Why Isn't Jazz Popular?

[DavidKOS]

Well jazz was popular, when it was called swing, it was the pop music of its day.

It hasn't been popular since the beboppers arrived and lowered the danceable element while raising the "art" element.

An unpopular but to my mind accurate concept.

Being from New Orleans, where jazz is still part of the dancing and entertainment culture, and having played pre-bop styles of jazz for dances, I certainly get why the large audience for swing music didn't particularly appreciate bop.

Actually, jazz was popular since the late teens - and it was also largely for dancing, as many of the early pieces of music referenced the then-current dance styles like the Charleston, Black Bottom, etc.

As soon as people couldn't dance to the music, they looked for other musical styles that were still suitable, leading to the rise of rock, honky tonk, R and B, Salsa, etc.

Frankly I'd still rather play a hot dance band swing gig than a bop set. Lots more fun!

[PDeville]

An unpopular but to my mind accurate concept.

Yes, that statement about dancing to music is accurate, However, the other reason is melody.
Why do people love singers, even bad pop singers? It's the familiar human voice. The melody is easy to hear.
Most all those standards from 1920-60s have nice pretty melodies to accent the Broadway
performances and to provide a few orchestrated melody notes for opening a scene in a Hollywood film.
People who were not musicians would hum those "standard" melodies after seeing the films several times. (I saw this as
a kid with my father and his friends).

But honestly, but very few people want to hear a sax blaring 8th notes at 300 bpm over the Donna Lee changes.
That was a novel, radical style of playing in the late 1940s that was already getting tiresome by 1960 (or before).

If you enjoy more complex music, then you probably play an instrument and find the complexity interesting and also some sort of technical challenge.

But most people find it simply annoying, and I don't blame them.
They don't know about complex chords changes and don't want to know. Why should they?
A standard melody may have 30 notes. Now, you want them to hear 1000 improvised notes played at 300 bpm and "appreciate" it? Oh, and play 8 choruses of solos as well. People love that. NOT.
It's TEDIOUS NOISE to probably 99.8% of the human population.

I always loved this: "Is this still the same song?" Haha!!!
Jazz doesn't need to be popular.

[Saxophone Tall]

An unpopular but to my mind accurate concept.

Being from New Orleans, where jazz is still part of the dancing and entertainment culture, and having played pre-bop styles of jazz for dances, I certainly get why the large audience for swing music didn't particularly appreciate bop.

Actually, jazz was popular since the late teens - and it was also largely for dancing, as many of the early pieces of music referenced the then-current dance styles like the Charleston, Black Bottom, etc.

As soon as people couldn't dance to the music, they looked for other musical styles that were still suitable, leading to the rise of rock, honky tonk, R and B, Salsa, etc.

Frankly I'd still rather play a hot dance band swing gig than a bop set. Lots more fun!

Which is one reason why Rap / Hip Hop is curiously popular: it is NOT "dance music." Actually, it's not even music, but that's another discussion altogether.

[Christian Miller]

Which is one reason why Rap / Hip Hop is curiously popular: it is NOT "dance music." Actually, it's not even music, but that's another discussion altogether.

Oh here’s another one lol.

[jads57]

Jazz requires a listener who likes being challenged! Who would have thought Cole Porter, Gershwin, Duke Ellington would become challenging music to listen to!

[Christian Miller]

Jazz requires a listener who likes being challenged! Who would have thought Cole Porter, Gershwin, Duke Ellington would become challenging music to listen to!

Funny, what I take away from threads like this is that a lot of people who say they enjoy jazz seem to have zero interest in listening to anything that challenges them to hear in a different way.

Which is fine and all, but I wish they would get off their high horse. It’s like listening to me drone on as a 20 something ....

[alpop]

I can't remember the source, but I do remember reading quite some time ago: "too much difference = sameness = boring"

[steve burchfield]

I think a lot of jazz is self-indulgent listen to me blow and blow and blow. Of course there are masters of it. I think some of the best overall musicians on the planet are involved in writing really good film scores. Music that will stand the test of time. It never hurts to consider your audience.

[Christian Miller]

I can't remember the source, but I do remember reading quite some time ago: "too much difference = sameness = boring"

Music rides the fine line between pattern and variation, between order and chaos.... Where you sit on that line really depends on you.

[DavidKOS]

But honestly, but very few people want to hear a sax blaring 8th notes at 300 bpm over the Donna Lee changes.
That was a novel, radical style of playing in the late 1940s that was already getting tiresome by 1960 (or before).

Great post!

BTW, many histories of early bop make it clear that a lot of the characteristics of bop - burn tempos, unusual melodies as contrafacta, difficult keys, etc. were a deliberate attempt to limit the musical pool and keep the "average" swing musicians off the jam session bandstand.

[Christian Miller]

I think a lot of jazz is self-indulgent listen to me blow and blow and blow. Of course there are masters of it. I think some of the best overall musicians on the planet are involved in writing really good film scores. Music that will stand the test of time. It never hurts to consider your audience.

Eh, I think it’s more complicated now. If I think the business has changed so much. If the second heyday of old school film scoring with orchestra could be said to have run from Star Wars into the early 00’s, today’s environment is much more technological.

According to Guthrie Govan, Hans Zimmer told him that his special niche was being able to operate the technology to give directors a clearer idea of what the music would sound like ahead of time; something Jerry Goldsmith couldn’t do during his era. Zimmer isn’t from a classical background at all btw, but he has profoundly altered the way film music is composed, and moved it much more towards sound design.

So extremely talented musicians abound in Tinsel Town (well it’s where the $$$’s are) it seems like modern film composers don’t come quite as much from that old school tradition.

But it sounds like a nightmare. For instance the Marvel movie’s scores are completely unmemorable; the reasons being AFAIK prevalence of temp tracks from other films to which the films are then cut and directors asking composers to write something just shy of plagiarism of material that is already very generic. Directors used to have conception of music as an artform.... I think that’s pretty sad tbh.

The big thing now is Video Game music; comparative creative freedom alongside big budgets. It’s bigger then Hollywood. I would expect most of the best and brightest are there now.

[DavidKOS]

I can't remember the source, but I do remember reading quite some time ago: "too much difference = sameness = boring"

When every song is performed in a manner bristling with the same "hip" chord substitutions, the same "advanced" scales and patterns, and so-on, the effect is lost and becomes as boring as the vanilla changes.

[DavidKOS]

Zimmer isn’t from a classical background at all btw, but he has profoundly altered the way film music is composed, and moved it much more towards sound design.

So now instead of real score, it all sounds like trailer music.

Not a big Zimmer fan here.

[Christian Miller]

So now instead of real score, it all sounds like trailer music.

Not a big Zimmer fan here.

I like some of his work.

[alpop]

When every song is performed in a manner bristling with the same "hip" chord substitutions, the same "advanced" scales and patterns, and so-on, the effect is lost and becomes as boring as the vanilla changes.

That is an excellent interpretation of the little formula I posted. (That being said, if I had the chops, I'd probably be boring the hell out of people too. haha)

[Christian Miller]

Anyway this came on the radio just now.

[PDeville]

Great post!

BTW, many histories of early bop make it clear that a lot of the characteristics of bop - burn tempos, unusual melodies as contrafacta, difficult keys, etc. were a deliberate attempt to limit the musical pool and keep the "average" swing musicians off the jam session bandstand.

You know, while I had never read that, I somehow knew just by listening to those records from late 40s - 50s. Ha! Interesting fact.

[Stevebol]

That's a pretty good question, actually. I don't know what the answer would be.

I like jazz because I actually like it, but I never would have found it if I hadn't had the attitude of "everything on the radio sucks, I need to find my own thing."

It's a cult as it should be.

[Litterick]

Chops:

Finding herself outgrowing Yorkshire, Thackray attended to the Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, then heading out further, taking on a Master’s with Issie Barratt at Trinity. She soon found herself as an RBMA alumnus and in 2018, became artist-in-residence at the London Symphony Orchestra.

You need a Master's to do anything these days.

[Stevebol]

Chops:

Finding herself outgrowing Yorkshire, Thackray attended to the Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, then heading out further, taking on a Master’s with Issie Barratt at Trinity. She soon found herself as an RBMA alumnus and in 2018, became artist-in-residence at the London Symphony Orchestra.

You need a Master's to do anything these days.

I have no doubt. After learning jazz in a country that actually likes jazz- Japan, you have to go to Berkley.
I know the Americans! My papers are in order!

[rpjazzguitar]

Hard question to answer, since I don't know the correct definition of "jazz".

That said ...

If jazz is music with some complex chord changes, complex rhythm and a lot of improvisation, then one reason it isn't popular is that "jazz"
doesn't acknowledge that some some popular music is even "jazz".

The Grateful Dead used odd meters, long jams, spontaneous arrangement on stage and even some interesting harmony (compared to, say, So What) and somehow that isn't "jazz".

"Smooth Jazz"? Rejected by purists.

Rock with interesting harmony (think Steely Dan), funk, blues (with improv) etc, all somehow not jazz, although none of it would exist without jazz. How is big band jazz, with everybody reading an arrangement and a couple of solos, accepted as jazz, but Steely Dan isn't jazz?

Maybe if you put some ii V I's into the rock or blues music, it begins to get accepted as jazz, like Clarence Gatemouth Brown.

Somebody may say that, somehow, that "other" music isn't really in the jazz tradition, i.e. that it comes from somewhere else. Yet, Bitch's Brew is jazz and Grateful Dead jams aren't. Western Swing seems to be on the fence, but it contains similar harmony and great improv.

When I play a casual or jam with friends, if we call it jazz, it's a certain repertoire. Head, solos, head, typically. Not much spontaneity, except among the most skilled players. When I'm in NYC and I go to a club, that isn't what I hear. The music is typically at a significantly higher level, with more spontaneous arrangement, unfamiliar repertoire etc. And, those clubs are packed.

When I've gone to hear Strings Attached, it's a more traditional approach. Great players, great improv, great jazz of a certain type. I've gone on every trip to NYC when they were playing and I'll go again. But, the club, which is small, has never been full.

[Stevebol]

Chops:

Finding herself outgrowing Yorkshire, Thackray attended to the Royal Welsh College Of Music And Drama, then heading out further, taking on a Master’s with Issie Barratt at Trinity. She soon found herself as an RBMA alumnus and in 2018, became artist-in-residence at the London Symphony Orchestra.

You need a Master's to do anything these days.

You need a masters to dance music? Sounds good to me. I'm sick of it.

[Saxophone Tall]

Oh here’s another one lol.

Sure. No saxes, guitars, etc. in Rap. No melody. Fake drums. 4 main titillating words for "lyrics." Not danceable. #2 is why I say "not music." Another art form instead. Music demands melody,harmony and rhythm - not just rhythm. In fact, the heart of African music is the drum, and Rap, which claims to be "Black," eliminated it in favor of a robot. I'm with Wynton on this one.

[citizenk74]

Jazz requires a listener who likes being challenged! Who would have thought Cole Porter, Gershwin, Duke Ellington would become challenging music to listen to!

It depends on how you play it.

[steve burchfield]

Like the old Duke said there are only two kinds of music : GOOD and BAD and then one could argue its all subjective....