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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.
@scot although you're not wrong, I don't really blame Wynton for this either - he was trying revive interest in the genre among younger folks via infusing jazz back into classrooms (certainly a bit too draconian about what he thinks "jazz" should be defined as, which Wynton himself even seems to admit in the Burns series). But I do agree overall and in the late 90s/early 2000s, I used to pejoratively refer to this as "conservatory" jazz, where much like classical music, people without ears but excellent readers could become "players" via memorization of the Charlie Parker omnibook and reading charts. Ironically, on a personal level, both swing and free jazz were the best escapes I had from this because they both afforded so much more freedom simply due to escaping the confines of jazz academia (swing for being old/hokey, free jazz for being free jazz).
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.
And this hits it on the head, jazz simply stopped being pop music, hence where we've been at since the 70s...I mean, Benson's biggest hits were with vocals, right? I'm not sure if there was an actual instrumental jazz "hit" since Sidewinder, which also may have started the last genre push into the mainstream by incorporating "straight" rhythms (I feel like every 70s gameshow/talk show owes a debt to Lee Morgan). Maybe Chuck Mangione counts? Or the whole Kenny G soft jazz genre?? Regardless, jazz hasn't been at the forefront of popular music for a years of Sundays.
Also, anecdotally speaking at least, vast majority of people I run into don't get turned off by the term jazz, certainly not in such a way the term's "toxic" in terms of their reaction. In fact, I'd say there's usually the opposite reaction, if not even enthusiasm simply because there just isn't that much live jazz out there anymore, period. So maybe "novelty" might make more sense?? But yeah, people I encounter of all ages are usually very positive about it and a decent amount will come to watch because it's something new and interesting for them to do...especially the Django stuff, oftentimes simply due to the "mystique" of GJ, which also creates a sense of romanticism in the audience (much the same as many of us felt when we were drawn into it).
Anyway, apologies for rambling...fun thread tho, lots to consider.
Agreed on the "fun thread tho, lots to consider" notions. We could talk about this for hours, days, weeks? I feel like Ken Burns did a remarkable job exploring the many periods & styles of jazz through the ages, I'm guessing most of the folks on this forum have seen some or all of his documentary. As far as what happened to jazz or where it stands today, I'm really not sure. The appreciation of jazz, like all art forms, is and always will be subjective. Just like Buco, I get a lot of those comments at gigs (and even from friends & family members who watch my band's videos) like "I'm not a jazz fan, but I really like what you all are doing". Or "wow, this is really cool. I didn't think I liked jazz, but I sure like this. What is it?". At least in my town (and in the context of the restaurant/cafe gig) there seems to be a great appreciation for gypsy jazz (maybe because it's all acoustic? because there are no drums crashing/trumpets blaring as people are trying to talk to each other?). Meanwhile, I'm not seeing the same consistent vibrancy for straight-ahead jazz around here these days. As for the commercial viability, I can only speculate on why jazz festivals need pop stars, etc to bring wallet-opening participants to the fold. For starters: A) Sex sells and jazz isn't "sexy"? B) While young people may pay to see and hear their parents' music (the proliferation of 80's/90's tribute bands), they wont pay to see & hear their grandparents' music? I dont know. Django or Olivia Rodrigo? Hank Mobley or K-pop? The choices are clear to me, but clearly we're outnumbered. I've learned to accept it despite the lack of sense that it makes to me.
I think Jazz is very sexy. 😉
Just not in a contemporary sense.
Meanwhile, I'm not seeing the same consistent vibrancy for straight-ahead jazz around here these days.
Same and straight ahead gigs are pretty dry for the most part outside of private events and restaurants/hospitality or at the same 1-2 clubs in town that either aren't strictly jazz or have the same constant roster of players. Most jazz musicians aren't just staying in the genre either, lots of blues/rock/fusion/funk/bluegrass/etc. projects to help pay the bills as well. At least Milwaukee still has an annual festival for jazz that features groups led by many of the best players in town but again, there's also a lot of bands playing that aren't "jazz" jazz either (typically the headliners) and it's been that way for years now, certainly all of my adult life lol.
For me a lot of jazz you see on a local level is pretty piss poor and probably getting worse. No groove, no soul. Rhythm section is in 3 different places. No cohesion rhythmically or artistically.
People seem to be acting out childhood trauma on stage. Drummer is sad his heavy metal career didn't work out. Bass player is narcoleptic. Piano player wants to demonstrate every chord variation while comping.
It's not fun or pleasurable to listen to even if you're a "jazz fan". But if a random person walked in and heard something like a steaming, swinging organ trio, I think they'd have a different vibe.
Also the jazz club thing of cramming a bunch of people into a tiny club where you can't move and it's super expensive and uncomfortable...maybe that's not awesome either.
I really long for the vibe of something like the chitlin circuit or somewhere where the audience is a community and they interact with the band.
The demographics of the music biz favor what I think of as the courting and mating segment--adolescents and young adults, in the socializing-and-sex stages of their lives. And the tastes formed in those years continue to dominate their listening and social-music preferences even when they become burdened by jobs, kids, and the rest of the domestic stage(s).
So it's no surprise that ordinary listening music is uncoupled from those social-music habits. The music that draws (relative) crowds of middle-age and geezer audiences in our town is classic rock as preserved by tribute bands. The more listening-room sibling of this is the single-artist tribute act, modeled on the Elvis impersonator model. Nostalgia tripping. (Which has its own counterpart in big-band resurrections.)
Jazz evolved out of dance music (courting & mating territory), and bebop famously split itself off from big-band social-dance music. (Aided, I suspect, by NYC's cabaret licensing laws.) Bebop and the listening jazz that followed belong to the same family of aesthetic experiences as, say, chamber music. Nobody courts to Haydn quartets--though couples might bond over a shared preference for them.
Nevertheless, I strongly suspect--in fact, have observed--the connection between some kinds of jazz (even early bop) and the urge to dance, and GJ, with its roots in dance halls and American swing, has a big dose of dance appeal. That, I suspect, is what draws ordinary listeners (as distinct from afficianados and music junkies like me) to it. Even if you can't actually dance a lick, the music speaks to your body.
Yes. This!
You want it to be popular? You better be able to dance to it.
Wow. This is interesting. I have only lived in a few cites long term (DC, NYC, STL) and feel there is a vibrant jazz scene in all of them; and there are places you can dance to 'listening jazz' even here in NYC . . . but if the toes don't tap, it can be hard. There are some many great bands here very night it can be disorienting and overwhelming, especially when you have your own gigs to get/play. . . (this is less of a problem then an issue of where to focus energy).
I still think jazz has a place in clubs - especially if the clubs are reasonable to attend (and yes, there are a few still in NYC where you can see amazing players in several styles). Funny, I know there is a 'rock' scene here, but I really don't know any musicians exploring it. . . so I have no basis for comparison, and most of the jazz gigs I see are pretty well attended. The django gigs, perhaps less so unless it is a 'big' gig.
Interesting thread. One monkey-wrench - are we going to be relegated to content that is only online and mostly educational going forward as using the 'alga-rhythm' becomes more and more the only way for musicians to make money?
I strongly suspect that there's a population threshold beneath which it's hard to sustain *any* serious music scene. My metro area (200K in four nearly-contiguous cities) struggles to support live music--we have a community orchestra, a city band, folk and chamber music societies, a restored vaudeville theatre and a big outdoor venue that book traveling acts, plus a weekly jazz session at a nice bar. And, of course, tribute-band concerts that draw the fifty-plus demographic. The non-pop/rock side of things struggle to stay alive, up against rising costs, shrinking grant support, and aging audiences. Even the college bar scene, once the home of local rock and country bands, has shrunk to not even a shadow of its old pre-Covid self.
Downriver in the Twin Cities, all those categories are much healthier, thanks to the raw power of population. The audience divides are the same, but every segment has more members. Which doesn't mean that, say, folk/traditional music isn't going face the same crisis we have in St. Cloud, just that it might be slower to show up. (And in the last decade or so, the Twin Cities' premier folk venue started to emphasize more "world music" and crossover acts of various kinds--including "ambient, drone, noise, and experimental music").