Jazz is dead. fix it.

[Stevebol]

Anthony Bourdain is dead, too. Doesn't mean that people don't still like to travel, eat and interact with others. In all honesty I am a little tired about hearing how jazz died, or is dying. Sorry for the rant if but brief.

Never heard of Bourdain till after he died. He had some interesting thoughts on travel.
I've had a lot of regrets about being too adventurous in my 20's but I was looking for trouble. I figured find it before it finds you.
It's wrong-headed to think that way. I'm just happy to be here now.
You can have it all. Work, vacation, travel, meet people and eat with them. Jazz musicians in the US could be working overseas right now as bands doing 2-3 month residencies. Get paid to play music full time and eat.

They're not doing it because they don't want to.
Good luck trying to change the system from within.

[rabbit]

Nailed it.

It's all super hero, special effects, magical powers, and horror crap these days.

I perceive myself as being a 'special effects, magical powers Super Hero.'

There it is, I'm OUT.

[Phil59]

Sure, off the top of my head I liked Birdman, Arrival, Ladybird, Annihilation, Call Me By Your Name, Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, Sicario, Ex Machina, Blade Runner 2049, Budapest Hotel, Three Billboards, It....

Yes, of course there are a few good movies among those you list from the last five years. But "amazing"? Hardly. The point obviously was not that there are no good movies at all but that there are many fewer than there used to be.

[drbhrb]

Yes, of course there are a few good movies among those you list from the last five years. But "amazing"? Hardly. The point obviously was not that there are no good movies at all but that there are many fewer than there used to be.

The point was I was asked to name some movies from the past 5 years I thought were amazing. So I did. Opinions and all... But even accounting for taste I think if you can't find as many great movies as you used to you aren't looking hard enough. Much like music, art, books.... the greats from yesterday have the benefit of selection bias. A great deal of crap was produced in every decade and people aren't always finding and appreciating the great works as they are being produced.

[strumcat]

Jazz is dying because many jazz players mistake theory and technique for music. Much jazz music actually sucks, except as a showcase for skill, which is of course deathly boring after the first five minutes. This has little to do with the public's intelligence. They still know what music is, unlike some jazz players.

[Jazzstdnt]

Jazz is dying because many jazz players mistake theory and technique for music. Much jazz music actually sucks, except as a showcase for skill, which is of course deathly boring after the first five minutes. This has little to do with the public's intelligence. They still know what music is, unlike some jazz players.

They mistake theory for music? How can one tell that? Do you have an example?

[mrcee]

Jean Renoir the son of the French artist has some interesting, related, things to say.

#1Jean Renoir - Parle De Son Art - YouTube

[bako]

Jazz is dying because many jazz players mistake theory and technique for music. Much jazz music actually sucks, except as a showcase for skill, which is of course deathly boring after the first five minutes. This has little to do with the public's intelligence. They still know what music is, unlike some jazz players.

There are players in every style that pay attention as much as any jazz player to aspects of technique.
There are players in every style that that think deeply about theory in relation to the music they are playing.
Sometimes this still somehow becomes popular music, otherwise I would have never known about them.

Your premise seems to state that less thought and less skill yields a popular enjoyable music.
While there are some who have succeeded with this formula there are legions of bands doing the exact thing
that will never achieve the fame of working jazz musicians. Please explain.

[citizenk74]

Jean Renoir the son of the French artist has some interesting, related, things to say.

#1Jean Renoir - Parle De Son Art - YouTube

That Renoir lad is on to something, IMHO.

[Papawooly]

Jazz to a normal American is ...

Lofty, full of intense hubris, amelodic, but if you are one of the cool kids you will dig it!

I would compare it to my undying affection for King Crimson, where at a kegger party
back in the 70's I insisted that everybody have an intense listen to "Larks Tongue in Aspic"

...what a dick

Music should be FUN, and it should have a MELODY...

that's why I like to play classic standards, those melodies, and clever phrasing, musicianship...

We need to re-incarnate the likes of Fats Waller if you wish to see jazz popular again.

[paul.trapanese]

Digital sales for jazz drop every year now. NOone is listening. Jazz hasn't evolved at all since the atonal solo overtook the swing of jazz. Which sadly knocked jazz music right out of the dance hall and it's been downhill ever since. Jazz singers number in the low hundreds I'd imagine... nationwide. No one knows who Pat Methany is in Kansas City anymore. In the meantime Jazz musicians seem to do nothing but make sport of the common man to prop up the snobbishness of listening to the unlistenable 15 minute musical rantings of all notes you can play outside with. Lyrics ....out the window. And it's been that way for 25 years.
I drove down to 18th and Vine over the weekend after taking my family for some BBQ. KC has pumped money into the area forever now. Yet, it will never hop like it did. The little building that opens at 2am is still kicking though. I'll be down to listen because it may be the last place real jazz is played anymore within 700 miles of my house.
The reason for my post is simple...Jazz was great once. It's been dead and stinking for a long time. No innovation, no swing, no nothing going on. When will the jazz that you can dance to, hum to, feel happy when you hear it ....sing the words...when will that become the priority. Seems like the priority is to play the unplayable, the unlistenable, unsoundtrackable, unusable. to be able to wow a jazz fellow and then bitch because the regular folks just don't get it....won't support music that is unusable to them..and then are smyted by a jazzy snob in a beret for an untrained palette.

what a joke. fix it. or the American treasure will be gone and you all will be playing to no one...oh wait.

I saw Jean Michel Pilc Ari Hoenig, Francois Mouton and co at Smalls last September. The line was around the corner. Male and female. They played standards , no vocals and obtuse heads.really outside, and the audience loved it.
It’s the players being great and a more cultured audience.
When we left there was another line formed for the second set around the corner.
Same thing when I saw Krantz at the 55 Bar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[West LA Jazz]

Jazz Essentials: Pat Metheny

[Betz]

Jazz isn't a commercial music, but that's a good thing because the musicians can pursue their muse unfettered by commercial considerations.

Let’s face it; with the costs associated to keeping a nightclub running you have to draw the crowds. It’s business; is not a new thing.

“Well now you step inside but you don't see too many faces
Coming in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Competition in other places
Ah but the horns, they blowing that sound”

”They don't give a damn about any trumpet playing band”

Contrary to popular opinion, Gibson did not drop the ES-175 from the catalog (after half a century) ‘cause they knew it would really piss off ‘real’ guitar players. They did it because it did not generate sufficient ROI to sustain a place in the line up.

Businesses will do what they have to to remain profitable; including nightclubs the recording industry. Mass appeal is a poor choice as the indicator of quality or viability of an art form.

[Ol' Fret]

Freedom can mean just keep going. With or without money.

There are life and business models that are economically insane. For example, a life as a jazz musician.
Such life models predominantly play according to their own rules. Anyone who lives through it - over 30, 40, 60 years - is one of the rare people who have done exactly what they wanted with their lives, without considering retirement or career planning. Such a person is considered crazy by social standards, but must love what he/she does very much. This irrepressible feeling of freedom to live your life according to your own standards can be priceless.

I will continue to support such jazz musicians. Not those who fill the large concert halls through dominant concert agencies. For the past two decades I have been visiting almost exclusively smaller clubs with a maximum of two hundred listeners. What a joy! High-class or elderly musicians who still take the trouble to please such small clubs are warmly welcomed and should also receive a corresponding fee, if necessary via sponsorship.
In any case, I am looking forward to hearing Benny Golson live in a small club again soon - even if that rampant virus should prevent this temporarily.

[Alter]

Jazz is beautiful music, so it's always going to be around. There are thousands of great jazz musicians, bands and CDs out there, if only someone takes the time to discover them. And they play very differently from the previous decade, as the previous decade played very differently from the one before, and so on.

I also consider the golden age of jazz to be late 40s to early 60s, but times change, music and the society it reflects change. Not many idioms have influenced modern music (and music education) around the world as much as jazz has.

Then again, how popular can complicated and beautiful music be, in today's era where utility and ugliness are so prominent. I don't think the problem lies with the music at all..

[arielcee]

I'm with Nicholas Payton.

"Jazz is just a four letter word."

There's good music out there, you just have to look for it.
It might not sound like the o.g. Miles and Trane, Duke, Monk, etc; but that was that and it should be good enough that it even existed.
As long as there are people who are inspired and strive to create and grow, evolve and improve themselves and the collective consciousness, there shouldn't be any shortage of interesting art.

It isnt a perfect world. I still listen to the same junk too.

[crusoe]

The players may pass, but jazz never dies...you can't bury a whole world of memories.

[cosmic gumbo]

Jazz was dead, and this is what happened when Wynton tried to bring it back to life.....

[Litterick]

Lincoln in the Bardo.

[DonEsteban]

I don't see this as a Jazz related problem anymore but as a general problem of quality music*.

People don't listen to quality music any more.

I mean, really sitting there and actively listening to music, without fiddling on a smartphone or tablet computer. Just sit there and listen. Nope. **

I talked to a friend recently, she's a professor of singing at a renowned German music academy. She complained that younger people no longer listen to music.

"I have students who haven't heard a Verdi opera yet or greater part of Bach's works, but want to study classical singing... "

They want to make music but have practically no listening experience whatsoever? Exactly what I observe in Jazz too.

So in changing the original subject I'd say: "(Quality) Music is dying, can we fix it?"

__________

* What do I mean by quality music? I mean this as opposed to EDM and Rap which I see more as a cultural/consumerism/youth related thing, these are social events not music events, music is definitively not in the center of these phenomena but life style and such kind of things. No idea about Country music though, doesn't really happen here in Europe.

** Is/was this a "Boomer" thing?

[mr. beaumont]

I don't think jazz is dead, actually, I think there's more goood players out there now than maybe any time in the last 20 years or so.

But if you want a bubbling jazz scene in every town, well, that ain't happening. You don't even have to put on pants to go grocery shopping or to the movies anymore, good luck filling a jazz club on a Tuesday anywhere outside of a handful of cities.

[DB's Jazz Guitar Blog]

It seems that many people get a kick out of stating how dead jazz is. And they are very particular too. ONLY jazz can be dead so it seems. Well, tell me this. Why is jazz deader than 50s rock and roll? Or 60s beat music? Or 70s punk? Or 80s hair bands? Or renaissance music? Or Baroque music? Or Japanese Koto music? What on earth is the difference with these other bygone musical styles?

Let me answer. NOTHING. They are not relevant to the masses either except for very small niche markets. Yet they all exist and have a fan base and are listened to and are being played by musicians and for most there will be a festival or two. Heck, for each and every "dead" music there will be even an internet radio station and music can still be obtained for all of them.

But somehow only jazz can be dead. Horseshit from haters.

DB

[crusoe]

Looks like the crowd who lives around here.

Jazz was dead, and this is what happened when Wynton tried to bring it back to life.....

[mr. beaumont]

But somehow only jazz can be dead. Horseshit from haters.

DB

See, I don't take it that way. I take it as folks actually think jazz is worth missing

But it's always the same people who say stuff like this...haven't been to a club or concert in years, and their record collection is all dead people. Maybe their jazz is dead. Mine's not.

[grahambop]

I hope it’s not dead, I’m going to a jazz concert next week. Hopefully that would be grounds for a refund.