Today's Less Than Popular Jazz Scene

[Soul Stream]

I've been running into a lot of kids in fact in their late teens who are into people like Frank Zappa, Coltrane, Miles, Monk,

Horace Silver, etc.. I think they are getting tired of being spoon fed

jive pop music by corporate America and realize there is a lot more deepness out there... I like some of the younger bands like Phish and Dave Mathews.. In fact, the jam band trend seems to be growing...

Maybe it will spawn a generation of people trying to dig a little deeper. Or else, in 15 years we might just have another lame generation requesting us to play Dave Mathews and Phish. I get the feeling that no matter what the generation is, there will only be a small percentage willing to listen to music in any deeper sense that jazz can offer. I mean, I don't see any swell of young people at jazz gigs and I live in a music town, Austin. But I see a lot of kids who like Cross Canadian Ragweed. I guess it's a step in the right direction, but it still is just a small step. I will say this, at least they're being conditioned to listen to music that is instrumental. That in itself is HUGE.

[Jim Alfredson]

It may all boil down to folks having so many entertainment options at their disposal. Back when the only thing to do at night after all the chores were done was to put a 78 on the ol' Victrola, maybe people listened to music more than in a passing way.

Music to a lot of people is just something that's there. They take it for granted. The term "artist" has been thrown around so much it has no meaning whatsoever. There will always be those that listen deeper and I'm thankful I'm living in a day and age where technology gives me the tools to reach them.

[JazzRules]

I saw Joey DeFrancesco at the Bird of Paradise once a year or so ago. He was burnin' as always (playing my B3 I might add!) but towards the end of the first set he started playing a ballad... I think it was Laura. Anyway, there were these two middle-aged women in the corner of the room talking voraciously the whole show. It was quite distracting since this is supposed to be a listening room.

So Joey is playing this ballad and they are blabbing at the top of their lungs. People are going "Shhh!" and they don't even realize it's directed towards them. Oblivious, they just keep on yapping. So Joey looks at his bandmates and they start playing quieter and quieter and quieter until you can barely hear them and all you can hear is these two ladies. Everybody is looking at them and they still don't get it.

Finally Joey says on the mic, "Ladies, excuse me..." and gets their attention. "Ladies, this is a nice ballad we're playing isn't it? Why don't you make it easier for everyone to hear this nice ballad and talk outside, ok?" They were so embarassed that they didn't dare get up.

They were quiet the rest of the night.

In my experience, a ballad can only usually be played at the beginning of the night. Friday night when we played the Bird this weekend we played some nice ballads throughout the night and it worked fine, but the room had a listening crowd. Saturday night the crowd was more raucous and we tried to play a ballad during the second set. It worked ok, but there was a whole group to the side and in the back talking through the whole thing. Still, we got some serious applause after it was done.

My Joey did that? He's such a nice young fellow too.

Good story.

[JazzRules]

I've been running into a lot of kids in fact in their late teens who are into people like Frank Zappa, Coltrane, Miles, Monk,

Horace Silver, etc.. I think they are getting tired of being spoon fed

jive pop music by corporate America and realize there is a lot more deepness out there... I like some of the younger bands like Phish and Dave Mathews.. In fact, the jam band trend seems to be growing...

Anything is better than ©rap or metal. Jam bands might be a good stepping stone to jazz, much as "rock" bands of yore like The Doors, Allman Brothers, Santana, Mike Bloomfield, Zappa...... used to be.

M(oron)TV entrenchment runs deep in this country. There's a whole generation that "grew up" with it. If one were to calculate the harm MTV did to this country, the tally would probably pay to rebuild Iraq 10 times over, but I digress.........

Phish, Kimock, reconstituted Dead bands, they aint bad, especially by todaze "standards". Latching on to musicians like Larry Carlton, Robben Ford or maybe even Joey DeFrancesco shouldn't be that hard for those of the dead persuasion.