Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore

[ghost of miles]

Well-trod ground on this forum, to be sure, but it's kicking up a lot of dust on the jazz internets, so thought I'd go ahead and post it here:

Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore

BTW, much of this seems either arbitrary (1959? Really?) or very old, old news to me. Nevertheless it seems to be getting some people worked up, as such commentaries usually do.

Edited December 1, 2011 by ghost of miles

[thedwork]

Well-trod ground on this forum, to be sure, but it's kicking up a lot of dust on the jazz internets, so thought I'd go ahead and post it here:

Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore

BTW, much of this seems either arbitrary (1959? Really?) or very old, old news to me. Nevertheless it seems to be getting some people worked up, as such commentaries usually do.

ironically, this seems kinda like marketing to me. a cry for attention. an adolescent, if impassioned, rant against... not ranting? so many annoying problems/contradictions in his little piece that i had to grudgingly force myself to simply get through it. imo, however well-intentioned, these types of over-the-top/mediocrely-written rants do no good toward creating the change the writer has in mind. however undefined that change is in his/their minds. what is he even really talking about? despite its tough-guy pose, it's unfortunately just so much fluff...

Payton is a very good trumpet player. like many artists, he should stick to his craft and, for the most part, leave words to others who work better w/ them. he'd have done better to write something more in the form of a tweet - like: "I'm with those who don't like the word 'Jazz.' It seems to have been co-opted. I call my music Postmodern New Orleans music. Have a nice day all!"

Edited December 1, 2011 by thedwork

[Dan Gould]

Looking around the rest of his blog I couldn't give a meditative crap about what Nicholas Payton thinks, if I ever did. I stopped caring about what he plays a long time ago.

[alocispepraluger102]

Looking around the rest of his blog I couldn't give a meditative crap about what Nicholas Payton thinks, if I ever did. I stopped caring about what he plays a long time ago.

after listening to 3 hours of incredibly beautiful, sensitive technically astounding music by the brilliant musicians rez abbasi, iyer, maranthrapa, dan weiss, and their associates, my opinion is that the finest music is inclusive of, but beyond jazz to some yet unnamed form, in much the way that motorcars supplanted buggies and carts. i never realized that until last night.

[John Tapscott]

Looking around the rest of his blog I couldn't give a meditative crap about what Nicholas Payton thinks, if I ever did. I stopped caring about what he plays a long time ago.

after listening to 3 hours of incredibly beautiful, sensitive technically astounding music by the brilliant musicians rez abbasi, iyer, maranthrapa, dan weiss, and their associates, my opinion is that the finest music is inclusive of, but beyond jazz to some yet unnamed form, in much the way that motorcars supplanted buggies and carts. i never realized that until last night.

Of course, jazz isn't cool anymore. So what? Hasn't been for ages. I love swinging jazz and not some hybrid, yet unnamed form. Not interested. I'll take the horse and buggy called jazz and it if dies, well, I've got enough recordings to keep me listening and satisfied for the rest of my life. Nicholas Payton can go pound sand.

[mmcgerr]

From nicholaspayton.com:

"If it sounds like Nicholas Payton is a genius musician, a gifted composer and producer, a skilled astute writer and sometime social provocateur, and a shrewd businessman, he is all that, and more."

When Payton says he has no limits, he means it!

Many creative artists have resisted categories such as jazz, including Duke Ellington, whom Payton doesn't bother to mention (perhaps because Ellington only wrote and performed "Modern NON-New Orleans Music").

The title of Payton's latest release--"Bitches"--suggests that he has some use for categories when they apply to women.

[MartyJazz]

Looking around the rest of his blog I couldn't give a meditative crap about what Nicholas Payton thinks, if I ever did. I stopped caring about what he plays a long time ago.

after listening to 3 hours of incredibly beautiful, sensitive technically astounding music by the brilliant musicians rez abbasi, iyer, maranthrapa, dan weiss, and their associates, my opinion is that the finest music is inclusive of, but beyond jazz to some yet unnamed form, in much the way that motorcars supplanted buggies and carts. i never realized that until last night.

Of course, jazz isn't cool anymore. So what? Hasn't been for ages. I love swinging jazz and not some hybrid, yet unnamed form. Not interested. I'll take the horse and buggy called jazz and it if dies, well, I've got enough recordings to keep me listening and satisfied for the rest of my life. Nicholas Payton can go pound sand.

I'm not interested in what Payton says about jazz, coolness, etc., but I will state my opinion that when I saw Payton and his quintet appear here at Nova University as part of the South Florida Jazz concert series in 2010, he definitely played some real hip, cool, swinging and definitely quite contemporary, jazz.

[Head Man]

I'm not interested in what Payton says about jazz, coolness, etc., but I will state my opinion that when I saw Payton and his quintet appear here at Nova University as part of the South Florida Jazz concert series in 2010, he definitely played some real hip, cool, swinging and definitely quite contemporary, jazz.

The biggest blow-hards often make the sweetest music....it was ever thus!

Edited December 1, 2011 by Head Man

[Larry Kart]

Nicholas Payton is Maynard G. Krebs?

I want Thalia Menniger.

[JSngry]

I want Thalia Menniger.

Be careful what you ask for: http://gorightly.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/more-on-the-tuesday-weld-psychedelic-illuminati-conspiracy/

[Larry Kart]

I want Thalia Menniger.

Be careful what you ask for: http://gorightly.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/more-on-the-tuesday-weld-psychedelic-illuminati-conspiracy/

I too have been an unpaid volunteer for the CIA.

[JSngry]

At times I feel as if I've been an unwitting volunteer for the CIA.

At other times, though, I feel like I'm lucky to still be alive.

[Dave James]

At times I feel as if I've been an unwitting volunteer for the CIA.

At other times, though, I feel like I'm lucky to still be alive.

For some time now, I've made it a point not to be associated with anything that involves intelligence.

Edited December 1, 2011 by Dave James

[kenny weir]

espite its tough-guy pose, it's unfortunately just so much fluff...

Yup.

[seeline]

Hmm... Nicholas Payton's rant reminds me a lot of Kenny Drew Jr.'s rant (a few years back) on another board. It's as if both of them wrote these things late at night and didn't edit them very well.

[clifford_thornton]

At times I feel as if I've been an unwitting volunteer for the CIA.

At other times, though, I feel like I'm lucky to still be alive.

For some time now, I've made it a point not to be associated with anything that involves intelligence.

I guess it's telling that I was reading this stupid rant while listening to some very non-necrophiliac Julius Hemphill.

[Lazaro Vega]

http://twitdoc.com/upload/paynic/np-jazztimes-100111-understandingpayton.pdf

[Shawn]

My guess more discussion has gone on about Payton because of this stupid post than his music has EVER inspired.

[AllenLowe]

god, what a lot of crap.

Armstrong didn't bow and scrape. Jazz was never victim of a Colonialist Mentality. And Ornette didn't bring jazz back to its "New Orleans roots." Give me a break; there's as much soul in Texas as Louisiana, and Ornette was just bringing it home (ask JSngry) -

[Big Wheel]

Re ornette, I think payton's point was more that what ornette did in terms of collective improvisation was very much a New Orleans concept, even though ornette decided to ditch fixed forms and go with a very different melodic language.

[Brad]

That is the biggest pile of bs I've seen in awhile. Guy needs some therapy. He's got a healthy amount of self loathing going on.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Brad

[Face of the Bass]

I actually really liked this blog post, and I've never heard Nicholas Payton's music. I don't think each of the individual sentences in the piece are meant to be taken quite as literally as people here seem to be doing. And I certainly think that it is bullshit to try to judge an album or the intentions of its creator based on a simplistic interpretation of a single word (Bitch).

Sometimes I think that the problem with the world today is that people no longer think in poetic terms, but are rather always intent on putting absolutely everything that they encounter into some box with a label affixed to it. But that's not appreciating something, that's just killing it, which is I think what Payton is trying to say. (And says very well, in my opinion.)

Also loved how he dropped in "colonialist mentality." Echoes of Fanon and Biko.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Face of the Bass

[Jams_Runt]

I've been keeping out of the jazz side of the web for awhile, but a couple of my friends sent me links to Payton's message. These were not people particularly interested in jazz, so I guess his post is making some small waves. I really didn't know what to tell my non-jazz listening friends, other than what Allen said. An artist has every right to post whatever he wants about whatever, particularly within the tradition he works in. I guess taken as self-advertisement framed in the context of purging his soul, (speaking uncomfortable personal truths), then Nicholas was successful, but what a load of crap. 1959? That just plays into the whole Columbia/Sony reissue Kind of Blue again whatever...

I can no longer get excited about whether or not jazz is dead. As long as I can listen to Monk and occasionally catch Roswell Rudd, (or whoever), I guess I don't really care either way. I guess it just makes me sad that someone so "in the tradition" misunderstands Louis Armstrong so much. (And oi with the fucking neo-post-classical labels already)

I don't post here much only because I feel like others here are far more articulate about the music than I am. Just thought you guys would like to know that this weird-ass blog post is on the radar of people who don't think about jazz.

[AllenLowe]

to me the Colonialist rant is just pure crap - I love hearing this from a musician who works steadily and makes a good living at jazz. If he has some time, I'll show him my musical calendar.

[Brad]

Another point. Why would a jazz (I don't care what he calls himself) artist who makes his living as a jazz artist make dumb comments to the effect that the medium he plays in is dead. Hello! Wake up dude. That would be like a car company going out and saying, "yeah, cars suck."

What an idiot. Nice way to kill your occupation and income