Why are there no more famous jazz musicians?

[ColinO]

Wow. You're missing something really fundamental to say that. Herbie and Benson cut their eye teeth on jazz. Herbie has always played jazz in one form or another. They both played with Miles, Herbie for a very extended period. George always loved commercial music and loved singing and also always played jazz. They are both jazz instrumentalists. They were known as jazz musicians. If you went to find their recordings you'd have to look in the jazz category.

But, as you say, they are only famous for their non-jazz stuff. When you ask someone who George Benson is, they will more than likely name an R&B tune. When you ask someone who Herbie Hancock is, it's not his jazz that people will recognize.

I'm just questioning your suggestion that, because the world knew Amy as an R&B artist, that's what she was and not a jazz artist. The world knows Benson and Hancock (Benson especially) as non-jazz artists too. I'm not saying that they were not jazz artists-I'm saying that they were.

I think that there should be a thread titled "what is jazz anyway". Maybe there has been - anyone know? I'm actually not sure I know the answer to that. Is Affirmation jazz? Chitlins Con Carne? Michelle? Sir Duke? Who gets to decide? I think I'm going to start that thread.

[jtizzle]

I was gonna quote a few posts but there were too many and they all say just about the same thing.

As someone else said, times change and people change. Music has progressed. So have all other study areas.
It's like asking why are there no other famous playwrights from Shakespeare's time? There are many. But they were famous at his time. As things progress, people forget about the past.
It's a problem I see with jazz. Too many people worship the older cats like Bird and Bud Powell to the point where they don't want to innovate and bring something new. That's cool to want to play that style, but to negate all the rest of it? That's too much. I agree that jazz is a tradition, but the tradition of jazz is doing new things. That's what Charlie Parker did. I feel like musicians should be looking to be like him in the sense of doing good things and inventing your own sound, not copying someone and playing what others have already played. I'm sure he would think a lot of the music today is just bullshit.
At the same time, I see people who act like hipsters and want to do the "weird out shit". Working at a jazz venue, I see a lot of this. The person who writes the music might love it, but personally, I don't know anyone who would sit down at home and play that kind of music. I'm talking about the stuff that stemmed out of Sun Ra, Ornette. And these guys don't understand that guys like Sun Ra and Ornette could play changes! and they chose to play in the free style they were so great at, where as many people who try that stuff nowadays just do it because they're too lazy to learn the proper styles.

Also, remember jazz was popular with the young people back in the day because it was the new, hip thing. As time goes on, people come up with newer styles. I think media has really changed younger people's attitudes, making kids more emotional and most kids nowadays want to rebel and listen to all their rock, metal, punk music. I don't criticize the music. I used to be one of those and used to play rock and metal back in the day. I'm just pointing out that things change.

The one phrase I do want to quote is "it is the musicians who are uneducated". I kind of agree and disagree with this. Many younger cats nowadays view music as "how many eight note quintuplets can I fit in 3 bars of 13/16 by using 7th intervals only". Many people think of it about just speed, technique, and no emotion. Those are the uneducated people, and the ones I refer to above that don't want to learn the tradition.
However, please be aware that music has been watered down heavily. I come from a country with very limited music education. Virtually, my only exposure to music until my teenage years was MTV. You know where that leads.
My next exposure was internet, specifically MySpace. The kind of music promoted there is rock and pop oriented. If I hadn't just randomly searched music classes when I started college in Florida I would not have been exposed to jazz. It is widely known that early music had been started being sold in a way that could sell. The average song length went to about 3 minutes in order to "keep buyers wanting more" and making simple melodies. Songs started being produced at a faster rate, and less time composing means simpler songs. If you listen to many rock bands nowadays, and I can put the band Blink 182 for an example, there must be about 10-15 of their songs that use the same four chords in the same key. So in this sense, the ignorant ones are the consumers, not the musicians.


Lastly, I want to point out that while people who don't listen to jazz don't know the jazz musicians, I'm sure jazz listeners/musicians don't know most of the rock, pop, and musicians of other genres .

[wizard3739]

Well Rod Stewart did a couple of albums of jazz standards too. While Rod's voice was certainly not well suited for that genre, the final product was pretty damned good, as a whole. Is Rod a jazz singer? What is a jazz singer anyway? It's not just someone who can sing jazz standards well. I would imagine that David Lee Roth can sing jazz tunes in a jazzy style. (I almost slipped and said that Mick Jagger could as well . . but, that would be a real stretch of the imagination.)

Mel Torme, Ella, Sassy, O'Day, Al Jarreau, Dianna Krall, Bobby Mcferrin, Dianna Reeves, Lena Horne, Carmen McRae, Billy Ekstein, Joe Williams, Johnny Hartman, etc.. Those were/are jazz singers. Phrasing, creative interplay with the band. Sinatra was great for that.

I guess it's somewhat similar to trying to define someone like Lee Ritenour as a jazz guitarist. Lee is a great guitarist who can and sometimes does play great jazz. But, I'd be hard perssed to define him as a jazz guitarist overall. Similarly with the myriad great singers out there today who can more than likely sing some jazz tunes in a jazz fashion pretty well. I think that may be the summation of where Amy Winehouse's jazz credibility would have fit in.

Excellent comments, the jazz singers you mention above were the true masters of vocal jazz and I totally agree with your comments about Lee Ritenour, he is a top notch R & B player & actually was/is one of the best studio players still living.

[henryrobinett]

CollinO - Well I think you're missing the point. Others think I'm missing the point. Think of it this way. I've said it before. When you go to look up these artists, in what category do you find them? Chick Corea did some classical compositions. Better yet Jarrett. If you look them up do you find them predominantly in the classical bin? No. If you look up Jarrett you'll find him in jazz. You can find specific performances, like his Shostakovich piano concerto in classical music, but thats because he was doing Shostakovich. If you look up Wynton Marsalis wouldn't you find him in classical or jazz, even though he's done some classical recordings.


Nothing at all against any of them. I'm not one of those people who look down their noses if it's not jazz. Quite the contrary. I see nothing superior about jazz. So that's not what I'm saying. I don't care whether Winehouse is jazz or not. I just didn't think she was.


I just asked my young sons 21 year old GF what Amy was and she said pop. She didn't think she was jazz at all. And it has little do with the artist themselves. It's how the public perceives hem and how they've been marketed.

[henryrobinett]

And once again, it's not whether Winehouse can sing jazz. She can sing jazz well. But a lot of people can. But how is she marketed? In what genre is her name recognized in?

[bako]

First question that occurs to me:

"What is meant by "fame/famous"?

To be known by many people, how many?
To be liked at some level by many people, so much so that they will purchase the products, be interested enough to explore the back story and follow future endeavors.
Is it fame enough to have a million hits on a video or a website?
Is it the content that is drawing people in, social networking skills or is it the individual(s)?
Is it fame for a week or for the foreseeable future?
How many musicians can be famous at once? Is a musician that is known all over South America or Africa or Asia but virtually unknown in the United States and Europe famous?
Does a famous person need to be a millionaire+ or is it sufficient just to be successfully living off artistic endeavors?
The music industry is driven by profit and there are many factors that go/went into selecting which artists are represented.
Being signed to label often turns out less lucrative than imagined and doesn't always result in fame.

People of African descent created something truly special in America that has enriched the cultural wealth of the entire world. I am very proud of the ever evolving living tradition known as jazz.
Some musicians work within existing styles, others seek a personal voice and innovation.
From every corner of the planet, musicians fuse elements of jazz with an amazing array of regional rhythms.
Mistakes are made along the way but musicians do the best they can and mostly do it out of love.
Not bad for a "marginal" music category.

It is important to seek out truth and beauty beyond the borders of fame, beyond the financial backing of major corporations and beyond the glowing approval of mass media. There is good stuff to be found.

[henryrobinett]

Bako - who are asking these question of? It's not so much how famous you are. It's either who your market demographic is or who you are being marketed to. And then who knows you and how have they defied you within those given markets.

[targuit]

Somehow I think our society and its media evolution have devalued music intrinsically. When I talk to my mother who grew up during the Depression, she talks about how she heard performers like Sinatra, Benny Goodman, the Dorseys, Duke Ellington and others playing live. That was the contemporary music of the day. And it was oriented toward melodies and dancing, swing and love songs, pretty ballads and romantic themes.

In my youth, from the time I was just starting school, I remember the special place music had in my life. Singing along to Elvis' records, listening to diverse music from country to Jobim on AM radio, and finally the explosion of the late Sixties and Seventies with FM. But what happened to Jazz? It got relegated to the "oldies" bin, though smooth jazz can still capture people's attention in the right setting. And today commercial radio and contemporary music is dominated by male and female singers putting on broadway cabaret shows with dancers and puppets (Miley Cyrus and the VMA's).

Man, I'll never forget the impact Jobim's music had on me at a time when I was playing classical guitar and listening avidly to the Beatles and Buffalo Springfield and the like. I thought The Girl From Ipanema was the hippest thing I'd heard. And in the early Seventies I got to hear George Benson and his guest, a young Earl Klugh, playing in a Boston club sitting not five feet from the master. Talk about inspiration.

To my genuine despair I don't see that happening for my son. Beautiful music, ballad love songs....becoming an anachronism. And so my lonely nights are spent listening and playing along with Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, remembering what music used to be and what we've lost.

[Average Joe]

Why must we define a musician as one thing? If a musician can play jazz convincingly and do so, isn't he then ALSO a jazz musician? Wouldn't that also make our common ground with the general public greater? To opt in on an artist and claim him/her as one of ours instead of worrying about the purity of thair jazz.

Someone like Rit have put out multiple jazz albums. True, he released more R&B/Rock/pop albums, but he nevertheless have a significant jazz side. Why dismiss him as not proper jazz, not pure enough? Remember when Norah Jones first hit? Do you remember how quick jazz audiences and gate keepers were to claim that she wasn't sufficiently jazz? I even occasionally hear people put Down Krall as too pop in her approach to jazz to truly Count in the jazz World.

There is an insular side to the jazz community

[Philco]

People just want to be associated with something cool. Or something they perceive as cool. They want to be on the exclusive team. So they put down what does not meet their criteria. They protect their imaginary inner circle.

It's a type of fame by association.
Elitism, call it what you will.

Wankers really.

But it's all imaginary.
Great music and musicianship transcends all that nonsense.
You can feel it.

[Patrick2]

Why must we define a musician as one thing? If a musician can play jazz convincingly and do so, isn't he then ALSO a jazz musician? Wouldn't that also make our common ground with the general public greater? To opt in on an artist and claim him/her as one of ours instead of worrying about the purity of thair jazz.

Someone like Rit have put out multiple jazz albums. True, he released more R&B/Rock/pop albums, but he nevertheless have a significant jazz side. Why dismiss him as not proper jazz, not pure enough? Remember when Norah Jones first hit? Do you remember how quick jazz audiences and gate keepers were to claim that she wasn't sufficiently jazz? I even occasionally hear people put Down Krall as too pop in her approach to jazz to truly Count in the jazz World.

There is an insular side to the jazz community

I've got most of Rit's work . . even going back to vinyl. What are these multiple jazz albums you speak of? The "jazziest" album Rit ever put out is "Wes Bound". There was also a Bob Marley tune one it and it was played in true Reggae fashion. His trubute, to or attempted cover of Wes' playing and some of his tunes was really nice. Not like the shitty album that Pat Martino did. Pat's album was more pure Wes and more of a traditional jazz product. But, terribly produced and the only thing on that album that reminded me of Wes were to heads of some of Wes' more popular works.

The are some jazzy tunes on other Rit albums .. but I don't klnow of any other albums that I would consider to be jazz works from Rit. Also, I don't think either Wiz or I said that Rit's playing wasn't proper or pure jazz . . . what ever the interpretation of that might be.?.? I think we said we wouldn't catagorize Rit as a jazz artist, at this time in his career. Rit's got enough game, that if he wanted to cross over to "the dark side" and do nothing but straight enough jazz . . he could easily do so. THEN . . . he would be a jazz guitarist . . . not just a fantastic guitarist who happens to play jazz music once in a while. (He'd also take a huge hit in income)

Some people mention Benson, because he chose to integrate pop into his recordings and his playing. However, even while doing so, he remained true to jazz. His R & B as well as his pop music was always laced with a jazz influence. He remained true to his jazz box instruments when performing live. He always included some jazz tunes and playing in his live pop performance venues. His career and his choices have been perfectly managed.

[Patrick2]

Why must we define a musician as one thing? If a musician can play jazz convincingly and do so, isn't he then ALSO a jazz musician? Wouldn't that also make our common ground with the general public greater? To opt in on an artist and claim him/her as one of ours instead of worrying about the purity of thair jazz.

Someone like Rit have put out multiple jazz albums. True, he released more R&B/Rock/pop albums, but he nevertheless have a significant jazz side. Why dismiss him as not proper jazz, not pure enough? Remember when Norah Jones first hit? Do you remember how quick jazz audiences and gate keepers were to claim that she wasn't sufficiently jazz? I even occasionally hear people put Down Krall as too pop in her approach to jazz to truly Count in the jazz World.

There is an insular side to the jazz community

I've got most of Rit's work . . even going back to vinyl. What are these multiple jazz albums you speak of? The "jazziest" album Rit ever put out is "Wes Bound". There was also a Bob Marley tune one it and it was played in true Reggae fashion. His trubute, to or attempted cover of Wes' playing and some of his tunes was really nice. Not like the shitty album that Pat Martino did. Pat's album was more pure Wes and more of a traditional jazz product. But, terribly produced and the only thing on that album that reminded me of Wes were to heads of some of Wes' more popular works.

The are some jazzy tunes on other Rit albums .. but I don't klnow of any other albums that I would consider to be jazz works from Rit. Also, I don't think either Wiz or I said that Rit's playing wasn't proper or pure jazz . . . what ever the interpretation of that might be.?.? I think we said we wouldn't catagorize Rit as a jazz artist, at this time in his career. Rit's got enough game, that if he wanted to cross over to "the dark side" and do nothing but straight enough jazz . . he could easily do so. THEN . . . he would be a jazz guitarist . . . not just a fantastic guitarist who happens to play jazz music once in a while. (He'd also take a huge hit in income)

Some people mention Benson, because he chose to integrate pop into his recordings and his playing. However, even while doing so, he remained true to jazz. His R & B as well as his pop music was always laced with a jazz influence. He remained true to his jazz box instruments when performing live. He always included some jazz tunes and playing in his live pop performance venues. His career and his choices have been perfectly managed.

[fumblefingers]

I think most music (not all) has decayed - not "progressed". I'm talking about most of what is sold and heard by the masses (popular music in other words).

Melody, harmony, and rhythm are the fundamental building blocks of western music, and then you add great performers.

And? All of the above have been massively consumed by deadly microbes.

[fep]

I've got most of Rit's work . . even going back to vinyl. What are these multiple jazz albums you speak of? The "jazziest" album Rit ever put out is "Wes Bound".

Perhaps what I believe to be jazz is a much broader definition than yours. I consider First Course, The Captain Journey, Captain Fingers, Friendship, Smoke and Mirrors, World of Brazil, and Festival, all to be Jazz albums (and that's just what comes to the top of my mind). I consider Jazz Fusion, and Latin Jazz to be a sub groups of Jazz.

[henryrobinett]

I consider Jazz Fusion, and Latin Jazz to be a sub groups of Jazz.

I agree.

[djangoles]

First question that occurs to me:

"What is meant by "fame/famous"?

To be known by many people, how many?
To be liked at some level by many people, so much so that they will purchase the products, be interested enough to explore the back story and follow future endeavors.
Is it fame enough to have a million hits on a video or a website?
Is it the content that is drawing people in, social networking skills or is it the individual(s)?
Is it fame for a week or for the foreseeable future?
How many musicians can be famous at once? Is a musician that is known all over South America or Africa or Asia but virtually unknown in the United States and Europe famous?
Does a famous person need to be a millionaire+ or is it sufficient just to be successfully living off artistic endeavors?
The music industry is driven by profit and there are many factors that go/went into selecting which artists are represented.
Being signed to label often turns out less lucrative than imagined and doesn't always result in fame.

People of African descent created something truly special in America that has enriched the cultural wealth of the entire world. I am very proud of the ever evolving living tradition known as jazz.
Some musicians work within existing styles, others seek a personal voice and innovation.
From every corner of the planet, musicians fuse elements of jazz with an amazing array of regional rhythms.
Mistakes are made along the way but musicians do the best they can and mostly do it out of love.
Not bad for a "marginal" music category.

It is important to seek out truth and beauty beyond the borders of fame, beyond the financial backing of major corporations and beyond the glowing approval of mass media. There is good stuff to be found.

[Flyin' Brian]

As we veer dangerously close to that unanswerable question "What is jazz", I was reminded of a very good player I was taking lessons with. He's right out of the bebop school, a Benson and Wes acolyte.

His claim was/is that pretty much all of the post electric Miles guitarists, including Scofield, Metheny, Abercrombie and the like "aren't jazz players because they don't speak ""the language"" ". I suggested that all languages have multiple dialects and accents. He wasn't interested.

[henryrobinett]

As we veer dangerously close to that unanswerable question "What is jazz", I was reminded of a very good player I was taking lessons with. He's right out of the bebop school, a Benson and Wes acolyte.

His claim was/is that pretty much all of the post electric Miles guitarists, including Scofield, Metheny, Abercrombie and the like "aren't jazz players because they don't speak ""the language"" ". I suggested that all languages have multiple dialects and accents. He wasn't interested.

Yeah, well I do understand what he is saying, but when definitions become so ridged a thing can no longer move forward. That's why I said in another thread jazz is a lineage. It's a tree with many, many, many branches. Weather Report belongs on that tree, and McLaughlin, and Towner and Sco and Glasper and Charlie what'shisname. Otherwise jazz truly is dead.

[danihrabin]

exactly the same way that people don't except the addition of lol twearking and google it to the evolution of english

[Flyin' Brian]

Yeah, well I do understand what he is saying, but when definitions become so ridged a thing can no longer move forward. That's why I said in another thread jazz is a lineage. It's a tree with many, many, many branches. Weather Report belongs on that tree, and McLaughlin, and Towner and Sco and Glasper and Charlie what'shisname. Otherwise jazz truly is dead.

That's exactly the analogy Henry. It's a tree and if you get right down to it there are common roots. And in some ways, you can say that about music in general.

[henryrobinett]

That's exactly the analogy Henry. It's a tree and if you get right down to it there are common roots. And in some ways, you can say that about music in general.

Yes. But you also have oak trees and spruce and redwoods. Roots intertwined.

[Patrick2]

Perhaps what I believe to be jazz is a much broader definition than yours. I consider First Course, The Captain Journey, Captain Fingers, Friendship, Smoke and Mirrors, World of Brazil, and Festival, all to be Jazz albums (and that's just what comes to the top of my mind). I consider Jazz Fusion, and Latin Jazz to be a sub groups of Jazz.

Yeah . . you're absolutely correct about my narrow scope of what jazz is. Too often I forget that there are many catagories . . I won't even call them sub groups . . . of jazz. I've definitely become very snobbish with my opinion of what is and what isn't jazz. Gotta work on that . . . . Thanks fep!!

[Jazzpunk]

Glasper is doing everything right imo as far as paying homage to the greats that came before him while at the same time making jazz accessible to a new audience. Most kids aren't going to be hooked on jazz by hearing Autumn Leaves but opening their ears to improvisation through tunes they can relate to just might cultivate the jazz fans of the future.