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I have a playlist I like to send to friends who ask why I like Jazz. Even choosing accessible pieces it becomes a genre that requires a lot of explaining. Not many modern listeners just hear it and love it. Even my own Jazz journey has required education and active listening.
Put on someone like Sturgill Simpson and people can get into that from the first beat (I love Sturgill by the way). It's not a dig on modern jazz, but I think it has become a "listening man's" music rather than something an average person can get into. That all seemed to happen about the time Jazz got really good (to me) from early to post bebop. It's all good though, nobody has to like what I like.
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10-21-2022 05:40 PM
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Jazz isn't popular because it's hard. It's hard to play and it's work to listen to. And the songs are either unfamiliar originals or now-unfamiliar standards which were the music of the grandparents and great-grandparents of most of today's would-be clubgoers. Jazz has arted itself out of an audience.
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In what possible world could jazz remain popular for decades? Nothing else of the swing era has remained popular, so why should the music? Each generation wants something new. They don't want to listen to the music of their older siblings, let alone their grandparents and great-grandparents.
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I’m continually surprised at how popular various types of jazz seem to be. Maybe I keep my expectations incredibly low haha
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Isn't the actual answer to this question something like "because it isn't pop music"?
Originally Posted by Litterick
I don't agree that nothing else from the swing era has remained popular. It depends on local/national culture of course, but gipsy jazz/swing has considerable popularity here in France (also in the chansons it influenced) and let's not forget about the classical music from that era.
I'm not entirely certain about the exact period (years), but judging from the designs of (among others) the Campus Five disc sleeves the graphic design language from that time has never lost popularity either.
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well if you find it hard work to listen to why torment yourself? Originally Posted by Cunamara
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I wonder if 'multitasking' has something to do with not wanting to do much more than having back ground 'white noise'to fill in or give the brain a gentle massage.Or a simple diversion.I say 'white noise jazz therapy' performed here
(insert venue location) as you sip your Martini, or something.Maybe i am just figuring out why my old brain is to tired to try to figure out or remember anything uh well anything.rambling just rambling.sorry
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There's definitely something about this and jazz for me. For me, background music must walk a fine line between keeping my brain awake and not distracting it from what I want it to be doing. I'm not certain if the really easy listening jazz would be so good at the former, while most other jazz is too likely to clash with the latter. Interestingly I can use very complex music (that I could also really enjoy during active listening) as background music, presumably under condition that I know it well enough. Originally Posted by EarlBrother
And indeed, if it's hard work for me to listen to something and figure out what there is to enjoy about it then I usually disconnect. Switch channels, be it on the radio or in my mind if I happen to be at a live music event. I'm not ashamed to admit that, why would I spend the effort if I don't even know that I'm going to enjoy the music the same way as all the music I already enjoy?
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Because it doesn't want to be. Any genre that want to reach a wider audience need to reach out to said audience, make a effort to make itself approachable, give the audience an in. Jazz is content gatekeeping its bubble
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The design of the twenties and thirties fell out of favour, but was revived in the late sixties and again in the eighties. Things that appear to be timeless are often very temporal. I don't know enough about gypsy jazz to say whether it stayed or was revived, but the orchestral music of that period certainly lost its appeal after the War, and was revived in the post-modern period. Originally Posted by RJVB
But none of the music of the period is a popular as pop music, for good reason: young people do not want to listen to old music.
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Some thoughts about it
1. Our definition of jazz is narrower than it might be. There is a lot of improvisation in music which is labeled "rock". So, we accept So What (two chords) as Jazz, but we don't accept an odd-meter Grateful Dead jam with as many or more chords. Or Steely Dan. Smooth Jazz -- reviled by some. Pop music with solos: pop music. Kenny G? Of course, in saying this I'm using an imprecise definition of "jazz" too.
2. If I go to a nice restaurant and they have music, it may well be jazz, even narrowly defined. Same for piped-in music in various places. It's not all that unpopular. SF Jazz has been sold out, or close, the times I've been there.
3. Some jazz I hear locally is inaccessible to me. If it's great, it's going over my head. But not in NYC. I think it's hard music to play well and people like it when it's played well. I wonder if it has something to do with the goal. If the musicians have the major goal of playing interesting, intellectually oriented music that requires strict attention to appreciate (I know, this is a charicature) that's one thing. If the goal is to play something that will feel good to most people and get them moving -- tapping their feet, swaying, dancing, I think more people like it.
Ex: The other day I played a neighborhood outdoor party where a lot of people brought little kids. We played an energetic version of Donna Lee and had these little kids dancing to it. They seemed to like jazz well enough. Wayne Shorter is a genius, but would the kids have been dancing?
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Why Isn't Jazz Popular?
You mean why isn't jazz more popular? That's simple, it's a niche genre. Too bad :-)
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People don't understand jazz, or they pretend they understand.
Listening to jazz music requires interest and dedication to this time.
I don't mean 'jazz' to dance.
Jazz music is primarily instrumental music, and there may be a reason for that.
Can jazz compete with pop songs at all?
Several years ago, recordings of pop artists with jazz soloist artists appeared in Poland with the aim of popularizing jazz music on a larger scale.
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No art music is popular. That's why there are 2 kinds of music: art music and popular music. Lol!
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I heard something like that a long time back - the two kinds were just: Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Classical music - permanent (historical), mostly Germanic composers
"Folk music" - transitory (everything else), jazz, pop, c&w, rock, blues
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Some popular music may also be art music. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
I don't like such divisions. It is not that simple and obvious.
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Jazz is not popular because it is respectable.
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Oh brother... Originally Posted by Litterick
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I agree that it's a player's music; hard to play, hard to listen to. I mean, Kenny G isn't hard to listen to (and that's a huge reason why he went so big), but some here probably wouldn't even consider him jazz (I do).
When most people say "I like jazz too", they are likely talking about the music pumped into Panera Bread lol. And that's fine. But we (as in this forum) need to remember that we are the weird ones: we are musicians for starters, which makes us very different from the listening public. And for those of you who are jazz players, even more so.
Every once in awhile some amalgamatio of jazz still reaches great popularity: Harry Connick Jr, Micheal Buble, Kenny G, even Brian Setzer Orchestra. But I'm betting most people here wouldn't consider any of that jazz. I do. And it's POPULAR jazz.
Sometimes I think people LIKE being unliked by the masses, because they think it makes them "better" or "smarter" or "have more integrity" somehow, which is of course utter nonsense. It's just an attitude of superiority bred by the exact opposite: insecurity. Punk rock was like that. Jazz seems to be the ultimate at that, if we're talking about forumites.
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I read an interview with one of the Doors, who said that the solo section of Light My Fire was their attempt to imitate Coltrane.
And, Jim/Roger McGuinn of the Byrds said the same thing about his solo on 8 Miles High. Coltrane-influenced. That btw, may have been the first so-called psychedelic solo. It was very outside sounding and it was all over the radio. Everybody heard it and I assume some were influeced by it.
Improvised music, over changes, with a direct tie to the history of mainstream jazz.
But, we don't consider either one of those songs to be "Jazz". If we allowed the word to be used (sure, who's "we"?) then Jazz would be more popular.
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[N]Or of how fast you can play scales... Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Girl Put Your Records On
The Back Stabber
Steely Dan (the band)
what goes around comes around
I'll be around....
Jazz, of some type can be found everywhere, just like classic rock is now called country....
Here is a CBS poll. (the website dumped my poll )Whilst Jazz is listed as 7%, with all of the Jazz found in other genres, it may be as high as 20+.
That's ok. I like what I like and I listen to whatever I listen to and I play what I play...Last edited by gregunit; 10-29-2022 at 05:03 AM.
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Why jazz is not more popular?
So, I dare to come out of the closet here and present my theses. I'm sure I'll be criticized harshly, but so be it.
(I'm writing this off the top of my head - maybe a little unstructured.)
A lot of jazz seems to me like tribute acts. They mimic as best they can a certain music from the (rather distant) past, sometimes even certain musicians. Hey, the Bebop language, man!
Fine by me. You can do it, but then stand by the fact that you're imitating music that's 80 to 90 years old. And what have you added to Bebop language worth mentioning?
Every Elvis impersonator says: I imitate my idol! Wonderful, great. But he doesn't claim to be an original artist, he is an imitator. And he has the great advantage that there are still many fans of Elvis.
How many fans of Bird, Dizzy or Miles are still out there?
And BTW... tell a jazz band that they're imitators, better take cover quickly, they'll be pissed.
And then the avant-garde, incomprehensibility as a principle, the main thing is to be weird. The same thing happens here as in the so-called modern classical music. There is an incredible amount of crap, little good. Mainly incomprehensible. But the classics were so smart (at least in Europe) to help themselves from the still numerous pots of cultural funding. Without these funds most of these acts would not exist anymore.
By the way: Pink Floyd could use 10 time changes in a song, because it was great music, the time changes made sense and you didn't really notice it. When I look at the compositions of some modern or avant-garde jazz musicians, where each and every bar has a new meter, I just shake my head. The main thing is complicated and incomprehensible. Making "art" with the crowbar.
Fusion / Jazz Rock has unfortunately fallen victim to shredding. And the audience prefers to go straight to the real shredders. Say Hi to Satch!
So what could change the situation?
Going new ways, not being afraid crossing borders, learning from the good examples of popular music, ignoring the obvious crap that's the majority of course. Looking for new sounds, new grooves, incorporating today's technology, writing good melodies that people can understand and memorize - let alone sing!
Not using virtuosity as an end in itself. There have always been virtuosos in music history, but the good ones have always had a spark, a charisma. And without this spark, no one is interested in what you are doing, no matter how virtuosic you are. Just think of Dizzy, man, what a guy! But that was almost a century ago.
Two examples of successful creative projects come to mind spontaneously: Robert Glasper and the incredible "Dawn Of Midi" but there are many more.
So, now you're free to tear me apart.. :-)
Don Esteban
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PS. And this larmoyant self-pity: "We just make difficult music, and it is difficult to make and also to listen to.... " Sorry, I can't stand that any more, make it less difficult for god's sake....Last edited by DonEsteban; 10-23-2022 at 05:34 PM.
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Most jazz musicians are more concerned about the approval of their peers on the stage than entertaining the audience.
Moreover people tend to relate to music that consist mostly of elements that they are familiar with mixed in with some surprising twists and novelties. Popular music is about delivering this simple mix with as much musicality and groove as possible. Jazz on the other hand contains many elements that the general audience aren't sufficiently exposed to. So the audience mostly consists of other jazz musicians and those few who patiently invested in a lot of their times to get into the music. Also the basic sense of musicality and groove is replaced with dry complexity in mediocre jazz performances which is something people rightfully care less about.
I love jazz both as a musician and a listener but I completely understand it's lack of broader appeal.Last edited by Tal_175; 10-24-2022 at 06:52 AM.
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