Ageing audience for jazz?

[Scott Dolan]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.MG

Explain to me how discovering music/musicians you'd never heard of before as not being progress? If you discover a new artist that you like, is that regression?No, it's just something different. I discovered Willis Jackson and John Coltrane in the sixties; Fela Kuti in the seventies; Youssou Ndour and The Florida Mass Choir in the eighties; Ouza and Sekouba Bambino in the nineties; Gnonnas Pedro and Concha Buika in the noughts; and Fred Anderson, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and The Original Super 5 of Africa in the tens. Sorry, regarding this as movement in ANY direction is beyond me :)MG

Sorry, but any time you discover something new that also leads you into discovering something else that is always a good thing. Period.

If it wasn't, why would you bother?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.MG

Explain to me how discovering music/musicians you'd never heard of before as not being progress? If you discover a new artist that you like, is that regression?

No, it's just something different. I discovered Willis Jackson and John Coltrane in the sixties; Fela Kuti in the seventies; Youssou Ndour and The Florida Mass Choir in the eighties; Ouza and Sekouba Bambino in the nineties; Gnonnas Pedro and Concha Buika in the noughts; and Fred Anderson, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and The Original Super 5 of Africa in the tens. Sorry, regarding this as movement in ANY direction is beyond me :)MG

Sorry, but any time you discover something new that also leads you into discovering something else that is always a good thing. Period.

If it wasn't, why would you bother?

I don't see how discovering the Florida Mass Choir led me to discover Fred Anderson. Or Youssou Ndour. I've found these people (and lots of others of course) simply by looking in different places. I do agree that looking in different places and learning about new stuff is a good thing. But it's kind of accidental or random that I happened to look in those places, so I can't regard my career of random wanderings as progress or regression; it's just what happened sometimes.

Progression and regression imply a purpose or an objective. I just don't have one related to anything other than getting enough money to live on and feed my addiction to popular black music. Objectives are for the middle classes, who are generally what they do for a living. My mother used to criticise me because I always treated a job as a means to an end, not as a career. But around here, in the ex-mining valleys, people aren't what they do for a living; they're what they do for themselves - sing in a choir, play rugby, keep ferrets or racing pigeons or whatever.

MG

[Guy Berger]

Definitely. I said in my post that there were fewer jazz albums on the charts in the 90s (though still quite a good number. But yes, the number has been coming down since 1979 (which I think was the peak year since 1955 - though the charts have more records on them now )

It occurred to me the other day that, back in the fifties and sixties, there were loads of pop instrumentals on the singles charts - not just by jazz musicians like Bill Doggett, Johnny Dankworth (!), Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff - but by pure pop or R&B musicians like Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Johnny & the Hurricanes, The Mar-Keys, Booker T & the MGs, the Shadows, Sandy Nelson, Bent Fabric, the Surfaris, the Tornadoes and a host of others. I don't know whether instrumental pop singles still make the charts but I very much doubt it and it seems to me that the decline of the pop instrumental has actually got something to do with the decline in young people's interest in jazz. If people don't hear instrumental music (good, bad and indifferent) as a regular and natural part of their cultural diet, jazz isn't going to mean much.

MG

This is part of what I was getting at too (and you touch upon in a later post in the thread). The "stylistic gap" between jazz and popular music began to widen at some point after 1940, but early on it wasn't that wide. So fans of one style could find things that were familiar in another. Over time it got so wide that "fan crossover" became much more rare, though it still happens from time to time.

[Scott Dolan]

So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly?

I find that incredibly difficult to believe.

I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue.

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm currently in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall awaiting the start of Götterdämmerung. Believe me, if you thought jazz audiences were old....

[BillF]

I'm currently in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall awaiting the start of Götterdämmerung. Believe me, if you thought jazz audiences were old....

See the link in the first post of this thread.

[David Ayers]

I'm currently in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall awaiting the start of Götterdämmerung. Believe me, if you thought jazz audiences were old....

Let us know if it is sold out. That seems more key than age. And nice to be free from the beery toe-tappers...

[AllenLowe]

mmmmmm.....beery toe-tappers...........

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm currently in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall awaiting the start of Götterdämmerung. Believe me, if you thought jazz audiences were old....

Let us know if it is sold out. That seems more key than age. And nice to be free from the beery toe-tappers...

Not quite but near as damn it. Semi-staged with a huge tripartite screen with vague visuals and the lyrics so we can sing along.

Just finished the first leg. Very enjoyable - really good to hear an orchestra doing this stuff in the flesh.

The only thing they missed was asking us to come dressed in role like those sing-a-long Sound of Music shows.

No-one has died yet - on stage or in the audience. There's still time....lots of it...

[David Ayers]

Yeah it's long... It is a joy to see it done though.

[A Lark Ascending]

Indeed.

I'm currently in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall awaiting the start of Götterdämmerung. Believe me, if you thought jazz audiences were old....

See the link in the first post of this thread.

Odd comment at the end about the problem being that opera is not taught in schools. Was it ever taught in schools? Certainly not in the state sector.

[sidewinder]

Indeed.

I'm currently in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall awaiting the start of Götterdämmerung. Believe me, if you thought jazz audiences were old....

See the link in the first post of this thread.

Odd comment at the end about the problem being that opera is not taught in schools. Was it ever taught in schools? Certainly not in the state sector.

I remember doing 'Dido and Aeneas' as a set score for Music O Level as such an establishment. Eons ago though...

Edited June 14, 2014 by sidewinder

[jazzscriveyn]

Just throwing another thought into the melée.

When I was at school, I was the only one in the class who's favourite music was jazz. The others thought that strange at best, though I [edit] was wasn't [/edit] given any serious grief about it and I stood by it anyway. Since then (1970s) I think the peer pressure about what clothes to wear, what to see on film/TV and what music to hear has risen massively, thanks mostly to various industries. - So, hasn't it become much harder for youngsters over the past decades to get into and stick with a musical taste which is so clearly that of a minority?

Edited June 15, 2014 by jazzscriveyn

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly?

I find that incredibly difficult to believe.

I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue.

No; I've explored various aspects of black popular music when I've happened to come across them as a result of random wanderings. I don't think that means that artist X led me to artist Y. Both are present in the aspect on which I'm particularly focusing on at a point in time. I didn't get interested in Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey BECAUSE I liked Osadebe or E T Mensah or I K Dairo MBE. These people were around and very popular, therefore I picked up on them.

Hm... I tend to like stuff BECAUSE it's popular, because popular music that's genuinely created for its specific audience is culturally more important to me than good music created for a minority. (I exclude from this general rule white pop music since the mid sixties. Before that, the white pop singles emanating from Philly were different from those coming from Nashville, LA or even New York. They were usually (except in Nashville) made by locally based indies and tended to have a common approach which had to have been geared to the local audiences. When the majors really started to get to grips with the industry, it became much less interesting. Not that it was ever TERRIBLY interesting, but there is a marginal interest in the differences between Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson, for example.)

So, since I'm not looking for art in music, or even particularly quality, what I get reflects the taste and concerns of specific local communities and this helps me understand my own a bit better - though it doesn't make me LIKE it any better - but it does make me ask myself questions like 'why are 97% of Senegalese popular songs about politics and zero are love songs and why are (probably) 97% of western popular songs about love and some tiny percentage about politics?'

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue.

Oh, by the way, I bought 'Kind of blue' in 1970 and flogged it soon afterwards

Not what I wanted.

MG

[Shawn]

So, hasn't it become much harder for youngsters over the past decades to get into and stick with a musical taste which is so clearly that of a minority?

I would say yes. In junior high and high school the various cliques invariably had their own "soundtracks" that went with them. The popular kids listened to pop (duh), the stoners listened to heavy metal, the jocks listened to meat & potatoes American rock, the freaks listened to indie rock & new wave, the good ole' boys liked their Hank Williams Jr., etc. If you were one of the outcasts (like myself) you could listen to whatever the hell you wanted because you're already a social pariah, what more harm could you do?

[sidewinder]

Just throwing another thought into the melée.

When I was at school, I was the only one in the class who's favourite music was jazz. The others thought that strange at best, though I was given any serious grief about it and I stood by it anyway. Since then (1970s) I think the peer pressure about what clothes to wear, what to see on film/TV and what music to hear has risen massively, thanks mostly to various industries. - So, hasn't it become much harder for youngsters over the past decades to get into and stick with a musical taste which is so clearly that of a minority?

Interesting. I always thought that Germany had a more 'open' attitude to jazz (was always amazed at the amount of challenging jazz and not just Kenny G/Boney James etc. being broadcast on FM back in the 1980s at a time in the UK when it was once or twice a week) but I guess that things must have deteriorated. Shame..

Edited June 15, 2014 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

Well here's a novel way of reaching a younger audience for classical music:

http://www.classicfm.com/music-news/latest-news/colorado-symphony-orchestra-cannabis-concerts/

As we know, jazz audiences are all on drugs anyway.

Edited June 15, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[Guy Berger]

So no artist you ever listened to led you to another? Every artist and genre you got into just happened randomly?

I find that incredibly difficult to believe.

I guess it's all just a happy coincidence that I have hundreds of Jazz albums from hundreds of Jazz musicians after having purchased Kind Of Blue.

I think you are arguing at cross-purposes here, SD. MG's point is that (A) listening to artist A and then artist B, and calling it "progress" is a flawed normative judgment and that (B) it's not necessarily guided by some sort of grand deterministic process.

Just throwing another thought into the melée.

When I was at school, I was the only one in the class who's favourite music was jazz. The others thought that strange at best, though I was given any serious grief about it and I stood by it anyway. Since then (1970s) I think the peer pressure about what clothes to wear, what to see on film/TV and what music to hear has risen massively, thanks mostly to various industries. - So, hasn't it become much harder for youngsters over the past decades to get into and stick with a musical taste which is so clearly that of a minority?

I'm not familiar with Germany, but I'm pretty skeptical that this is the case in the United States.

[Scott Dolan]

Guy, the oddest aspect of this conversatin is that MG first brought up the word progress. I could have taken it as a strawman argument, but decided to simply adopt the term just for the sake of the conversation.

I just thought I should clarify that as it seems I'm the one being accused of calling it progress.

Exploring other genres and artist because you were hipped to them by other artists is never, ever, EVER a bad thing. I really don't care what one refers to it as.

[A Lark Ascending]

I don't think anyone was suggesting that exploring new things was not a good thing.

Merely questioning the idea that some things are better to explore than others (the idea that you need to follow an approved list rather than following your own nose, informed by hints and suggestions you bump into).

Any musical genre from opera to heavy metal can be made off-putting to a new, young (or old) enquirer when they are pounced on for expressing a liking for that which is not approved (God help the inquisitive soul who wants to know a bit more about jazz after hearing an 'awesome' Wynton Marsalis album).

Doesn't mean that everything is of the same quality; but separating what is of high/low quality from the web of your own preferences and prejudices is much harder than those who like to judge would have us believe.

Edited June 15, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[jazzscriveyn]

Just throwing another thought into the melée.

When I was at school, I was the only one in the class who's favourite music was jazz. The others thought that strange at best, though I was given any serious grief about it and I stood by it anyway. Since then (1970s) I think the peer pressure about what clothes to wear, what to see on film/TV and what music to hear has risen massively, thanks mostly to various industries. - So, hasn't it become much harder for youngsters over the past decades to get into and stick with a musical taste which is so clearly that of a minority?

Interesting. I always thought that Germany had a more 'open' attitude to jazz (was always amazed at the amount of challenging jazz and not just Kenny G/Boney James etc. being broadcast on FM back in the 1980s at a time in the UK when it was once or twice a week) but I guess that things must have deteriorated. Shame..

oops,sorry, just noticed making an error in my previous post:it should read "wasn't given any serious grief" (now amended).

Anyway, I wasn't referring to Germany in particular; rather what I think is a global phenomenon of increased pressure to adhere to accepted brands/trends.

BTW: Jazz broadcasting and live jazz IMO went downhill sharply in Germany since the '80s

[Scott Dolan]

I don't think anyone was suggesting that exploring new things was not a good thing.

Merely questioning the idea that some things are better to explore than others (the idea that you need to follow an approved list rather than following your own nose, informed by hints and suggestions you bump into).

Any musical genre from opera to heavy metal can be made off-putting to a new, young (or old) enquirer when they are pounced on for expressing a liking for that which is not approved (God help the inquisitive soul who wants to know a bit more about jazz after hearing an 'awesome' Wynton Marsalis album).

Doesn't mean that everything is of the same quality; but separating what is of high/low quality from the web of your own preferences and prejudices is much harder than those who like to judge would have us believe.

Well, that's where it all breaks down for me. All I suggested was that hearing a tune like Minjor would appeal to a pretty diverse audience. So if they are attracted to that band because of it, they may explore them even more and hear them cover a Monk tune which may then lead them to explore a genre they were completely unfamiliar with.

Again, THAT was all I said. Go back and read my post.

So when MG replied poo pooing my point, he was indeed essentially saying exactly what you're saying nobody here is saying.

[A Lark Ascending]

I read MGs post as merely expressing how his journey took a different path.

[GA Russell]

I think that some of it has to do with marketing.

In the late '90s, we saw neo-swing. Back in the day, those bands would have been called jazz, but their CDs were placed in the stores' pop sections, not jazz.

Similarly, Bruno Mars played the haltime of this year's Super Bowl, and I was very impressed with his band. Certainly it was like a jazz band. Do Bruno Mars fans think of that music as jazz? I doubt it.

How about Charlie Hunter and MM&W? I suspect that their fans are thinking "jam band," not jazz.

So I'm thinking that much of the issue is about the labelling rather than the music itself.

Edited June 15, 2014 by GA Russell