Why Isn't Jazz Popular?

[Patlotch]

Folk is at least 100% more popular than jazz.

it's kind of a pleonasm because this must have something to do with the word 'folk'. To talk "folk" for "folksong" is a significant diminutive

german Volk means people. Volkswagen: the people's car
in French, folk music is said "musique folklorique", folklore means
1. Science of folk traditions, customs and art (of a country, of a human group)
2. Set of these popular traditions

[ragman1]

I’m sorry to say that folkies are also worried about this (or, maybe, it’s only the business side of it and the musicians couldn’t care less, I don’t know). What I can say is that on world music trade fairs people discuss this often,

I used to know whole communities of folkies because I had friends amongst them. I never once heard it. I don't think it crossed their mind. They seemed perfectly happy in their own world which was well attended anyway. But then they only ran clubs, not music fairs.

The same goes for festivals. No doubt the organisers wanted more income because these things are expensive to run. I suspect moaning about trade is simply par for the course at commercially driven events. As you say, the business side of it. But that's what business is.

[ragman1]

it's kind of a pleonasm because this must have something to do with the word 'folk'. To talk "folk" for "folksong" is a significant diminutive

german Volk means people. Volkswagen: the people's car
in French, folk music is said "musique folklorique", folklore means
1. Science of folk traditions, customs and art (of a country, of a human group)
2. Set of these popular traditions

One of the nice things about the folkies I knew is that you could pretty well sing what you wanted - trad Brit folk, Americana, blues, country, or anything the audience might like. I think they thought a performer wouldn't be there unless they knew what was happening. And they were right.

[ragman1]

Jazz tunes too, by the way. I forgot :-)

[AKA]

As a youngster I loved walking into the house and hearing the luscious tone of Wes’ guitar from that album. I was shocked, years later, to learn that my parents and I had poor taste.

AKA

I doubt that the hardest bebop was really popular. Had it not been for Dizzy's talent and his facets, it would have been even less

When the hard bop softens the bebop, with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, the audience expands

In fact, there is nothing difficult to appreciate Wes Montgomery, his revolution is more guitar than musical. So did Jimmy Smith. But if he had only recorded tunes like Dizzy's The Champ, it would have been different

Similarly, one of Wes's last records, Road Song 1968, was poorly received by critics and purists, it was deemed too commercial. Yet the Don Sebesky's arrangements are beautiful, with and imperial rhythm section: Herbie Hancock p, Richard Davis bass, Grady Tate dms, Ed Shaughnessy dms, Ray Barretto perc

[pcsanwald]

Really great essay by Jimmy Raney:

PREPARED GUITAR: Things Downbeat Never Taught Me by Jimmy Raney

Chicago turned out OK. There were a lot of talented young musicians, and they all played bebop. They didn't get paid for it though. Nobody liked bebop. Not the jazz fans, not the older musicians, not even the Downbeat writers. We mostly played for free in a B-Girl joint on South State Street called the "Say When." They didn't like bebop either, but they let us play there to make the place look like a real club, instead of a clip-joint that rolled drunks who were looking for some action. They got action alright, but not the kind that they had hoped for. They ended up in the alley with a sore head and no money. The bartenders were all ex-prizefighters - they had to be.

Obviously, Jimmy has got a humorous attitude and probably is exaggerating, but...

I played and recorded with Stan Getz in 1950,'51, and '52. Then I did a one-and-a-half year stint with the Red Norvo Trio. After that I got married and settled down in New York City. I found out soon enough that you can't make a living playing jazz in one city. Not even New York City. So I started doing other things in order to get by.

[Spook410]

.... Also I’d say EVH is a feel player who happened to have some great tricks.

Other examples of feel players with great tricks: Tommy Emmanuel and Django Reinhardt

[Betz]

I’m sorry to say that folkies are also worried about this (or, maybe, it’s only the business side of it and the musicians couldn’t care less, I don’t know). What I can say is that on world music trade fairs people discuss this often,


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Too true. And if one looks back to Dylan at Newport in ‘65 and the subsequent tours with the Band, the Folkies did not go quietly into that dark night. And what were they trying to preserve? Joan Baez singing ‘Joe Hill’ at Woodstock to people with absolutely no desire to mine copper? And when people tried to bring folk / protest music into the ‘60s with electric guitars the ‘purists’ lost their minds.

Similar to jazz; ‘My Favorite Things’ is a Julie Andrews song from ‘The Sound of Music’ and is considered a Coltrane classic but Wes’s ‘A Day in the Life’ is a sell-out.

[Betz]

Neil speaking here in an era before Instagram and music as e-sports....

I agree with Neil of course, but I think it would be easy to straw man what he is saying. Also I’d say EVH is a feel player who happened to have some great tricks.

the perception of complexity and musical sophistication as a criterion of good jazz (and now metal and so on) is really a slow development in the way music is learned and its social environment. I think it started with Satriani’s old teacher, Lennie Tristano, with his emphasis on mathematical rhythms, scales, formalised transcription and practicing with the metronome. All tropes common in today’s prog metal and contemporary jazz world. Non classical music edu all over really.

Ethan Iverson presents it as a direct contrast to the human, dance based rhythm feel of jazz up to that point. Tristanos ideas formed a syllabus and was relatively easy to import into music school... he didn’t invent it all, but to me it sets the tone.

None of this is a problem in itself, but the idea of playing music in clubs for real people to make a living is basically not a thing for young players of any style.

take this young guy Plini. He had never plugged into an amp until he had to tour his album. For fans who liked his music from the internet.

Complexity is fetishised among usually young musicians.... may have always been that way, but you need audiences to keep you honest. The music should only be as complex as it needs to be...and should &&£@ing swing, whether it’s jazz, rock or hip hop or whatever.

OTOH you get the backlash- hey, I learned to play in the 90s - you get the equally daft position that lack of complexity as necessary for emotional music. That’s not true.... orchestral music is an obvious example. (A lot of players like Kurt and Holdsworth that people think of as cold and technical I find very emotional. I think their music comes from a certain place. I honestly think many guitarists can’t see past chops, or lack of chops, or whatever, to hear the music.)

Sometimes the music needs to be complex... but it has to be the right kind of complex. Music isn’t measurable either way, but we are obsessed with the measurable...

I think the answer is not to be hung up on chops or musical complexity either way, and to try and be the ‘sensitive lay listener’ Bill Evans described. As a teacher it’s a lot harder because you are incentivised towards accountable assessment, and that can skew towards the quantitative if you aren’t careful. Would a Monk, Grant Green or Miles do well in jazz school? Maybe, but I think they would have been very different players if they had.

Well said. Not being blessed with that intuitive ability, I do study scales and modes. ‘Discovering’ that a solo I really dig is actually Lydian is exciting and now can become a tool in my own toolbox.

That said, I wonder if anyone really learned to swing by studying triplet quarter and eight notes, or are those just an attempt to capture the swing everyone was playing in notation?

[rpjazzguitar]

Too true. And if one looks back to Dylan at Newport in ‘65 and the subsequent tours with the Band, the Folkies did not go quietly into that dark night. And what were they trying to preserve? Joan Baez singing ‘Joe Hill’ at Woodstock to people with absolutely no desire to mine copper? And when people tried to bring folk / protest music into the ‘60s with electric guitars the ‘purists’ lost their minds.

Similar to jazz; ‘My Favorite Things’ is a Julie Andrews song from ‘The Sound of Music’ and is considered a Coltrane classic but Wes’s ‘A Day in the Life’ is a sell-out.

I was there when Baez sang Joe Hill. Probably it was that performance, rather than the brown acid, that created problems.

[Spook410]

I have worked with a lot of bright people in a long engineering career. Overall, in spite of credentials and impressive analytical wherewithal, their taste in music seemed to track that of the rest of the populace. Even though, as a group, there was a higher concentration of musicians, jazz just wasn't a topic. Not that I kept objective metrics. Just an impression. But I always knew who the jazz players were.

<ramble on>
Maybe jazz got hemmed in by definition. Should have included everything creative and bit out of the box. Bela Fleck, Michael Hedges. Would current Metheny offerings be called jazz without his history?

Anyway.. doesn't matter. Intellectual doesn't matter. A 2 second media focus doesn't matter. Good is good in general. And boring is boring. In general.

Overthinking makes me think of this joke:
Pessimist: Glass half empty
Optimist: Glass half full
Engineer: Your glass is too big

[ragman1]

I was there when Baez sang Joe Hill. Probably it was that performance, rather than the brown acid, that created problems.

Nothing to do with jazz unpopularity, which isn't really true anyway.

Couldn't resist Joe Hill - with 11 bars.

[Average Joe]

Do jazz players in general put on show? The public like to see some kind of show, a visual aspect or at least interaction with the audience.

Do jazz players in general aspire to musical accessibility? We can decry the public's lack of understanding of modern jazz, but you have to give people something they can relate to - a beat, a hummable melody. If you do that, people are ther. I saw Snarky Puppy couple of months ago. The kids loved it, I was one of the oldest people in the audience and that doesn't happen often w jazz related music. Diane Krall and Norah Jones had remarkable success playing melodies people wanted to hum. The audience is there, but you can't expect them to do all the reaching out.

Is there a clique mentality in at least part of jazz culture? Do members of the jazz comunity set up hurdles or barriers or do they invite the uninitiated in? How often have you read or heard members of our community deride audiences or members of the public for not connecting with some jazz artist? How often do you see or hear jazz fans/writers/artists put down genres that the general public are into. Ask yourself - if you weren't a member of this subculture, would you feel invited in?

But of couse it's perfectly ok to pursue art for arts' sake. Just as it's perfectly all right to write highly advanced poetry. But just as the poet accept that it's not a fault of the audience if they would rather read the Great American Novel du jour

[cosmic gumbo]

Once you start giving college degrees in a genre of music, you are basically telling the general public they are too stupid to engage in it. Can I get a PhD in R&B....? I'm betting Berklee would be willing to take my money...

[ragman1]

Do jazz players in general put on show? The public like to see some kind of show, a visual aspect or at least interaction with the audience.

Do jazz players in general aspire to musical accessibility? We can decry the public's lack of understanding of modern jazz, but you have to give people something they can relate to - a beat, a hummable melody. If you do that, people are ther. I saw Snarky Puppy couple of months ago. The kids loved it, I was one of the oldest people in the audience and that doesn't happen often w jazz related music. Diane Krall and Norah Jones had remarkable success playing melodies people wanted to hum. The audience is there, but you can't expect them to do all the reaching

Hmm. See, the trouble with that is that jazz is sophisticated music played by highly skilled musicians. Jazz in its very nature is somewhat experimental; it pushes boundaries. I don't think that's for everybody. By trying to make it 'popular' I think there's a danger of lowering its value. Also, trying to popularise it is in a way similar to a religious or political cult that wants to convert people. I don't know why those who want to bring down jazz to a 'popular level' want to do it at all. What's the motive?

Don't misunderstand this, I'm not trying to produce a clique or say the mass are too stupid to appreciate it. I'd say it's up to them. The fact is jazz is out there now - we on this thread are involved in it - so it's not as though it's hidden or inaccessible.

Not everyone likes classical music, or opera, or ballet, or modern art, or art-house films, etc etc. No one's trying to 'make them popular', it would destroy their very point. And that point has never been to exclude certain types of people. The idea's absurd. Those who like those things will gravitate towards them. And those who don't, won't.

So you see the point here. Why does this idea of making jazz popular - whatever that actually means - exist at all? If it's about money then too bad. Hire Beyonce or Justin Bieber if you want a big party!

As to whether jazz circles can be cliquey, yes they can, I've experienced it. It's a shame because there's no need, jazz won't attract those who don't like it so why bother? It's very snobby and only drives people away. What you don't want is people coming for the music and not coming back because of the snotty atmosphere.

[mr. beaumont]

Yeah, that's spot on ragman. If jazz doesn't just "grab you" right away (like I'm guessing it did for some of us) it's going to take a little effort to appreciate what's going on in jazz. Some folks are not going to put forth that effort. It doesn't make them dumb or anything, not everybody gets into music the same way.

I've always had a curious ear...so if I hear something that I find interesting, I'm apt to want to want to know more about it, even if I didn't necessarily "like it" right from the start...sometimes learning a little more about it is enough to develop an appreciation, which can eventually lead to an affinity.

I'm not like that with all artforms...give me a book and if I'm not into it after the first chapter or two, I'm on to something else.

[ragman1]

books

Oh, me too. Same with films. I bought one the other day and threw it in the bin :-)

But, you know, you've got to have a certain mindset to want to investigate something that sounds interesting. I guess some do, some don't - whether it's jazz or physics.

But each to their own, we can't all be the same.

[Average Joe]

I dunno. I think, if you want people to participate, you have to give them a way in. Take an example: I've never met a rock or pop fan who couldn't appreciate Work Song, The Sidewinder, the entirety of KOB. Are those lesser forms of jazz for being accessible? I'm not saying everything should be like that obviously, but a dwindling community have to give people on the outside a way to join, and that sometimes means being accessible. Some of the time. Joining a community also requires something of those who join - I'm sure I'm not the only one in this thread who didn't understand everything jazz related the first time I was subjected to it. That's part of the journey. But getting people in the door in the first place isn't imho covered by saying "we're over here in the corener, it's up to you". We also have to reach out.

[pauln]

The end of raising the popularity of Jazz is only as far away as the means of engaging in...

"...the real betrayal of some jazzmen making music that pleases..." Patlotch

with varying commercial success based on how much of the population one aims to please.
The risk to Jazz would be changing it into something, possibly as horrible as popular music.

Remember hopped up Disco tempo Classical music over drum kit and electric bass guitar?

Rather than global popularity, one may seek out local popularity, or cultivate and develop it.
Local, in this sense, may mean a single venue or a part of town where Jazz listeners spend.

[ragman1]

"...the real betrayal of some jazzmen making music that pleases..." Patlotch

Ah, fame at last! Good for you, Paul

[ragman1]

if you want people to participate, you have to give them a way in.

But what makes you think they won't find a way in for themselves? How did you find your way in? How did any of us?

[Lobomov]

But what makes you think they won't find a way in for themselves? How did you find your way in? How did any of us?

Thru your instrument and being a nerd. Like video gaming .. I gotta gotta beat this game on hard or I'm nobody.


I'm guessing very few of us game into jazz thru jazz .. Most went the blues, rock, whatever route and ended here as a natural consequence of that


I mean this is a jazz forum and we all love jazz, but talking about people having to make an effort to get into it rubs me the wrong way. Jazz lacks heart for ordinary people. Look at some of the heroes here Lage Lund, Jonathan Kreisberg, Kurt Rosenwinkel even Pasqualle Grasso .. I mean c'mon, what do they have on offer for regular people?





Look at the artist that in fact where successful .. Late Wes, Later Benson, Metheny Group ... It was sugar coated and in the style of the times


Which bring to the fact that there off course is plenty of accessible jazz .. But that stuff is from an era long ago and is dated. c .. Music genres die ... and peoples jazz is long dead together with Glam Rock, Ragtime and Doo Wop.

[Spook410]

When people seek to 'popularize' classical music, cubism, or fine quilting they are not seeking to diminish it. Nor do they have any desire to wash out the content to make it more accessible. They usually just want to expose more people to the topic in play while also pointing out why it's interesting and good. Nobody here had school field trips?

Of course.. jazzers have always been defensive. They want to reserve the definition in a narrow band. They want exclusivity. To be the arcane practitioners. They want to ensure respect for their difficult art. Bah.

Careful with hubris. There are many kinds of music that have fallen to distant obscurity once they became irrelevant. And jazz is pretty much irrelevant in any public art sense. We may be here talking about it now but 80% or more of us are old men. And it may very well die with us.

[citizenk74]

One of the principal reasons for the Cootie Harris Jazz Jams (sponsored by the Meadville, Pa. Arts Council) in which I participated was to provide young musicians of all ages the opportunity hear live jazz and to play live jazz with living jazz players. I used to take my grandson there, and every time I picked him up I'd ask him if he brought his sticks. It took a while, but after a few visits, he was up there sitting in with piano, upright bass, and a full horn section, jamming away. The same scenario applied with other youngsters on many instruments - vibes, flute, what have you. If jazz is to survive and thrive, young people need to be exposed to opportunities to play. High school Jazz Bands are a start, but the gutting of Arts/Music programs in the US is a big step backwards. We as individuals need to take whatever opportunities arise to promote jazz music and live jazz playing whenever and wherever we can.

[ragman1]

Let's not be disingenuous. The phrase 'popularise' wouldn't apply to schoolkids. In fact, I was going to suggest myself that musical education in schools should include jazz. I was talking about grown-ups.

[ragman1]

What's wrong with this? Looks popular enough to me.

Cheltenham Jazz Festival

[Stevebol]

That seems to be the vibe from what Rick Beato says...

I’d be interested to see how it compares in other countries. For instance here commercial country is not big, but what we call americana (bluegrass, roots country etc) has a strong if non mainstream following.

I love country music!!

[cosmic gumbo]

Here's a jazz cover of the biggest #1 hit song in the history of music and humanity (Billboard). Most here are too out of touch to put it into perspective.

[Stevebol]

Once you start giving college degrees in a genre of music, you are basically telling the general public they are too stupid to engage in it. Can I get a PhD in R&B....? I'm betting Berklee would be willing to take my money...

I flunked Pimping 101. My counselor suggested a career as a shipping clerk.

[ragman1]

I don't think they write 'em like they used to. I know things move on but there doesn't seem to be the same soul. I'm talking about country-type songs, not jazz.

I blame the digital age, myself. I think it's made the brain shallow.

[Greentone]

Why isn't jazz popular? You should ask, "why isn't rock popular?" Truth of the matter is that only hip-hop seems to get traction, these days. It rather reminds me of the late-70s, when only disco seemed to matter. Hip-hop, however, has had MUCH longer legs than disco with the music listening public.

I'm not complaining--musical tastes will go where they will. I simply recognize that my musical tastes are "niche," vis-a-vis those of the music listening public. NBD, except that it keeps jazz gigs paying pretty much what they've paid for the last 50 years.

[ragman1]

Jazz is extremely popular - amongst those who like that sort of thing. But so is trainspotting :-)

[Spook410]

Let's not be disingenuous. The phrase 'popularise' wouldn't apply to schoolkids. In fact, I was going to suggest myself that musical education in schools should include jazz. I was talking about grown-ups.

Few around here are ever consciously disingenuous. And saying someone is being so doesn't really contribute to discourse.

I am talking about grown ups, teenagers, and kids. There are a lot of ways jazz players can be more inclusive. A lot of ways they can relate. In their set list, which doesn't water down anything, and in their attitudes.

[pauln]

Here's a jazz cover of the biggest #1 hit song in the history of music and humanity (Billboard). Most here are too out of touch to put it into perspective.

Hmm... somehow I have managed to be totally unaware of the biggest #1 hit song in the history of music and humanity, so went looking at youtube... I expected to hate it... however, I did not expect encountering the beast that is KIDZ BOP - an improbably infinitely monstrous apparently global abomination universally assaulting the spirit of music... what's wrong with people!?

Play Jazz and other music while you can; looks like the end time is near for music as we have known it.

[ragman1]

looks like the end time is near for music as we have known it.

That's happening all the time, though. Every so many years there's something new and the old stuff drifts away. Back when you and I were were still boys the records were so romantic... :-)

[cosmic gumbo]

Hmm... somehow I have managed to be totally unaware of the biggest #1 hit song in the history of music and humanity, so went looking at youtube... I expected to hate it... however, I did not expect encountering the beast that is KIDZ BOP - an improbably infinitely monstrous apparently global abomination universally assaulting the spirit of music... what's wrong with people!?
:

You quoted my post, but you're mistaken about the content. I put the song in that post, and it was LDjr's jazz cover of Old Town Road. The original has more weeks at Billboard #1 than any song in history...Elvis, Beatles, Whitney, Mariah, Madonna, Britney...anybody.

This and Iron Man movies is our culture in the 21st century.

[Stevebol]

Hmm... somehow I have managed to be totally unaware of the biggest #1 hit song in the history of music and humanity, so went looking at youtube... I expected to hate it... however, I did not expect encountering the beast that is KIDZ BOP - an improbably infinitely monstrous apparently global abomination universally assaulting the spirit of music... what's wrong with people!?

Play Jazz and other music while you can; looks like the end time is near for music as we have known it.

19 straight weeks atop the Hot 100 is a record. No pun intended. Country/rap is a thing and Billy Ray made up for Achy Breaky Heart. I like Old Town Road. Makes me want to ride a horse just because..

[Stevebol]

You quoted my post, but you're mistaken about the content. I put the song in that post, and it was LDjr's jazz cover of Old Town Road. The original has more weeks at Billboard #1 than any song in history...Elvis, Beatles, Whitney, Mariah, Madonna, Britney...anybody.

This and Iron Man movies is our culture in the 21st century.

We can only hope;

[Gabor]

Finally I read the article referred in the OP. It seems it does not even try to answer its created question, instead a rant on jazz police, without describing the authors incidents or experiments with the jazz police. The repeating statements about how the jazz police is wrong, and how open is jazz. Of course any police like attitude on art or taste is a bad thing.

The very first statement about jazz is not a genre because it has 100 years history leads nowhere. Classical music also has long history, this must not prevent us to think about as a category (if one insist to not use the genre term)

I think the author in its battle against the jazz police is missing the point, and what is more disturbing, the author missing the difference between freedom and opennes. Freedom is necessary for all creative human activity, so freedom is essential element of jazz, but this does not mean limitless opennes, which would lead to resolving and vanishing jazz in the "big open music universe"

[janepaints]

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.

THIS!!

in all eras, in all styles, 'pop music' tends to be that which is DANCEY....the stuff that both sticks in one's head AND gets one's feet tapping....the stuff which has a kineticism which generates a sympathic-resonance within the human body/mind/spirit.

AND it's the stuff that's 'catchy'....'catchy' is a quality i rate highly...because it's RARE, not commonplace or easy...if it was easy a zillion songwriters and tunesmiths would be making zillions of dollars in royalties....

the average joe & jill would be humming every 'classic' solo by every bop saxophonist ever....but they dont....but they DO hum 'take the A train' or 'all blues'....gee i wonder why that is?

louis armstrong for decades...heaps of swing stuff...plenty of ellington....lotsa miles, coltrane's 'my favorite things'....ahmad jamal, ramsey lewis and vince guaraldi's piano trios--these come to mind as jazz artists who reached ears and audiences far-beyond the narrow confines of 'jazz fans'....who grabbed the ears of a housewife--who knew little about jazz--doing dishes while the radio played....AND the ears & minds of the 'in-crowd'...

the 'in-crowd' versus the 'those clueless uninformed philistines' trip exists in many other genres....and many other mediums: in literature, painting etc...it puzzles me....funny how it's often intertwined-with, generated-by, and even led-by The Critics--those savants whose profession is by definition reactionary. No art, no critic.

What artist DOESNT hope to reach as large an audience as possible? (I say 'artist' as distinct from entertainer...creators--not purveyors, panderers or copycats.)

Other elements in play: when jazz WAS pop music, much of it came 'from the street': performed at joints which entire communities regularly flocked to, the bands making use of tunes which most people knew (in early new orleans jazz many tunes were also tunes which string bands (fiddle n banjo etc) and marching bands played...or were jumbled-up adaptations of songs which vaudeville and minstrel-show performers sang, when such entertainments were the TV and internet of the day.)

This is an interesting topic, one which i think about all the time, poke at, wonder about, ponder. I could write 25,000 more words about it, but this aint the place for that.

[janepaints]

my blab above? duke said it way better: "dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing"

why i go to jazz clubs like never (tho i listen to, and play, jazz a lot)....but go to contemporary dance joints a LOT: chasing that swing, seeking the kinetic

[Betz]

What happened to jazz? I believe it is easily explained in the parable of Mr Toot, climaxing at the 2:00 mark. His music may not have been jazz, but the story is both universal and timeless.

[christianm77]

Pop critic Kitty Empire had this to say, which I thought was well put

KE: .... Experiencing Mahler’s Second brought up a welter of thoughts about why we like what we like. Why do people hate jazz? I think it’s because they don’t hear the fracturedness, the urge towards freedom that strains against tidy metre, the boldness otherwise denied to African Americans in the 1920s. They just hear some busker be-bopping out of context in a shopping mall, and want to wrap that saxophone around the nearest lamppost. I have been that person, but grew up some time ago. There’s an American popular song from the 1960s called Do You Hear What I Hear? – it’s indirectly about the baby Jesus, but the central thought holds. A good critic will wear their learning lightly, but build a bridge of words from raw sound to a reader’s brain.

[Lobomov]

be-bopping out of context

It goes both ways doesn't it? .. I mean listeners of today do not get the struggle and zeitgeist of yesteryear .. While a good host of jazz performers can't capture what the listener of today is struggling with.

[Tom Karol]

Here's an actual quote from a non-music board where the OP's topic was, "Great Guitarists" (I abstained from participating):

"I know nothing about jazz guitarists other than they play really fast, know a lot of different chords, and like a flat tone. Not a fan."

And now, for something on the lighter side:

Addendum: I was thinking of throwing in Jack Zucker's quote: "We think we know what we like, but really we like what we know." But I have no interest in entering into a pissing contest with a bunch of skiing fanatics stuck at home without much to do. I did make a single contribution: "Check out Julian Lage." But I'm leaving it at that.

[TLR]

Perhaps another aspect is that increasingly the allure of instant gratification is a priority, in the form of clear and concise messages via sounds and images reinforced by familiarity and so no time 'wasted' in trying to understand (there are potato chips engineered so that there's an initial burst of flavour which soon after quickly dissipates and so encouraging you to eat another) and jazz isn't as immediately rewarding for a listener, especially a new one. And that's pity, because any art forn that adds to the quality of life should be treasured.

tl;dr maybe across the board artificial stimulus in the short term is encouraging apathy.

[Beartooth]

Jazz has always been popular - just not in the United States. You had to go to England, France, Poland and the rest of the old-world to find people with the musical culture to understand jazz in its many forms (true also of the old blues).

Oscar Wilde once commented, "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

I think this explains a lot of things about my country. I was always amazed that it took the English musicians of the '60s to recognize and even venerate the African-American delta blues roots and their artists when Motown and later Hip-hop were totally clueless to their beginnings, one of the two truly American musical gifts to the world (blues & jazz). The European cultures were open to these magnificent genres when Americans dismissed them.

[citizenk74]

Jazz has always been popular - just not in the United States. You had to go to England, France, Poland and the rest of the old-world to find people with the musical culture to understand jazz in its many forms (true also of the old blues).

Oscar Wilde once commented, "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

I think this explains a lot of things about my country. I was always amazed that it took the English musicians of the '60s to recognize and even venerate the African-American delta blues roots and their artists when Motown and later Hip-hop were totally clueless to their beginnings, one of the two truly American musical gifts to the world (blues & jazz). The European cultures were open to these magnificent genres when Americans dismissed them.

[steve burchfield]

Very excellent!!! Thanks for sharing!!!

[steve burchfield]

Very excellent!!! Thanks for sharing!!!

the Mr Toot video