also technology allows any person to construct music w/out any expertise. I'm sure when technology allows us to be our on doctor,lawyer,whatever profession for free it will replace those peoples jobs as well!
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This. On all points. Originally Posted by jads57
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