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Can Jazz Be Saved?


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The present Government has not been supportive either, even obstructive, with it's insane and irrational Premises Licence Act which came into force in November, 2005. I know of a number of venues that no longer host live music events because they couldn't be bothered with the red tape or weren't prepared to meet the extra costs involved.

The 'dead hand' of this lot in action, yet again. Come the revolution.... etc. etc.

The UK media has never done jazz any favours. The sole exception being that phase in the 1980s when it was half-way cool with the likes of Sade in the charts' Lasted all of 5 minutes after a few jazzy TV commercials seling lager. Funny as it is, that 'Fast Show' comedy sketch pretty well sums up the attitude of 99% of the UK listening public to jazz and anything challenging in terms of improvisation. I think there's allways been a more open and healthier attitude to modern jazz in particular on the Continent - young people are prepared to give it a listen and are more receptive. It's not automatically labelled with the 'awkward squad' - especially in Germany and the Benelux countries. Hence the reason why the likes of Mike Westbrook, Nucleus etc. spent so much time touring there in the 1970s and 80s. Our eternal loss.

Edited by sidewinder
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The present Government has not been supportive either, even obstructive, with it's insane and irrational Premises Licence Act which came into force in November, 2005. I know of a number of venues that no longer host live music events because they couldn't be bothered with the red tape or weren't prepared to meet the extra costs involved.

The 'dead hand' of this lot in action, yet again. Come the revolution.... etc. etc.

The UK media has never done jazz any favours. The sole exception being that phase in the 1980s when it was half-way cool with the likes of Sade in the charts' Lasted all of 5 minutes after a few jazzy TV commercials seling lager. Funny as it is, that 'Fast Show' comedy sketch pretty well sums up the attitude of 99% of the UK listening public to jazz and anything challenging in terms of improvisation. I think there's allways been a more open and healthier attitude to modern jazz in particular on the Continent - young people are prepared to give it a listen and are more receptive. It's not automatically labelled with the 'awkward squad' - especially in Germany and the Benelux countries. Hence the reason why the likes of Mike Westbrook, Nucleus etc. spent so much time touring there in the 1970s and 80s. Our eternal loss.

I think things have picked up in the last ten years or so. There do seem to be an awful lot of young jazz players around. Every year when I go to Cheltenham/Bath there are a fresh set of faces; and Clark Tracey's bands seem to have an amost Blakey-ish turnround of the up and coming.

I think this might be tied in with the greater acceptance of jazz as a 'legitimate' area of study in music colleges - Leeds, the one at Uxbridge where Nikki Iles teaches, the London colleges spring to mind. And I recall jazz being an accepted route through the music exam process now - wasn't Michael Garrick involved in setting up a syllabus? It might not be learning your chops on 52nd Street or in a territory band but it eems to be churning out some very able players.

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Dress for success.

Nothing wrong with what Ramsey said. Dressing shows that you take the music, gig, and audience seriously. I always try to dress because i hate looking like a shlump and people appreciate it. It has no effect on the music at all, but if one person will pay more attention if he sees me taking it seriously............Jaki Byard chewed my ass out in the 80s for showing up at the one gig the band had out of the JCT in sneakers (he called them 'tennis shoes' and me the same 10 years later) I swore I didn't hear him say 'dress tomorrow' and made everyone look bad. Humiliation is a good teacher.

As far as Ramsey's 'unusual pairings' gambit: potential trouble there. Whenever they do that at George Wein's events----well, if it looks like a gimmick, and smells like a gimmick.....Worse yet, musical incompatability would spell a real nightmare. On the other hand, with real listeners and responders on the stand (I call people like this 'musicians') it could bring out the best in both, or at least another side than the usual trappings would.

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Good post today from Darcy James Argue--more supportive of Teachout than many other bloggers' posts:

Nights Alive With Music

...I'd forgotten all about that Piscopo Sinatra sketch from the 80s:

"I want to do some tunes that the young people will enjoy. That's why I'm calling this album Frank Sings Tunes the Young People Will Enjoy."

:lol:

He also made a good point via Twitter:

Seems to me like large arts institution-driven marketing campaigns are most often completely unpersuasive to actual young people.
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Listening yesterday to a Doris Duke Foundation honcho (a tent-preacher popinjay along the lines of an intellectualized Richard Simmons) go on about the state of jazz and outreach and the challenge of technology and building bricks-and-mortar "hubs" and "growing the pie" and learning how to "co-opitate" (I'm not kidding) etc. at the all-day so-called "Chicago Jazz Town Hall" (which I'm told by someone who knows cost $75,000 to put on), it suddenly occurred to me (this fellow having somehow introduced the subject at one point) that the solution to the problem is this slogan/marketing campaign: JAZZ CURES AIDS.

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interesting, and related to some of the things I've said -

take that $75,000 - and turn it into events - pay local bands $750 per concert - hold one per week - and you have TWO YEARS of musical events (that's 100 concerts). Use concerts receipts to pay for rental and tech.

too simple, I know, and it makes too much sense for arts organizations to ever do it.

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take that $75,000 - and turn it into events - pay local bands $750 per concert - hold one per week - and you have TWO YEARS of musical events (that's 100 concerts). Use concerts receipts to pay for rental and tech.

There ya go. In fact one exasperated musician-grassroots "presenter" (quite successful in both roles) did propose something like this. though he didn't at the time know that $75,000 had been spent on this affair. The people in charge didn't get it/seem to like it. Proposals that were greeted with enthusiasm included creating a "jazz train" (?) and a "jazz district," naming streets after musicians, designating a jazz "czar," and, my favorite, getting celebrities (in particular, I kid you not, Oprah Winfrey) to say that they liked jazz.

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interesting, and related to some of the things I've said -

take that $75,000 - and turn it into events - pay local bands $750 per concert - hold one per week - and you have TWO YEARS of musical events (that's 100 concerts). Use concerts receipts to pay for rental and tech.

too simple, I know, and it makes too much sense for arts organizations to ever do it.

The bureaucrats will have nothing to do, and no jobs, if the money goes to the musicians.

I have noticed that instututions using public money and corporate grants to promote jazz, seem to attract people who have as their main focus keeping and maintaining their (rather cushy) job, not the music. These are the people who seem to create and promote marketing ideas designed to drive away the jazz audience. After all, if jazz can attract an audience just on its own merits, because it is fun and enjoyable and exciting and vital and naturally draws a crowd, then who needs the bureaucrat and his or her ideas any more?

These bureaucrats tend to wrap themselves in a mantle of exaggerated importance, by describing jazz as "America's classical music" or "America's one contribution to the arts". Such a precious commodity can only be tended by a great personage--such as, just for instance, the bureaucrat who is calling it those things. After all, if we are talking about some musicians just getting together and playing some exciting creations of their own, forging ahead without any pompous labelling of their music, then who needs the bureaucrat any more?

Go into any bar on a Saturday night and shout out, "hey everybody, tomorrow night there's a performance of America's classical music in town! It's going to be America's one true contribution to the arts, here in our city!" Feel the excitement swell in the room.

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On This Whole “Death Of Jazz” Thing . . . .

Everybody’s making a lot of noise about this whole death of jazz thing.

How are we mourning something that’s been gone a long time ago and highly questionable if it ever really existed?

The question to me is not if jazz is dead or will die, but rather, if it ever was alive.

OK- let’s say jazz is alive.

Then it has most certainly been on life support for quite sometime.

Personally, I think somebody should to sneak in the room and euthanize it.

Maybe if jazz dies, cats will start playing the blues again.

You don’t have to play blues if you play jazz.

Shyt, you don’t even have to swing.

So I say, let it die.

The Original Dixieland Jass Band made the first jazz record.

Paul Whiteman was the King Of Jazz.

Louis Armstrong played the blues.

Miles Davis played the blues.

If it was good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

You can play anything and call it jazz, but you can only do one thing when you’re playing the blues.

You can get a jazz Master’s degree in countless schools across the globe.

There’s only one way to master the blues.

You can teach somebody how to play jazz.

You can’t teach anybody how to play the blues; you can only give it to them.

The premier jazz venue in the world rests on prime realty in Manhattan.

I think it’s safe to say that jazz has officially crossed over.

Ever notice that no one ever speaks of the blues dying.

Why?

As long as there’s life, there will be blues.

- Nicholas Payton

http://nicholaspayton.com/

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I'm sorry, but I think that at least half of Payton says above is either b.s. or "so what?"

In particular, what the heck does "You can play anything and call it jazz, but you can only do one thing when you’re playing the blues" mean? You can play almost anything and call it (or at least get away with calling it, and certainly sell it as) the blues.

As for "You can teach somebody how to play jazz. You can’t teach anybody how to play the blues; you can only give it to them " -- Oy, vey.

As for "Ever notice that no one ever speaks of the blues dying," that's in large part because blues bars remain great places for suburban kids of all ages to get drunk.

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I'm sorry, but I think that at least half of Payton says above is either b.s. or "so what?"

agreed. it's no doubt heartfelt and kinda fun to read, but it doesn't feel like a very well thought out response to my ear. as poetry it's ok, as a real world response to the "jazz is dead" freak show, it's next to meaningless. and i think Payton is a fine player.

i haven't gone through this whole thread (almost...) but it looks like nobody put up Nate Chinen's Response yet. i may be in the minority here, don't know, but i prefer his music writing to almost any other music writer for The Times and thought his response to Teachout was a good one. i particularly liked this:

"But there’s a wealth of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, as many... responding mainly to Mr. Teachout, have been quick to point out... Scratch anywhere past the surface and you might begin to wonder whether the likes of Mr. Teachout and Mr. Gioia don’t see young people listening because they don’t know where to look."

i tend to agree with this from my personal experience. the problem may relate to what i've heard referred to as "option anxiety." there's actually so many places to look for music these days and so many people putting music out, it's daunting to think of the effort involved in sifting through the glut to get at the goods. it may simply be easier to say, "Can't find it. Must not be there. Dead i guess. I can relax now." problem solved. time for dinner.

the whole 'jazz is dead,' and it's corollary debate/hypothesis/argument/wankfest "what is jazz?" is a giant yawn as far as i'm concerned. there's a ton of great music and musicians out there right now. i honestly feel that anyone who doesn't realize this is simply lazy or has an agenda which the "jazz is dead" argument fuels. yawn...

and this:

These bureaucrats tend to wrap themselves in a mantle of exaggerated importance, by describing jazz as "America's classical music" or "America's one contribution to the arts". Such a precious commodity... Go into any bar on a Saturday night and shout out, "hey everybody, tomorrow night there's a performance of America's classical music in town! It's going to be America's one true contribution to the arts, here in our city!" Feel the excitement swell in the room.

...kills me every time. right on Hot Ptah. i've always had a big problem with the term "America's classical music" being used to refer to 'jazz.' why use the term "American classical music" to mean jazz? is it so that people will subconsciously elevate their perception of what jazz music is to what classical music means in most Americans' minds, since the term "classical" in our culture, in regards to music, has come to mean 'high brow' or 'fine' or 'intelligent' etc...? or at least this is how the "bureaucrats" you may be speaking of may see/use the term.

to me, this is a gross exercise in un-necessary ass-kissing. i think this may happen with many jazz lovers unwittingly, even to themselves. but any jazz lover who feels the need to attach the term 'classical' to the music they love, so as to give it some extra 'cache' or legitimacy, is sadly missing the point of the music. status is as far removed from the true meaning of any music as is the recipe for mixing rubber for tires. if the music is great, it will be great regardless of the term that's used to designate it.

what do we think elitist, aristo[bureau]cratic, classical musicians (oh they're out there boy...) say behind closed doors amongst themselves about the jazzers calling their music 'classical?' they laugh and snub their noses. and in this case we're giving them reason to and that's ironic and pathetic. we don't have to use their term to feel that our music is legitimate on any level.

i suppose you could argue that the word 'classical' has meanings aside from our associations w/ composers like Bach, Mozart, Copland, etc... but you're kidding yourself if you think that's not what everyone in this country thinks of when someone says classical while referring to music. and that's not a bad thing. classical, jazz, folk, old-timey, bluegrass, gospel, rock, etc... they're just words signifying a general style.

what was i talking about? oh yeah - fucking Blue Note man! why don't they just stick to jazz artists? R&B/Soul is dead...

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i've always had a big problem with the term "America's classical music" being used to refer to 'jazz.' why use the term "American classical music" to mean jazz?

That one's easy - it came about in response to decades of industry & cultural ignorance exploitation, abuse, and ghettoization. True artists treated like so many dispensable hacks.

As fate would have it, though, now that the music has won some "respect", you got so many dispensable hacks being treated as true artists.

Hell, most people can tell the difference at some level, even the ones who don't know Duke Ellington from Duke Bootee.

Edited by JSngry
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"But there’s a wealth of anecdotal evidence to the contrary, as many... responding mainly to Mr. Teachout, have been quick to point out... Scratch anywhere past the surface and you might begin to wonder whether the likes of Mr. Teachout and Mr. Gioia don’t see young people listening because they don’t know where to look."

i tend to agree with this from my personal experience. the problem may relate to what i've heard referred to as "option anxiety." there's actually so many places to look for music these days and so many people putting music out, it's daunting to think of the effort involved in sifting through the glut to get at the goods. it may simply be easier to say, "Can't find it. Must not be there. Dead i guess. I can relax now." problem solved. time for dinner.

KA-ching!

You want that 75K to get some results, use it to buy some time in a club. That's right - pay to play, only the "arts association" pays the club and the band. But not no tired ass navel-gazing chopsturbation or vo-de-0odoh bebop, and not on some Sunday afternoon in some genteel "cafe" . No - find some motherfuckers with some attitude and put them in a club with a similar attitude in a time slot that matters just a little.

Quartet Out used to kill in alternative-rock clubs, but in "jazz" clubs more often than not, we would kill - the audience. But the kids (and the few times we took it to the ghetto - notably as part of a St. Louis New Music Society outreach to an elementary school - "the community") had no problem with it, because they had no idea what "jazz" wasn't supposed to sound like (ah-HA!). They got the energy, they dug the intensity, they felt the life. They weren't laboring under the burden of preservation, they were just there in the same room at the same time as we were, and we had a nice little exchange.

Now, if all you got to work with in your town is a bunch of...let's just say, stuff that sounds like what jazz is "supposed" to sound like in the minds of the many, then hang it up. Use that 75K to put the handful together with the handful and call it a day. But if you got some shit that is relevant to people who don't know what "relevant" means, then by all means, think outside the box, go to a club with like-minded attitudes, and pimp that shit out. Let the [peoples know that it is here to be had.

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Yeah, I read the Chinen piece in the NYTimes, good article. On point. Take dat!

Mingus released an entire album dedicated to telling the European classical musicians a *what for*, i.e., we don't need to kiss your fuckin ass or get your seal of approval. It was called *Let My Children Hear Music*.

Did anybody mention that the author of that article writes for the National Review, apparently? Probably doesn't get out to Brooklyn, much (unless he already lives in Park Slope or somewhere like that).

Edited by NavSJ
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They weren't laboring under the burden of preservation

I like that one! :D

Jazz isn't dead. it's just in labor. :D

Ever notice that no one ever speaks of the blues dying

I guess that Nick Payton doesn't spend too much time in "blues' circles. As a blues lover, I can sympathize with his position. But it seems to me that jazz and blues are headed in very similar directions. In fact, it may be the blues that are dying, not jazz. Jazz is sick with the weakening of the blues, but may ultimately recover without the "burden of preservation" of the blues. For now, jazz is in labor.

Edited by John L
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Giving beer to kids certainly can't hurt!

Performing Arts will continue to contract in the fringe as long as it is presented as sit and observe.

Seems to me that all of us bust our ass all day, all week, all year to keep those bills paid and stress about how we will ever get out of this thing with something to show.

The relatively small amount of time and money that we do spend on leisure is generally spent trying to leave all of that behind for a moment.

Most of us are looking forward to blowing off some steam. People seem to be popping at the seams with stress.

If "jazz" (insert performer here) is not addressing this, it is going to fall further down on the list of things to do tonight.

Engaging the audience, having some understanding of why they are there, and entertaining that notion can go a long way.

If the audience is there to preserve America's Classical Music, well, I can imagine being in that audience, and it feels like an obligation.

Beer anyone? Yelling at the fire-breathing trumpet? Boogie down with the girl beside you if you're feeling it? Vitality! Real, live fun. Not compositions in a jazz idiom to represent it.

I'm sorry, but I think that at least half of Payton says above is either b.s. or "so what?"

In particular, what the heck does "You can play anything and call it jazz, but you can only do one thing when you’re playing the blues" mean? You can play almost anything and call it (or at least get away with calling it, and certainly sell it as) the blues.

As for "You can teach somebody how to play jazz. You can’t teach anybody how to play the blues; you can only give it to them " -- Oy, vey.

As for "Ever notice that no one ever speaks of the blues dying," that's in large part because blues bars remain great places for suburban kids of all ages to get drunk.

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Beer anyone? Yelling at the fire-breathing trumpet? Boogie down with the girl beside you if you're feeling it? Vitality! Real, live fun. Not compositions in a jazz idiom to represent it.

To modify a point I made early in this thread, the answer to the jazz "problem" is full-service brothels where you get paid by arts funding organizations to use the facilities. Free booze too. And that's where the guys play, for their part of the funding dime. Kind of an inside-out Storyville. And you take the "jazz train" to get there.

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