DVD Talk Forum - "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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"Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Saw this this morning and found it interesting, most especially the statistical comparison of jazz with other forms of "high art" such as classical and theater. I have never personally been a jazz fan so I am outside looking in on this one.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...103850572.html

Quote:

Can Jazz Be Saved?
The audience for America’s great art form is withering away

In 1987, Congress passed a joint resolution declaring jazz to be “a rare and valuable national treasure.” Nowadays the music of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis is taught in public schools, heard on TV commercials and performed at prestigious venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center, which even runs its own nightclub, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.

Here’s the catch: Nobody’s listening.

No, it’s not quite that bad—but it’s no longer possible for head-in-the-sand types to pretend that the great American art form is economically healthy or that its future looks anything other than bleak.

The bad news came from the National Endowment for the Arts’ latest Survey of *Public Participation in the Arts, the fourth to be conducted by the NEA (in participation with the U.S. Census Bureau) since 1982. These are the findings that made jazz musicians sit up and take notice:

• In 2002, the year of the last survey, 10.8% of adult Americans attended at least one jazz performance. In 2008, that figure fell to 7.8%.

• Not only is the audience for jazz shrinking, but it’s growing older—fast. The median age of adults in America who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 was 46. In 1982 it was 29.

• Older people are also much less likely to attend jazz performances today than they were a few years ago. The percentage of Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 who attended a live jazz performance in 2008 was 9.8%. In 2002, it was 13.9%. That’s a 30% drop in attendance.

• Even among college-educated adults, the audience for live jazz has shrunk significantly, to 14.9% in 2008 from 19.4% in 1982.

These numbers indicate that the audience for jazz in America is both aging and shrinking at an alarming rate. What I find no less revealing, though, is that the median age of the jazz audience is now comparable to the ages for attendees of live performances of classical music (49 in 2008 vs. 40 in 1982), opera (48 in 2008 vs. 43 in 1982), nonmusical plays (47 in 2008 vs. 39 in 1982) and ballet (46 in 2008 vs. 37 in 1982). In 1982, by contrast, jazz fans were much younger than their high-culture counterparts.

What does this tell us? I suspect it means, among other things, that the average American now sees jazz as a form of high art. Nor should this come as a surprise to anyone, since most of the jazz musicians that I know feel pretty much the same way. They regard themselves as artists, not entertainers, masters of a musical language that is comparable in seriousness to classical music—and just as off-putting to pop-loving listeners who have no more use for Wynton Marsalis than they do for Felix Mendelssohn.

(click link for rest of article)

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Fast forward 30 years or so and well see the same article for hard rock

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Music comes and goes in popularity. I don't think one form of music needs "saving" over any other. It will always be out there somehow. Where was the "save ragtime" campaign..?

From Wikipedia:
"Ragtime fell out of favor as Jazz claimed the public's imagination after 1917..."
;)

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Yeah, I'm not really sure what could be done to "save" jazz. If people enjoy it, they will go. Live jazz can be absolutely amazing, but it's definitely more sophisticated than rock, and a lot of people don't like to go outside their comfort zone.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

I wish more people would join my campaign to bring back Rockabilly. :(

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by Groucho (Post 9632855)

I wish more people would join my campaign to bring back Rockabilly. :(

It has been tried.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uR_ZWckQlU...stray_cats.jpg

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

AKA, "Are general audiences too stupid to enjoy jazz?"

I love jazz, but I'll be the first to admit that the genre marginalized itself out of mainstream popularity with the advent of bebop. Jazz simply became too esoteric and complicated for casual listeners. Musicians started playing for each other rather than a general audience.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Interesting stats, since I was into jazz in my late 20's, but am no longer now that I'm in my 40's.

It's great bar music to have a martini to (depending on your mood), but it isn't very rewarding to me as something to listen to. Then again, I consider myself a big melody fan, so that probably explains it.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by wendersfan (Post 9632961)

we need another Harry Connick Jr

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by Numanoid (Post 9633033)

It's great bar music to have a martini to (depending on your mood)...

Yeah well, martinis are dying also. Its all about Vodka and Red Bull now old man!

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

I enjoy jazz quite a bit, but it's not something I'll plunk down money to see live. I'll occasionally hit up some local bars that have live jazz in the corner, but it's rarely something I make plans to do. As far as buying jazz on cd, I wouldn't know where to start.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by al_bundy (Post 9632383)

Fast forward 30 years or so and well see the same article for hard rock

Couldn't help thinking of this old KITH sketch:

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by wendersfan (Post 9632961)

Yep. It's like what happened to poetry when the imagists took over. Sad things, both.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by Hank Ringworm (Post 9633822)

Yep. It's like what happened to poetry when the imagists took over. Sad things, both.

i had a social studies teacher once ask the class if they liked poetry. no one said yes. then he asked us if we listened to pop music?

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

I've been a Jazz fan all my life, but I haven't seen a Jazz concert in a long long time - not because I haven't wanted to, but just because I don't follow the Jazz scene like I do the Rock stuff.

I do own probably 30 Jazz CD's, though, and I'm thinking about catching the Woody Herman Thundering Herd show in January. (Woody's been dead for over 20 years, but his band carried on - with Woody's blessing just before his death. They're a great band.)

Watching a Jazz band live is pretty cool. From the mid 70's to the mid 80's I probably saw 20 or 25 Jazz shows.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by wendersfan (Post 9632961)

That is right on the money. There is a reason why today's mainstream music dominates every single form of media...because it is beyond stupid, approach moron level.

However, there will always be a place for jazz (and other more complicated music), it will simply be listened to by hardcore fans.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by macnorton (Post 9633987)

The Music Genome Project makes it sound complicated

at one time jazz was the stupid music because all it was good for was for 20 year old kids to dance to and get drunk during prohibition. did anything change?

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Groucho (Post 9632855)

I wish more people would join my campaign to bring back Rockabilly. :(

Where do I sign up?! ;) Although I was quite surprised to see the genre alive and kicking if you look.. there seem to be rockabilly bands all over bars and such. I guess it's just a matter of having to hunt them down a little. (and I can't let a rockabilly comment go by without mentioning the awesome Hillbilly Casino.. lol)

It's funny, I do like jazz, and I consider "Time Further Out" by Brubeck one of my top four albums.. but I've never been to a concert and really don't have a ton of interest in going.

It's also like someone else said.. it's hard to figure out where to start from a beginner's stand point. I've wanted to get into some classical stuff, but it's the same thing.. where the heck does one start?

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by al_bundy (Post 9634011)

There is some validity to that statement. But at the same time, keep in mind there were no teenage hit factories around when jazz was coming into it's own. And, you actually have to have some ability to play jazz, not be a pretty face with a lot of Pro Tools work in the studio to make it.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by macnorton (Post 9634628)

And, you actually have to have some ability to play jazz, not be a pretty face with a lot of Pro Tools work in the studio to make it.

There are about a million guys out there who can play mixolydian or pentatonic scales over the changes to "I Got Rhythm" or "Body and Soul". It's not that difficult. So, yeah, you have to have some ability, but comparatively, not a lot.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

I've listened to Bill Evans and Chet Baker a couple of hours today already.

Jazz is just fine.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by wendersfan (Post 9634670)

Compared to?

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

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Originally Posted by Dr Mabuse (Post 9634675)

Compared to?

Actually playing something worthwhile.

The biggest problem with jazz as a consumable art form is that the ability required to play jazz badly is not that much (compared to playing it well). Like I said, lots of guys can aimlessly play the mixolydian mode, throw in a few flatted fifths, and get a gig in some wedding/bar mitzvah band. But there's nothing very artistically compelling to what they're doing. To play jazz and actually contribute something useful requires a level of talent and originality that few people on the planet have.

Compare that with rock or country. The "marginal utility" of increased instrumental prowess is much lower. Once you reach a certain level of competence you're good to go, provided you are able to write songs with something original in them (i.e., playing in a cover band is a different proposition), or you happen to get lucky and end up playing in a band with someone with an original voice. The really talented rock or country musicians are inevitably the studio players, since they can parlay that talent into a steady, predictable income with good hours and working conditions. They have to be good, because they need to come up with parts quickly, in a variety of styles, and perform the correctly in one or two takes.

Also, as I pointed out before, the better you get as a jazz musician, the less commercially viable you are, because you end up playing music more complicated than most listeners can appreciate.

Re: "Can Jazz Be Saved?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by macnorton (Post 9634628)

back in those days radio was still new and not everyone had it in their house. the way to hear music was to see it played live or play it yourself.

either way every new genre that has come up in the last 100 years has done it by catering to the younger generation and pissing off the older generation who thought it was trash or devil's music or whatever. when the younger generation becomes old and has too much money, the music they listen to suddenly becomes considered art. I haven't seen anything new pop up lately so I think my son's generation will be the first one in over 100 years to listen to the same music as their parents and maybe grandparents.

maybe by the time i get old PBS will have snobby rock/metal shows?