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Who are the listeners of jazz music today and are they increasing or decreasing...?
I often ask myself this question after a concert I played.
It's interesting that I wasn't interested in it before.
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02-14-2023 05:00 AM
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Why not ask your audience?
Last edited by Litterick; 02-14-2023 at 03:18 PM.
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I'm too modest.
Originally Posted by Litterick
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Among my friends, jazz fans are the parents of kids who are currently in high school jazz band. And one other couple.
Sad, but true.
I’m part of an irregular Friday jam at a friend’s house, where I’m trying gently to drag everyone in a jazz direction. Unfortunately, we’re still playing Steve Miller and (ugh) Toto.
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Most of my indie rock pals from college like some jazz.
Most of the jazz listeners I know are also players.
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One more vote for old farts. Jazz is all I listened to in the mid 60’s-70’s and our group played some, along with other types of tunes. My kids recently tried to coax me into rap, hip hop and country and I said not interested.
Our car has Sirius radio and there is a jazz channel available that I keep the car radio tuned to. Plus I have a handful of jazz CD’s in the car that I can revert to now and then.
It really boils down to being exposed to a music style and seeing if you warm up to it. It also helps to be familiar with older “standards”, either pop standards (or jazz standards), that you can recognize when played in a jazz format.
FWIW
Tom
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It’s a long way from Toto to Tatum Originally Posted by StuartF
I’m often surprised at the people I know who love jazz. Many don’t talk about it unless & until you give them an opening and a reason. I was on my way out of our building with my guitar over my shoulder last year when I ran into a friend who’d sold his house and downsized to an apartment 2 floors down from us. My wife & I had already spent a lot of time with him & his wife in the year since they’d moved in. But it was all at the pool, going out for outside dining (it was the beginning of the second year of Covid) etc. Because of Covid, we were all reluctant to spend much time with others in our apartments since we’re all “high risk” from age alone.
He asked about the guitar and I told him I was on my way to a gig. Long story short, he has and regularly listens to hundreds of classic jazz LPs. He and his wife go to clubs & concerts regularly. Since that day, they’ve come to my gigs and we’ve had some great musical times together. One of us makes dinner and we all listen to jazz for hours. But I never would have known he loved jazz because he doesn’t tell anyone - he said most people think he’s a little odd because he loves jazz and doesn’t even know who most artists are in other genres except classical.
I suspect there are a lot more like him who quietly enjoy jazz while acting “normal” among the masses who idolize pop and rock stars and think jazz is weird. Interestingly enough, neither he nor most of the others like him that I know play an instrument.
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Then of course, there's the people I know who "Love jazz" who then say "I just like to put it on in the background while I'm doing something else..."
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I wonder when that guy started loving jazz. I wonder that in general.
John Mayer, talking about the blues, said people come to love it in their teens, because that’s when they have time to sit around and listen to music. I’d add that it’s a time when one is still curious about life, music included. He also said people don’t learn to listen to the blues on their own. “This kind of music has to come into your life with a sponsor,” he said. Wise words, likely applicable to jazz even more so.
Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
It’s a long way from Toto to Tatum
I’m often surprised at the people I know who love jazz. Many don’t talk about it unless & until you give them an opening and a reason. I was on my way out of our building with my guitar over my shoulder last year when I ran into a friend who’d sold his house and downsized to an apartment 2 floors down from us. My wife & I had already spent a lot of time with him & his wife in the year since they’d moved in. But it was all at the pool, going out for outside dining (it was the beginning of the second year of Covid) etc. Because of Covid, we were all reluctant to spend much time with others in our apartments since we’re all “high risk” from age alone.
He asked about the guitar and I told him I was on my way to a gig. Long story short, he has and regularly listens to hundreds of classic jazz LPs. He and his wife go to clubs & concerts regularly. Since that day, they’ve come to my gigs and we’ve had some great musical times together. One of us makes dinner and we all listen to jazz for hours. But I never would have known he loved jazz because he doesn’t tell anyone - he said most people think he’s a little odd because he loves jazz and doesn’t even know who most artists are in other genres except classical.
I suspect there are a lot more like him who quietly enjoy jazz while acting “normal” among the masses who idolize pop and rock stars and think jazz is weird. Interestingly enough, neither he nor most of the others like him that I know play an instrument.
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I keep running into more young musicians, who say they are interested in jazz. I think the lack of freedom, that has dominated the rock world, during the time of sherd, will push anyone who is creative into exploring.
At one point, a million ytube vids of pre conceived guitar blazing has to get boring…
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"Jazz" isn't monolithic, and neither are its audiences. My late father (b. 1921) thought Kenny G was a great jazz player. My wife (b. 1945) likes much of what she hears on the jazz station I tune to but has little patience with what she calls "noodling." But put on some Monk and she's right there. (Also Django, Grappelli, Gary Burton, Zoot, and all the great singers whose styles are jazz-influenced--which means all the great American singers.)
Every Thursday, I sit in with a bunch of highly competent players whose stylistic center is boppish (Miles, Rollins, Evans), and our handful of regulars are middle-aged and a bit older, though we also get some college kids, usually the drummer's music-department students. It's not unusual for some of our listeners to not know the titles of the tunes (even though many are boppified standards), but they clearly enjoy what they hear.
The venue is a nice bar/lounge that fronts a 120-seat performance space, and the biggest crowds we see are the ones who pass throughthe hallway on their way to the tribute-band rock shows in the big room. Plenty of gray hair in those crowds, too. In fact, the live-music audience in our town ranges from graying to geriatric--whether it's rock, folk, or chamber music, I see the same demographic*. When I see young faces in an audience, it's often an on-campus event that gives music-appreciation-course credit.
* We have long-standing chamber- and folk-music societies that I've been involved with, so I get to see much of the area's musical activity. The portion I don't see personally is the touring pop/country stuff at our big restored vaudeville house and the pro-am musical-theater productions. The once-thriving bar-music scene is pretty much gone. It's a bit different 90 minutes down the interstate in the Twin Cities, but a population of a couple million changes things a lot.Last edited by RLetson; 02-14-2023 at 03:08 PM.
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Musicians.
It's not music for TikTok people.
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I recently taught an undergraduate course on philosophy and religion in cinema. One of the films we studied was “Taste of Cherry” by Abbas Kiarostami, for which he uses a snippet of “St. James Infirmary” by Louis Armstrong. So I played the whole song in class and spoke a little about it. Students really liked it and they asked to hear more. Seems that Satchmo still got that old magic!
One of the students invited me to a university club that plays music. Among the pop and rock songs, they do a few jazz tunes with a vocalist. “Fly Me to the Moon,” Autumn Leaves,” “Feel Like Making Love,” “Just the Two of Us,” as I recall. The singer is a fan of Esperanza Spalding. So I invited a few of them to a local weekly jam session. They sang on some of the same tunes, and then stuck around to listen to us.
It’s based on similar anecdotal evidence, but I find there’s quite a few jazz curious students who enter it through vocalists, and maybe some elders, but they don’t know where to go from there. There’s not a whole lot of exposure. If they search “jazz” on YouTube, the algorithm just feeds them long jazzy muzak playlists as study background.
Perhaps many of you who are regularly around young people have similar experiences. Maybe we can do our part. I for one am taking the cue. Next semester, I’m using Steve Feld’s “Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra” in a graduate course on migration. And I’m developing a new unit covering “world jazz” in my old undergraduate lecture course on “Introduction to Culture and Society.” I’m also thinking of having my research seminar students do a field study project at that local jazz jam session.
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your answer may lie here. Are you ready for it though? A whole generation of standards you probably have never heard of…
And before anyone gets too dismissive- Grammy award winning!
Emike
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I stopped playing video games because I wanted to waste my time playing grandad music. Guess the joke’s on me.
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I'd say the majority are jazz musicians themselves, then old people, then people who just like it incidentally for something on at home or entertainment out. I think there are almost no laypeople who genuinely like jazz.
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You'd be surprised! Lots of kids like jazz, but generally it's older, and simpler, kinda of jazz. It kind of reinforces the argument that Charlie Parker destroyed Jazz!
It takes an acquired taste to appreciate bebop and contemporary jazz, but older stuff, musicals, swing, etc, much easier to understand it and relate to it..
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Nah that stuff is over now. It’s all grooves and Afrobeat around these parts… the swing/vintage gen are settling down with kiddies… Originally Posted by Alter
You'd be surprised! Lots of kids like jazz, but generally it's older, and simpler, kinda of jazz. It kind of reinforces the argument that Charlie Parker destroyed Jazz!
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I'm always interested/encouraged to hear from someone who has no musical training at all and is not a musician, that they are into jazz.
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probably only the players. In a jazz gig probably all the audience is musician (journeyman or professional), their girlfriends, boyfriends, friends and relatives.
If alcohol is served then add 10% of partner chasing individuals, who does not care about music.
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I once met a young couple who had named their son Dexter, and had a large photograph of the saxophonist in their living room.
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Was it because the son looked like Dexter? Originally Posted by Litterick
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I've turned my kids and grandkids on to it . It was quite amusing , when my daughter was in college one of her dorm mates asked her if she listened to any musicians that were still alive ( we are both violinists as well) .
She laughed and said " I've got one word for you ...Miles
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well there’s plenty on this forum boom ching Originally Posted by Woody Sound
(jk guys jk)
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