Assassins Get Paid REALLY Well These Days!

[clifford_thornton]

It's not at all surprising that Wynton is a millionaire.

Maybe I run in a small, small piece of the music public - but I don't think Wynton is viewed anymore as "saving" jazz; rather, he's a commercial musical institution like the Stones and gets paid for it.

[Kalo]

Hey, he's gotta make some kinda living since his records don't sell....

Maybe I run in a small, small piece of the music public - but I don't think Wynton is viewed anymore as "saving" jazz; rather, he's a commercial musical institution like the Stones and gets paid for it.

That's actually a very perceptive observation.

[andybleaden]

yup

thats the truth

[John L]

Personally, I don't care for the LCJO. But I find it hard to be convinced that it is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, the lack of gigs for jazz musicians, etc. All of those symptoms were clearly visible long before the LCJO.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Personally, I don't care for the LCJO. But I find it hard to be convinced that it is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, the lack of gigs for jazz musicians, etc. All of those symptoms were clearly visible long before the LCJO.

The Marty Kahn interview Larry posted says precisely that.

MG

[Christiern]

I don't think the LCJO is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, nor has it had any positive effect that I can see. That said--with all that funding and all the real talent that exists, a visionary, open-eared director would surely have put together a meaningful orchestra with a voice of its own.

[JSngry]

Personally, I don't care for the LCJO. But I find it hard to be convinced that it is responsible for the decline of jazz in America, the lack of gigs for jazz musicians, etc. All of those symptoms were clearly visible long before the LCJO.

The Marty Kahn interview Larry posted says precisely that.

MG

Did we read the same article?

I read it like JALC found a set of circumstances that could have been resolved any # of ways and created their own resolution, and not without some acquiesence from those harmed by it.

A big, big problem behind all this - and one that is clearly deliniated in that article - is that the "money people" (who are quite often clueless dillitantes in the first place) now have "a place", if not "the place" to put their money if/when they wnat to do something "culturally hip".

Some of y'all might think that that's really not that big a deal, that the real music never has gotten the money in the first place, that the best shit has always been undergrond and still is, blahetcblah, and you're right - up to a point. But what you're overlooking (and whether or not you can be blamed for this no doubt varies on a case by case basis) is that macroeconomically, the "underground" is being/has been pushed so far undergorund that it's at the point of truly being buried. I mean, you can only claw your way so far towards the surface on your own.

Think about it like this - in the 60s, the "face of jazz" for people looking to be "hip" was John Coltrane. Now, directly or indirectly, Trane used his "vibe" to make things more "open" for a lot of peole who otherwise would not have gotten to the front sidewalk, never mind in the front door. Look at all those Impulse! sides - does anybody here think that Bob Thiele would have done all that shit completely on his own? Hell no. Or that the whole October Revolution/New Thing scene (and all that evolved from it) would even been considered at the level it was without the explicit/implicit (as the individual cases may be) support of Trane? If Trane would have made an effort to institutionalize his vision the way that Wynton has (and if he would have had the gift of BS that Wynton has to convince people - including himself - that doing so would be a good thing), would "Wynton" have even existed?

Let's take this a little farther (and significantly hypothetically) - if Trane had done what/how Wynton has done, and on the scale he's done it, things like AACM. BAG, Euro-jazz, ECM, fusion (especially in it's early, raw, "radical" form", would have faced an entirely different cultural and economic landscape to go up into/against. Any "fringe" music begins entirely underground, and how far it goes from there depends on how much non-undereground "backing" (either financially or otherwise) it gets, up to and including, at a level of importance that is usually inversely proportional to it's actually "knowingness". the various levels of "institutionalized" backing. And once that backing is comitted to an ongoing proposition, it takes a helluva lot - usually a "moral" scandal of the basest and vilest level of unjustifiability - to pull it away. Other than that, hey, it's good for the duration.

Ok, y'all are smart people, so extrapolate that out- if Trane had what Wynton has done, and as Wynton has done it, a lot of stuff that we've come to take for granted might well have not gotten too far off the ground. And the reality is that A) Trane was not like Wynton in any way & B) Trane died in 1967. So that's not the reality. But the reality is that Wynton has done what he has done, and he has done it as he has done it. Anybody who's been actively involved in the music at any level beyiond "casual fan" since the late 1970s knows that when the "Young Lions" thing hit, that there was a "Big Chill" effect that was not at all dissimialr to the effects of Reaganism on the rest of society. All sorts of things, some good, some not so good, and some not yet determined, found their marketplace/potential marketplace all but gone as the "money people" found what for them seemed a "sure thing" - "real jazz" that NOBODY had to "think about", so clear was the image and content. Hey, if I'm a clueless motherfucker looking for self-validation as a "progressive supporter of American Arts" and this shit comes along, well HELL YEAH I'm throwing down with it, because it's playing to every clueless cliche that my clueless ass has about anythng and everything involving what it is that I think I'm wanting to be all about.

And 25 years later, those clueless simps have got to feel very good about putting their money where they did. Hell, they've built a fucking EMPIRE in the old-school Euro mold, with one cat as the frontman for a rigid, unyielding, narrow definition of what "is" is, and by god, so shall it e. The money is there for it/them, and everybody else, hey, get your own if you can find it, and if you can't, oh well, too bad, you must not be worthy then. Find yourself some little people with some little money and play your little games with them.

It's always been that way to a certain extent. But never in my lifetime has the "big money" been so tied up in one place, and never has that big money been so uniformly tied up in so rigidly myopic a perspective. Do I blame/fault Wytnon for taking the money? Of course not. Get it while the gettin' is good I've always said, and always will say. But do I blame him for what he's done with the money/power/influence.whatever he accumulated/been granted as a resutlt? Of course I do. How do you not? Even if he is a puppet, he's a puppet of his own making and of his own choosing, and look what his puppet strings have done. They've created a slow strangulation of the rest of the music, that's what they've done, and if that's not assassination, then fuck the Enblish language as a means of effective communication.

Did we read the same article?

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Jim, you wrote a lot of prose that seems to be saying "Wynton should be playing free Jazz at LCJO".

That's what Coltrane did, so that must be what you're implying.

Well, newsflash - I've read many stories of people walking out on Trane when he started going way out. They paid their ducats to hear "My Favorite Things" and when he whipped out "Ascension", they walked out.

If the LCJO started playing avant garde pieces, they WOULD NOT MAKE $12 million. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Jim, you wrote a lot of prose that seems to be saying "Wynton should be playing free Jazz at LCJO".

That's what Coltrane did, so that must be what you're implying.

Well, newsflash - I've read many stories of people walking out on Trane when he started going way out. They paid their ducats to hear "My Favorite Things" and when he whipped out "Ascension", they walked out.

I'm sure there are many such stories. But in the end, Coltrane's first hit album was "Expression" not "My favorite things". Maybe that was because he was dead already, but...

MG

[JSngry]

Jim, you wrote a lot of prose that seems to be saying "Wynton should be playing free Jazz at LCJO".

That's what Coltrane did, so that must be what you're implying.

Well, newsflash - I've read many stories of people walking out on Trane when he started going way out. They paid their ducats to hear "My Favorite Things" and when he whipped out "Ascension", they walked out.

If the LCJO started playing avant garde pieces, they WOULD NOT MAKE $12 million. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

What the fuck did you read?

I wrote nothing implying anything even remotely like that. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

Newsflash for you - read the actual words and don't "project", ok?

Ususally when I'm misinterpreted, I can go back, re-read, & see a root cause in what I worte. Damned if I can do so here.

Nobody's talking about what LC "should" or "should not" specifically be playing. What we are talking about is how the whole machine has been geared towards putting the emphasis on one man, one man's "vision", and nothing else and more importantly, how this effort has had the cumulative effect of soaking up an inordinately large portion of the financial and intellectual captial of the suckers....er...."potential investors" that exist in any "arts" world, as well as how without potential access to that capital, all sorts of alternative "visions of jazz" have become basically SOL when it comes to achieveing anything beyond true cult status, if even that much.

That's what we're talking about, Rickey, not what LC should or shouldn't be playing.

Besides, "free jazz" is so...over as a flash/talking point these, except in the hinterlands of Clydesville, where Kind Of Blue still resonates/induces drooling/causes vaginal wetness with its "moderninity". Ornette's done won a Pulitzer and has done played w/Wynton at LC & Albert Ayler's a freakin' undergropund rock icon for cryin' out loud. Nobody looks at the 60s as "controversial" any more excpet people who need to sell something that can't stand on its own and that needs a boogeyman to justify itself. Thus Reaganism, and thus Wyntonism.

That's got nothing to do with whoat they "should" be playing, although it has a helluva lot to do with why they play it, and especially why/how they sell it. But that's got nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is simply the tying up the lion's share of the money and growing the institution and not the music (which has lots - BIG LOTS in fact! - of non-Wynton "visions" outside of what you simplistically/generically/cluelessly/whateverly refer to as "free jazz", all of which could, yeah, use some infusion of "exploratory captial", the pool of which has been exponentally shrunken thanks to the LC machine). Period.

So hey, what's your point agian?

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Did we read the same article?

Did we read the same article?

Yes, but clearly from different points of view.

There is Art, which serves the interests of the ruling classes - that's Wynton.

And there is art, which doesn't - perhaps that's Gator Tail, as a personal example.

The ruling classes can afford to support Art with big money. That's what they've done.

The rest of us HAVE to support art with our little bits of money. Because, if we don't, it dies. And that's what happened. It's all our fault, audience and musicians - but particularly musicians, who should lead the audience, but who were themselves led by the vision of Art (promulgated by who?) to the big money.

MG

[JSngry]

Did we read the same article?

Did we read the same article?

Yes, but clearly from different points of view.

There is Art, which serves the interests of the ruling classes - that's Wynton.

And there is art, which doesn't - perhaps that's Gator Tail, as a personal example.

The ruling classes can afford to support Art with big money. That's what they've done.

The rest of us HAVE to support art with our little bits of money. Because, if we don't, it dies. And that's what happened. It's all our fault, audience and musicians - but particularly musicians, who should lead the audience, but who were themselves led by the vision of Art (promulgated by who?) to the big money.

MG

Well yeah, ok, I got that part of it. But I do think that there was another part of it that pretty much unambiguously implies that until these bloated pigfucks get shrunk back down to size (or eradicated altogether, which is probably the same thing) that there's no end in sight. Other than The End, which I'm more than ready to allow is here past the point of no return. I am ready to move on, and am doing so. But I still got my roots in this old game, and not all roots pull up as easily a others, if indeed they ever do.

Now, what I'm hearing some people saying is that this all would have happened anyways, that the music had evolved/devolved to a point where all that was left was either an ongoing set of sub-sub-genres and/or the picking of the various corpses' bones into a run it up the flagpole good ol' AMERICAN JAZZ version of the walking dead, and that where we are now is where we had no choice but to be, given the inevitability of historical forces and all that.

I'll not argue too vehemnetly against that, but I can't support it either. Too many variables as to what could have happened along the way, too many possible/potential intersections between "real jazz" and popular culture that didn't happen because "real jazz" don't go there no more except on its own necrophilliac terms, too many possibly "genius" types - real or faux - that might have gotten over some hump in at least terms of public exposure to at least be a part of the overall dialogue but didn't because the seed captial was going elsewhere, too many local gigs that could have turned some corners dried up as people started wanting their "jazz" to sound, and just as importantly, look a certain way, just too many things in genreal that didn't happen that may or may not have actually happened for me to conceed "inevitability".

Good news - Internet & digital DIY makes/is making "institutions" obsolete (literally or relatively) in terms of "finding" an audience.

Bad news - After you find it, what do you do with it other than provide it w/more digital content w/o that macroinfrastructure of old skool promotion, venue, and captial infusion that you still got to have to get to that "next level"? And into whose hands has the lion's share of this power gone?

Yep. And that's what I read.

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[JSngry]

And GTW/FWIW - I am firmly of the belief that anybody doing any kind of "new" jazz should look for their audience/business model/preofessional handling outside of and away from the established "jazz" ones.

Because like it or not, the Lincoln Center "game" has all but become THE "jazz game" in terms of business, and with the resources it has, what remains that runs counter to that is facing an uphill stuggle with questionable chances of success. It's Wal-Mart.

It's all about access. And if you don't fit "their" mold (or can't be made to fit for their own ends - as witnessed by Wynton's sudden "recognition" of Ornette's true brilliance), then I say you're better off not even trying. Look elsewhere, forget about labels and see what's out there for you outside the cave.

Case in point - Quartet Out's two best received gigs (and I'm talking madcrazycrazymad love being shown) were at an alternative rock club and a St. Louis inner city elementary school where all the kids had heard was rap/hip-hop. We'd play "jazz" rooms and people would get nervous and shit. :g :g

Point is - the LC-type "jazz people" and their power structure only want one type of music and musician, and they will not let anything other than that one type into their circles. So if you ain't about 100% or more of their thing, abandon hope, all ye who attempt to enter there.

A lot of alternative rock & rap/hip-hop people are into jazz the way that a lot of older, back in the day, potential "business partners" were - they like it/love it far more than they understand it, and they will throw some money at some of it. My advice is to go there for what you need in terms of money/business support, just don't let it sway your music in a non-organic manner (easier said than done, although at this point in time, if you're not at least a little influenced just through cultural osmosis then LC might be just the place for you! ) But anyody expecting to find a jazz business model from within the jazz world that is able to successfully evade the LC machine - either directly or in copycat form - is, I'm afraid, hopelssly deluded.

Look - what "we've" always been about is improvisation, sometimes for grins, sometimes because our life depends on it, sometimes at any # of points in-between. What "they're" about is stabiltiy and a lack of discomforting change, of setting it up and raking it in into perpetuity. "Improvisation" as selling-point rather than lifestyle. Can't have it both ways, so once you choose, know who your friends are and where you might be able to get some assistance along the way.

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[Kevin Bresnahan]

[What the fuck did you read?

I wrote nothing implying anything even remotely like that. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

Newsflash for you - read the actual words and don't "project", ok?

Jim, drop the attitude and maybe we can keep this civil, OK? What you wrote was:

Think about it like this - in the 60s, the "face of jazz" for people looking to be "hip" was John Coltrane. Now, directly or indirectly, Trane used his "vibe" to make things more "open" for a lot of peole who otherwise would not have gotten to the front sidewalk, never mind in the front door.

From there, you went to extrapolate that to the LCJO is doing the opposite of what Trane did.

Would that not imply that you feel that Trane did it "right" and that the LCJO is doing it "wrong".

FWIW, I am not defending the LCJO's approach to Jazz presentation. I do believe that they are presenting a form of Jazz that will sell to their core audience. I read your prevous writings as saying otherwise.

[MoGrubb]

...... in the end, Coltrane's first hit album was "Expression" not "My favorite things". Maybe that was because he was dead already, but...

MG

Statistics can be strange. Anyhow, that's not how I remember it, the My Favorite Things recording was his first "hit." A Love Supreme was his next biggie in the global market.

[Brad]

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?...&orgid=3922

No, I don't begrudge anybody a successful/financially rewarding career, even this clown.

But DAMN.

There you have it, right there, the whole thing. This is what it's now all about.

It's over people, it's fucking over.

So he's successful, so what. Nothing to do with his musical abilities or lack therof, however you fall on this spectrum.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well yeah, ok, I got that part of it. But I do think that there was another part of it that pretty much unambiguously implies that until these bloated pigfucks get shrunk back down to size (or eradicated altogether, which is probably the same thing) that there's no end in sight. Other than The End, which I'm more than ready to allow is here past the point of no return. I am ready to move on, and am doing so. But I still got my roots in this old game, and not all roots pull up as easily a others, if indeed they ever do.

Well, Jesus said "the poor are always with you". A little-noticed corrollary is that the rich are always with us.

All we can do is fight the power, not think of winning.

MG

[JSngry]

[What the fuck did you read?

I wrote nothing implying anything even remotely like that. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

Newsflash for you - read the actual words and don't "project", ok?

Jim, drop the attitude and maybe we can keep this civil, OK? What you wrote was:

Think about it like this - in the 60s, the "face of jazz" for people looking to be "hip" was John Coltrane. Now, directly or indirectly, Trane used his "vibe" to make things more "open" for a lot of peole who otherwise would not have gotten to the front sidewalk, never mind in the front door.

From there, you went to extrapolate that to the LCJO is doing the opposite of what Trane did.

Would that not imply that you feel that Trane did it "right" and that the LCJO is doing it "wrong".

FWIW, I am not defending the LCJO's approach to Jazz presentation. I do believe that they are presenting a form of Jazz that will sell to their core audience. I read your prevous writings as saying otherwise.

I'll try to keep it civil (but without dropping the attitude, which is neither yours nor anybody else's to dictate the presence or absence thereof) but it's hard when you show no signs of having read the entirey of what I wrote (and I will stipulate that's that's quite often easier said than done, given how I like to ramble )

What I was doing was drawing a hypothetical parallel as to what could have happened what actually did happen. I said that if Tran would have institutuaionalized his vision in a manner as has Wynton (i.e. - securing among other things, non-profit status, massive corporate funding and all that goes with that in terms of spending/investment power, and the elusive status of "officiality" in the eyes of the lay world), that things would have been different in terms of how the music subsequently evolved. A lot of resources that were available for a lot of different "specualtive investments" would not have been there. Case in point, an absurd one perhpas, but given how things work, not rally. Sid Bernstein invested heavily in Weather Report early on. Lots of funding to get them off the ground and keep them going while they found their legs. Now, if Sid Bernstein had been around for the type of Trane-initiated institutionalizing I was hypothtetically modelling, then WR probably wouldn't have became what they did (and you can argue about if that's good or bad, sure). And there's other things too - ECM really took off in America when Warner Brothers assumed distribution. Now, if the Trane Business/Institutional Model had been in place ca. 1975/76, would WB have even felt that ECM distribution was a worthy risk? Remember - Trane was an enormously charismatic persona - as well as the possessor of a non-muddle-headed business acumen - and could likely have created a business energy to equal his business energy that few others could have - if he would have been so inclined.

Yes, this is all meaningless in reality, because Trane did not do anything even remotely like Wynton/LC has done, nor do we have any indication that he even wanted to. What he did want to do, and did do, was to give what he thought were deserving new voices a shot, and he his either explicit/implicit endorsement of certain players (and by extension, the type of music they played, their "scene" if you will) conferred a legitimacy on them/it that forced at least a token level of "consideration" at a lot of busininess/critical levels that otherwise would have not even considered same. That had the net effect of keeping the door open business-wise, and as long as the door is open, then there is hope. It's no secret that the "avant-garde" although never wildly popular, was gaining a broader audience in the 70s than it had had in the 60s (no small thanks to the efforts of Mssrs. Nessa & Cuscuna there), as well as the fact that once the Reagan/Marsailis regimes took hold that things changed dramatically and relatively suddenly.

But that is in no way saying that LC "should be" presenting "free jazz" (which these days is a pretty meaningless term outside of the very fartherst fringes, since so many "avant-garde" principles have become mainstream, although the more rigidly pedantic cavemen don't wanna hear about it...). It's their money, they can do with it what they damn well want, and they certainly damn well are.

What it is doing is providing for those who are positing that it doesn't/hasn't made any difference to the business landscape of the music a hypothetical - albeit absurd-in-the-face-of-reality parallel to what could have happened and what actually has happened. Big difference there, and I'd ask you to see that, please, lest I become more uncivil. :g Because I expect more than a simplistic misreading from you. Really, I do. And yes, that is a compliment.

And fwiw, I think that my vision of the music in the face of it's Trane-induced institutionalizing would be every bit as dire as it is now, just because institutionalizing any living thing has onerous consequences. We only institutionalize people when they're friehgtfully ill or fixing to die, right?

But just for grins, let's play the "what if" game. Yeah, some people were walking out of some Trane gigs. But others were enthralled, and saw Trane as a true messiah. At that time in America, that whole type of thing was in the air and could get off the ground pretty easily (and stay there, too - look at all the deep adulation that a cat like Hendrix continues to recieve to this day that goes beyond his skillas as a musician). Now I ask you - is it too far of a stretch to envision a scenario where Trane decides that his calling is to "save humanity" by creating an institution through which his musical/cultural vision can be spread? And is it too far a stretch to envision a scenario where a lot of "radical chic" (no Reader's Digest ducats here!) money, as well as a lot of discretionary income of various cultural arbiters who really don't have too much of a real clue but bygod son't want to be left out of the opportunity to do soemthing MEANINGFUL with their life/money, gets poured into this thing, and little by little (this is the late 60s, remember, so it ain't gonna fly right off the bat, but various "pressurings" won't let it slip totally under the radar either), this thing becomes known to America At Large as THE TRUE JAZZ, and anybody who wants in on "the jazz game" goes there first, and if the cons, er...presenters, do their jobs right, they don't go looking anywhere else, and before you know it, hey - Game Over, no more calls please, we have our JAZZ, thank you for playing. You can tell me that that never would have happened, but don't tell me that if it had that it wouldn't have made a diffference. Of course it would have made a difference.

Obviously, Trane was not the kind of person/intellect/soul to perp on that (although, the proposed intent of the Olantunji school shows potential tendencies in the direction of "institutionalizing" which must be non-judgementally acknowledged, I think), and for that, every supra-human, super-human. human, sub-human, and non-human piece of energy in the known & unknown cosmos should be primally thankful, but Wynton was and is (and for that, every....etc. should be primally pissed off), and he did do it like that.

So, does that make it any clearer?

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[Eloe Omoe]

Obviously, Trane was not the kind of person/intellect/soul to perp on that (although, the proposed intent of the Olantunji school shows potential tendencies in the direction of "institutionalizing" which must be non-judgementally acknowledged, I think)

Well, wasn't the "Kulu Sé MaMa" whole operation supposed to raise funds for Juno Lewis' "Afro-American Art Center"? In that album's liner notes, Nat Hentoff writes just that. And Juno Lewis says in his "poem" that "Coltrane moves in that direction... A man who knows (that) directions for the future depend on how we artists of today cut the road".

I mean that someone had been toying with the "institutional" idea of a jazz art center for quite a long time, and that Coltrane had already been spotted as the right man to convey such institutionalizing energies.

Just my two cents.

[JSngry]

Obviously, Trane was not the kind of person/intellect/soul to perp on that (although, the proposed intent of the Olantunji school shows potential tendencies in the direction of "institutionalizing" which must be non-judgementally acknowledged, I think)

Well, wasn't the "Kulu Sé MaMa" whole operation supposed to raise funds for Juno Lewis' "Afro-American Art Center"? In that album's liner notes, Nat Hentoff writes just that. And Juno Lewis says in his "poem" that "Coltrane moves in that direction... A man who knows (that) directions for the future depend on how we artists of today cut the road".

I mean that someone had been toying with the "institutional" idea of a jazz art center for quite a long time, and that Coltrane had already been spotted as the right man to convey such institutionalizing energies.

Just my two cents.

Not at all a bad point. My only wonder is when/if Trane would have "crossed over" into outright corporate sponsorship, which would/has turned the whole thing into something else altogether than the grassroots, "doing it by ourselves, for ourselves" thing that this was looking like at that time.

Who knows?

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[clifford_thornton]

I don't know how it would've manifested itself, but I think Trane probably would have commercialized his music more greatly in some way. If I'm not mistaken, before he died he expressed regret at losing his audience. Of course, there's contradiction there because he also recorded some seriously out shit not long before his death. Still, I have to wonder...

Here's my perspective. The idea of mass appeal, at this point, is fairly hard to stomach - other than obvious pop crap (= pap), music has become a highly nichified thing. "Real" jazz, as well as "real" rock and roll and other types of music, has a small, steady and cultured audience. It may not grow, but it shows no signs of disappearing entirely.

The problem with a niche is that there are still a fairly large number of artists competing for a few gigs and a few record sales. But I think Wynton's pretty much entirely out of that picture.

[JSngry]

I've read many stories of people walking out on Trane when he started going way out. They paid their ducats to hear "My Favorite Things" and when he whipped out "Ascension", they walked out.

If the LCJO started playing avant garde pieces, they WOULD NOT MAKE $12 million. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

Setting aside the likelihood that "Ascension" was part of the new quintet's performing repertoire (to my knowledge, it never was), if your implication that public reception to live perfomance directly correlates to "popularity" of the music presented in general, then shouldn't Wynton's overall output, which is able to generate this $12 mil annually in performance, generate a commisurate performance in record/cd/dvd/mp3/etc sales?

So, why then did Wynton got dropped by Columbai/Sony/CBS, along w/the rest of the non-reissue jazz dept.? Why did Wynton wait for more than a year for somebody to meet his price, and when that never came about, signed w/Blue Note for a fraction of what he was looking for? Why isn't Wynton Marsalis one of the best-selling jazz artists of all time? I mean, geez, $12,000,000.00 is a buttload full of money to generate. Somebody's spending their money on something there, so where's the record sales in relation to all of this?

n the toilet?

Uh....yeah, I believe it is.

I think you gotta recognize that what people really like and what they can be "sold" under the guise of culture, and cultural "repsonsibility", "awareness", or anything else are two distinct things, which is to say that once something has the "aura of respectability" that it's a helluva lot easier sell than something that doesn't, especially to people who just want to "do something for the arts". As well as that the health of the institution and the health of that which it purports to be "preserving" may quite well be inversely proportional, to put it politely.

Now, could Trane have gotten the then-"avant-garde" to that point if he had lived and if that had been his motivation? A lot of "ifs" to be sure, and silly ones they indeed are, but... I would not rule out the possibility, given the time, the place, the general cultural climate of the times, and the overall charisma of the man. Just as a different time, place, general cultural climate of the times, and a different overall charisma of another man led us to what we now have in Lincoln Center.

And again - this is not about the "type" of music that LC presents. Let me take a second and drive that point home one more time -

This is not about the "type" of music that LC presents.

Ok?

What it is about is whether or not LC is doing a good job promoting the ongoing health of the music, or of promoting the ongoing health of LC itself. Big difference there, and a lot - a helluva lot - that falls under the former category that ain't "free jazz", including this board's beloved "Soul Jazz".

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry

[Christiern]

As so often before, Jim nails it and Bresnahan doesn't get it.

"I am not defending the LCJO's approach to Jazz presentation. I do believe that they are presenting a form of Jazz that will sell to their core audience."--Bresnahan

Before you aim at your "core" audience, you have to determine what that is. Perhaps it is something you create with your product (the old which came first? question). It should come as no surprise that one's "core" audience is going to buy that which is custom made for it, duh. The questions here are many: What is the LCJO's "core" audience? It obviously can afford inflated club prices, yet it does not seem willing to spend money on the LCJO's recorded offerings. Does that neglect indicate a measure of good taste? If so, are the supporters drawn to the Coca Cola and other J@LC venues for atmosphere rather than music? Why are such large sums of money spent to feed a marginal jazz audience at the added expense of quality and with calculated stagnation? Why, in a city brimming with genuine talent and creativity, was it necessary to spend millions of dollars on venues (tourist attractions) that most New Yorkers cannot afford to attend? Who made the decision to hire (and grossly over-compensate) a musical director with extraordinarily limited vision, a man who--decades later--has yet to gain respect for any musical accomplishments?

I think these are legitimate question, especially when one considers that tax money, too, is in the mix.

In the end, when business and art battle--and money is removed from the equation--the latter always wins, so Wynton and his cohorts will not succeed in stifling the development of jazz, but the right people could have accomplished much in the way of furthering it.

Finally, that Wynton himself is an unremarkable musician and writer is regrettable, but something that one could have overlooked if he had in other ways shown artistic creativity and breathed life into the music. As it is, J@LC contributes little or nothing to the city's cultural life and it places jazz on a very costly treadmill.

Edited August 18, 2007 by Christiern

[Guy Berger]

I've read many stories of people walking out on Trane when he started going way out. They paid their ducats to hear "My Favorite Things" and when he whipped out "Ascension", they walked out.

If the LCJO started playing avant garde pieces, they WOULD NOT MAKE $12 million. If you believe otherwise, you are dreaming.

Setting aside the likelihood that "Ascension" was part of the new quintet's performing repertoire (to my knowledge, it never was), if your implication that public reception to live perfomance directly correlates to "popularity" of the music presented in general, then shouldn't Wynton's overall output, which is able to generate this $12 mil annually in performance, generate a commisurate performance in record/cd/dvd/mp3/etc sales?

Ascension was actually performed a few times in the summer of 1965 by the classic quartet.

FWIW, Coltrane's posthumous avant-garde releases sold very well; a few of them even cracked the Billboard Top 200.

Guy

[JSngry]

The problem with a niche is that there are still a fairly large number of artists competing for a few gigs and a few record sales. But I think Wynton's pretty much entirely out of that picture.

Record sales, yeah, no doubt. But gigs? I dunno... as gigs get to be less and less club/community-based and more and more "institutional" in both nature and sponsorship (a trend that has in no ways reached its peak, I'm inclined to think)... the Marty Khan thing is spot-on, I think.

Of course, pockets of resistance exist, and thrive, at least for now. Wal-Mart hasn't completely destroyed American retail. But I am not optimistic that that's in anyway going to mean growht & expansion of same as time marches on, especially as "jazz" recedes deeper and deeper into the public perception as a music of "historical significance", which is, of course, playing right into what the LC crowd wants/needs to furhter its own surivial needs.

Which is why I stongly suggest that "jazz artists" not looking to function in the LC perceptual mold of what jazz "is" start looking elsewhere, outside the "established jazz world" for both audience and business support. You're playing against the odds either way, but at least when you look outside, you got the chance of actually encountering people who appreciate your "different-ness" instead of...not appreciating it. Also, that those entities attempting to sponsor/promote/whatever such music from within the "jazz world" of today start seriously marketing the objects of their affections to "non-jazz" audiences. Because that scene - the "pure jazz" crowd - is getting more and more into the LC mold everyday. So forget about 'em and let's get this shit going someplace else, ok?

Edited August 18, 2007 by JSngry