Comments

• littlemark New

  October 15 Posts: 475

  Jazz hasn't been popular in a long while. You bring in big acts to pay for the smaller ones.

  
• pdg ✭✭

  October 16 Posts: 613

  Rock is the biggest, then maybe "Americana" (which inexplicably bans jazz, bluegrass, and many other American musical art forms).

  In San Francisco, there's the "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass" festival which, unsurprisingly, is loaded with non-bluegrass music.
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  October 16 Posts: 629

  I just read a book "Dangerous Rhythms", it's good. Basically about how jazz has always been associated with organized crime and that even in its heyday (sp?) it was barely commercially viable. At least instrumental jazz.

  Anyway, Erykah Badu isn't necessarilyy favorite but I know her name has jazz players in it.

  The problem with jazz is that statistically no one likes it.

  
• djazzy New Riccardo Mordeglia, AJL

  October 17 edited October 17 Posts: 140

  Just gonna just put this out there.

  I think the term has become kinda (edited: from "toxic" to lame.) And maybe it should be avoided lots of the time (as much as possible?).

  We know that not all improvised music is Jazz so... do we need it? I know the term carries historical cache but maybe we should try loosening ourselves from that stuff.

  Thanks @paulmcevoy75 for mentioning the book. I read a couple reviews about it & it sounds interesting.

  
• scot Virtuoso

  October 17 Posts: 713

  "Because of the easy money and the unlimited supply of naive performers to take advantage of, crime and popular culture/popular music have always been joined at the hip. From Storyville/New Orleans through the bebop era, through payola in the 50s, Las Vegas in the days of the Rat Pack, and Hollywood from the very beginning, organized and other crime was always there to help out. In the late 60s you had the LA/Laurel Canyon scene where all manner of psychopaths, predators, drug dealers and the porn industry freely mingled with the many rock musicians who lived there, and Hell's Angels were always part of the Bay Area rock/drug scene. The list of rockers who were fleeced by their managers is a long one... I'm sure it's the same everywhere. And today, popular music (and popular culture in general) glorifies crime and criminals more than ever before, so there are probably still many criminals in that world."

  I first posted this back in 2014 in a post about Baro Ferret whose underworld credentials were very real. Nothing much different today, except that popular culture is even more depraved than ever.

  Since the rise of players like Wynton Marsalis, "jazz music", especially the bebop variety, is seen by many people, including many musicians, as an academic and pedantic style of music, not a whole lot different than classical music and not that interesting. I know people who play that kind of music and they are all academics. And among my musician friends who don't play jazz, none of them has the slightest interest in it.

  60-70 years ago, my parents, who were blue-collar but aspirational, liked jazz, especially "cool jazz" and Brazilian music, and had records by Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Miles Davis etc in the 60s. So did many of my friends parents - in those years, jazz records made up a significant part of all record sales. I like that music but I rarely listen to it - my music listening time is when I'm in my workshop and for some reason I just don't listen to jazz while I fix things.

  I have to agree with Djazzy - the term is kind of toxic even if there isn't another term I can think of that serves the same purpose - to describe sophisticated improvised music.

  
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  October 17 Posts: 5,705

  Reminds me of what I heard several times playing Gypsy jazz, along the lines of "I don't like jazz but I like you guys" or "what kind of jazz is this? I like this jazz".

  If they have to bring in a mainstream artist in order to sell tickets and keep the festival alive, then so be it.

  

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
• Russell Letson Prodigy

  October 17 Posts: 430

  This has been going on for a long time now--festivals have been broadening their artist rosters for as long as I've been paying attention. By the late 1960s, the Monterey Festival was featuring rock and blues acts: 1966, Jefferson Airplane; 1967, Richie Havens and Big Brother and the Holding Company; 1969, Sly and the Family Stone. Newport saw similar genre extensions in this period.

  The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has probably the most organic big-tent approach, which acknowledges the connections across the whole range of American musics. This is economically as well as artistically a good idea. Though more specialized celebrations can also work--Djangofest Northwest certainly has done pretty well with a narrower focus. (But even DFNW has offered acts from the edges of its central tradition--I recall 3 Leg Torso and Fishtank Ensemble vividly.)

  Jazz-as-jazz does not have even the appeal it did when I was in grad school fifty years ago--and it was a bit of a niche then, with an audience for whom it was the music of *their* youth. I see the current audience segmentation in my own small (75K) city: the folk and chamber music societies serve old folk, and the core audience for jazz nights at the only jazz-friendly venue rarely hits a dozen. On the other hand, tribute rock bands (we have a couple of excellent examples) fill fair-size venues--with gray-hairs and a scattering of the merely middle-aged. A touring country act might fill our rehabilitated vaudeville house with somewhat younger fans. In fact, the live music scenes of any kind are pretty marginal. It's better in the Twin Cities, with half the state's population to draw on.

  
• Lango-Django Niagara-On-The-Lake, ONModerator

  October 17 Posts: 1,888

  Jazz schmazz

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB6Ix1sw0iI

  
  

  

  Paul Cezanne: "I could paint for a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing."
  
  Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
  
  Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
  
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  October 17 Posts: 629

  Just gonna say Wynton is pretty amazing. It's hard to actually hear him play because my brain is in the way thinking about the wake he's cut over my lifetime but as far as actually playing music I don't think anyone is better.

  I remember this b list (but great) NYC trumpet player I took lessons with who complained about Wynton for like 20 minutes straight and then was like "I'd give my right arm to play like him".

  But as far as someone who has tried to make jazz legit without say, basing it all on organized crime he is kind of in his own class.

  
• billyshakes NoVA✭✭✭ Park Avance - Dupont Nomade - Dupont DM-50E

  October 17 Posts: 1,712

  I think there are too many (varying) preconceptions about what jazz is by the average person (not a jazz fan). For that reason, I rarely say I play jazz music, but rather "swing music from the 30s and 40s". If they are in the know, they'll ask further questions and I'll mention Django. If they don't know, they are still open to hearing what you do.