BillF

Entry to Shag? Jazz audience is shagged out!

Not overlooked by me.

When I was listening to jazz in 1960 at the age of 20, the jazz audience - and it was much, much larger than today's - was my age. Sadly I often get the impression that today's jazz audiences are largely made up of those same people.

Yes, the audience at Smalls looks to be in their 20s and 30s, as far as I can see from their webcam. At the one club I go to when jazz gigs are on, the Band on the Wall in Manchester, there are a lot of people aged around thirty, but the club's normal fare is more like this:

Nice report!

Ike Quebec Gordon Beck Nat Peck

Not just a Bay Area phenomenon. That's just what I find. The typical jazz fan at gigs in my experience is white, male, retired and middle class (has leisure time and adequate pension to fill it).

Clearly, it's time I gave this another spin:

Wardell Gray Anita Wardell Anita O'Day

I recently went to a university concert hall gig in Liverpool by the Roger Beaujolais Quartet, a top flight British jazz group. Twenty-one people attended in a hall that seated two hundred. I discussed this with another (elderly) listener, who pointed out that there was nobody young in the audience, although Liverpool has two jazz courses for students. She told me she was the secretary of the Wigan Jazz Club and that the ageing audience for jazz was dying off and no one young was coming up to replace it. Today I read that some say opera is going the same way: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/06/new-york-met-opera-house-edge-precipice I also notice that when I'm on jazz sites I'm getting ads for maximising my pension or for mobility aids. Any views on this state of affairs?

Tintin Captain Haddock Shafi Hadi

Zachary Beaver Jean-Claude Van Damme Blaster Bates

Herb Ellis That Geller Feller Sweet Lorraine

Gazza Guzzler Steve Swallow

Bubbles DeVere Eamon de Valera Val's Pal

Kes Hawk The Owl of the Remove

Skip James Tipper Gore Truck Parham

Sleepy Stein Oliver Stone D B C Pierre

John Suckling Miss Piggy Lord Sowden

And one from me.

Agatha Christie Miss Marple Hercule Poirot

The Caddy Cardew the Cad Maggie the Cat

This one would particularly interest me: http://www.coastaljazz.ca/performance/cory_weeds_quartet Now listening to this:

Todd Coolman Robert Frost Chilly Willy