Why I Stay Pissed

[ghost of miles]

There is still a long way to go in developing jazz radio in a more viable and positive direction. Right now there seems to me to be a split between the pre-1980 attitude (who cares if anyone listens, this is great) and the David Giovannoni attitude (there's no difference between "service" and ratings). My own notion is that public radio service is a function of both the quality of the programming and quantity of people that programming reaches. If no one listens, the greatest programming in the world does no service. If everyone listens to Rush Limbaugh, you have made the world a worse, not a better, place.

The point I would try to make with the folks who seem to care ONLY for quality is that radio is a mass medium: it quite simply isn't right to use the public airwaves to broadcast programming that hardly anyone will benefit from. Especially when most of the people who DO listen have lots of disposable income to go out and buy the music in question themselves. So there is a contradiction when radio is disdianed for programming in a way that draws more listeners. That is what radio is for: to reach relatively big audiences.

So when you design a jazz program, the first question is "How do I do I present jazz in a way that is both culturally enriching for the community and financially viable for the station?" You don't ask "What are my favorites?" or "What do I think other people ought to be compelled to listen to?" For me art is about compromise (between inspiration and the limits of form, between creatior and audience, between competing motives). The art of radio is a creative compromise between the desire to expand the audience (for both financial and service reasons) and the desire to express oneself aesthetically. Those who can't bring themselves to accept this sort of compromise should look for another medium to patronize.

--eric

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Eric,

I think this is very well-stated--and I also agree with your remark elsewhere about the enjoying the challenge of retaining/increasing the audience with programming that is good. I just don't want to neglect the jazz lovers. (Which I know you're not advocating.) Spurning them entirely (as KKJZ seems to be doing) strikes me as being as mistaken as catering to them exclusively.

[JSngry]

I also strongly disagree/disapprove with the notion that "newcomers" to jazz won't enjoy something like Atlantic-era Ornette. In my experiences, some will and some won't, and the proportion isn't really any different for this "style" of jazz as it is for any other. I mean, we've got people here who don't dig organ jazz, but do they stay away from the board?

so the notion that "we're not going to play it because nobody will like it" strikes me as fundamentally wrong, both philosophically and realistically.. Some people will like it (And amongst younger people, perhaps more than some), and a station like KNTU can/should include it in their overall programming accordingly.

What I really think is at work here is a fundamental conflict of purpose. I know from experience that the UNT JazzEd program is first and foremost about learning a skill, not about developing a peronal voice, nurturing the "creative spirit", or anything like that. Which is fine with me, that's what they do, they do it damn well, and many fine musicians (as well as a handful of great ones) have come out of that environment.

But, geez, Ornette...you get people listening to him, thinking about his music and about how it's created and what it represents (on many different levels), and WHOA! Where does that leave a program that is so strongly oriented towards teaching mechanical skills (and judging merit accordingly)? You've got cats there who have spent a lifetime building careers on teaching a certain way of playing jazz, as well as on using the institutional powers at their disposal to reinforce the aura of the "correctness" of their approach. Where does Ornette leave them?

The thing is, you can, (and should!) have the knowledge (a little, some, or all) that these guys teach to make relevant creative music. Knowledge never hurrt anybody! But accquiring the skills is just the first step, and it's one that a lot of significant artists pick up in different ways and at different paces along the way. A systematic approach works for some, doesn't work for others, and doens't make any difference one way or another for still others.

What you can't teach is soul, feeling, and creativity, and by narrowing the parameters of what is "good" jazz as this (and, I'm sure, other) programs have done, you (intentionally or otherwise) create an environment in which "success" is easily obtained by merely following the rules (the harder you apply yourself to the following/application of thiose rules, the greater the degree of "success" awarded), which makes the students look/feel good, and defintely makes the teachers look like some bad mofos, since they turn out SO MANY "top-flight" players. It's a big ego-stroke for all concerned, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but still, the longer it gets propagated, the less tolerant of "alternatives" it becomes. Where that leads...

So there's no room for Ornette in a place such as this. He challenges/exposes too much of the "home" philosophy. So it's best to mock him, to minimalize him, to stigmatize him, and it's even better to hide his CDs so they don't get played by "untrained" DJs who might let the cat out of the bag. Protect the kingdom at all costs!

It's a situation that I know will never change, one that's been in place long before I got there and will still be in place long after I'm dead and gone. Usually, i file that world away with so many other "parallel universes", but this time I slipped up and allowed them in. My bad!

Edited July 9, 2005 by JSngry

[Noj]

Jazz stations should definitely play all the various representations of jazz, imo. I would trust that any given radio DJ would select what he/she considers the best track off a given album no matter what it is. It can't be all one style, all the time. Play brand new music, really old music, really strange music, music that swings, music that's funky, music that's way out there...that would be my preference anyway. How else is anyone going to learn about all that jazz has to offer? I read discussions here about music by artists I have no idea about. There should be a place for all of it on jazz radio, imo.

It would actually be my preference to hear the music on the radio change styles on a song by song basis. Juxtapose, baby!