Survey: Why Aren't More Young People Being Exposed To Jazz?

[Jim Alfredson]

Why Aren't More Young People Being Exposed To Jazz?

Why should they be?

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...VideoID=5042753

The next act at that club:

[JSngry]

Maybe it wouldn't hurt if jazz got exposed to some young people either.

[JSngry]

Why Aren't More Young People Being Exposed To Jazz?

Why should they be?

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...VideoID=5042753

The next act at that club:

Man, if I had $30.00 for every 5+ hour gig I've played at a joint like that.

Wait a minute...I do have $30.00 for every 5+ hour gig I'd played at a joint like that.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's no way in hell you can say something like BDP's "You Must Learn" is "pure unadulterated shit".

Well, that's not entirely true. It depends on your point of view.

BDP's intentions are good, there's no doubt about that, but one of the points about Rap is that it must ALSO be criticised for the ideas it puts over as well as the music/delivery. The record is pretty much a rehash of Martin Bernal's ideas he put out in "Black Athena", much of which is the sort of conspiracy theory that we have a thread for ridiculing.

MG

[Aggie87]

There's no way in hell you can say something like BDP's "You Must Learn" is "pure unadulterated shit".

Well, that's not entirely true. It depends on your point of view.

BDP's intentions are good, there's no doubt about that, but one of the points about Rap is that it must ALSO be criticised for the ideas it puts over as well as the music/delivery. The record is pretty much a rehash of Martin Bernal's ideas he put out in "Black Athena", much of which is the sort of conspiracy theory that we have a thread for ridiculing.

MG

Rap is worthy of criticism, MG. But as with pop or other music that is geared toward younger people, there is both good and bad, to the extreme. The example I used is one that made me think, back in the late 80's when it came out. From that standpoint it succeeded.

Tarring all of a certain style of music with one descriptor ("pure unadulterated shit") is simply wrong. The young man who wrote that is entitled to his opinion about the music, but he certainly makes too many declarative, authoritative comments, as if his opinion is the one truth, as opposed to merely his opinion.

[Rosco]

Crap.

Said the guy who's not even a fan of jazz.

uhhh.... beg pardon?

I'm still waiting for an explanation of this mystifying comment.

[Niko]

Crap.

Said the guy who's not even a fan of jazz.

uhhh.... beg pardon?

I'm still waiting for an explanation of this mystifying comment.

he referred to the album in your avatar

(just trying to get a little life into the discussion)

[Rosco]

Crap.

Said the guy who's not even a fan of jazz.

uhhh.... beg pardon?

I'm still waiting for an explanation of this mystifying comment.

he referred to the album in your avatar

(just trying to get a little life into the discussion)

Ah, I see. Of course, Ascension isn't a jazz album! What was I thinking?

[7/4]

Ascension is an amazing landmark album. In fact, I'll get it out so I can listen to it later.

[Hot Ptah]

I think that many young people are being exposed to jazz, but they just don't like it.

Compared to when I was growing up, in the 1960s and early 1970s (my high school graduation year was 1974), there is much more jazz played everywhere now. You can't eat in a restaurant, go to a Starbucks or shop at a Barnes and Noble or Borders without hearing a lot of jazz. There are Miles Davis compilation CDs at the cash register at Starbucks and Wild Oats. My 12 year old daughter has had acoustic jazz quartets play at assemblies at her elementary school, and has seen jazz combos in outdoor shopping areas often. When I was young, there was zero jazz played in public as background music, and no mass market shopping venue played or carried jazz.

Except for a small percentage of young people at any age level, the youth in the U.S.

do not like jazz when they hear it. But then again, that is true for adults, too.

From my experience with my 12 year old daughter and her classmates at her public elementary school, virtually all of the kids like the same pop music. Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and others I don't remember the names of, are the common social denominator. This music binds them together as a community. It would be inconceivable for any of these kids to burst out with, "hey, turn off that Miley Cyrus and let's listen to the new John Scofield CD!" It would be like one of them saying, "I don't want to talk about sports or cosmetics now--let's all talk about Baroque architecture instead!"

It was the same when I was young, but we had our Allman Brothers and Frank Zappa and Jethro Tull as our secret language against the old folks' world. The nature of that music made it much easier for some of us to get into jazz, or more adventurous music of any type, compared to Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers today.

I agree with Larry Kart's point, very much. I am not sure that I will be true to his idea here, but my point is that there used to be many more famous or semi-famous jazz musicians who were well known to a lot of young and old people, and who made accessible and excellent music. As late as the 1970s and 1980s, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Stan Getz, and others, were known to most people, and when they came to an outdoor festival in your town, a lot of people who otherwise did not listen to jazz would come to see them. Also, when John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett were younger, they had a huge following of college age students. I am thinking about the mid 1970s to early 1980s.

But now, there are virtually no jazz musicians like that, no famous household words who also play excellent music. There is no well known jazz musican for a young person to "try out" because it is cool to do so, within their peer group. It was "cool" in 1972 in high school to own Mahavishnu Orchestra or electric Miles Davis albums--and some of those who owned those albums went on to listen to the jazz pantheon.

In 1972-74, I played trumpet in the jazz "stage band" at my high school. We played mostly Hefti arrangements for Basie. I could not hear the music at all, and did not like it. By the spring of 1976 I was buying as many acoustic jazz classics as I could possibly afford. I had my jazz awakening in between. It hit me like a thunderbolt, as I made the transition from Weather Report to McCoy Tyner, who was my bridge.

I can't be too hard on the young people, when I found it so difficult myself to "get" jazz at first.

The situation should not be minimized by those of us in this little world of jazz devotees. Virtually no high school students, and not that many college students, will listen to jazz willingly these days, in my experience.

[Rosco]

Yeah, I find the basic premise of this thread deeply flawed.

Sure, you can bemoan the lack of jazz on TV and the radio. Big deal. Kids aren't watching TV and sure as hell aren't listening to the radio. They're right here on the internet, picking and choosing the music that appeals to them.

As Hot Ptah rightly points out, it's in restaurants and coffee shops, bookstores, schools and malls. If your curiosity is piqued, jazz ain't hard to find. Thanks to the net, it is now easier to be 'exposed' to jazz- and any other music you care to mention- than at any point in the last forty years. Right now, without leaving the comfort of my armchair, I can go to lastfm and hear tracks from a countless number of fine jazz albums. If I hear a track I like, I can download it instantly. I can go to Youtube and click link after link of fascinating live footage. I can go to Amazon and have suggestions made to me for things I might be interested in. I can download podcasts, read jazz blogs, download nefarious bittorrents of live shows. I can even join a discussion board and pontificate with like (and unlike) minded folks. I can hear Sonny Rollins, Johnny Dodds, DJ Spooky, Ben Webster or Cecil Taylor. Wasn't none of that 25-plus years ago, when I started listening.

But why would a kid want to do any of that? What does it have to do with their life? Why would they choose that over anything else, especially when that something else speaks directly to them?

[Hot Ptah]

I agree with you, Rosco.

I used to have a fantasy of how to reach more people with jazz, to have a radio show called "Fun Jazz". The slogan of the program would be "Every song guaranteed to be fun to listen to." I thought that this idea would be so crazy to most people that they might tune in just to hear what this impossible show was like. Then you would have to play one rousing, compelling, accessible song after another, never letting up.

But that couldn't possibly work now (if it ever could) because there is no mass audience for radio. As Rosco points out, most people are in their own little world of downloads, file sharing, YouTube, MySpace, chat rooms--there is no mass experience to be shared by many people at once. This is especially true for young people.

I think that the only way that young people would like jazz in significant numbers would be for a great jazz musician to emerge who was 15-20 years old, dressed and looked and talked like kids 9-18 years old, played great jazz mixed with the pop music which they love in an uncompromising blend, and was engaging, warm, humorous and was obviously "cool" to the kids.

So let's all wait for the messiah. It could be a longer wait than the wait of God's chosen people.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[Rosco]

...most people are in their own little world of downloads, file sharing, YouTube, MySpace, chat rooms--there is no mass experience to be shared by many people at once. This is especially true for young people.

This is key, I think. This lack of 'mass experience' inevitably leads to fragmenting. Scenes (youth trends, cults, whatever you want tocall them) become smaller and smaller, new variants of music spring up appealing only to a clique audience, and new music is regarded as temporal and ephemeral.

No new Erroll Garner? Hell, there ain't even going to be a new Beatles, James Brown, Led Zeppelin or Madonna. The way we- by which I mean the majority of us on this board- make, disseminate and experience music is over.

Deal with it.

[A Lark Ascending]

The kids I teach very much have a common cultural experience (and, often, quite independent passions too, enjoyed separately). They still talk about, sing fragments from current popular items, get worked up about last night's soap, reality TV show etc. That extends as far as their parents' record collections - I'm always amazed at how knowing they are about people like Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin and the music of Queen seems to have become a canon to replace the English Hymnal.

Kids seek the excitement of being with other kids as much as they ever did. Computers and mobiles just provide another means of such communication. The idea that they are all locked in their bedrooms, disconnected from a common popular culture strikes me as one of those ideas thought up by Sunday supplement writers.

The reality is that adults never really understand young people. There's always something up with them!

[Hot Ptah]

Bev, I agree that the sixth graders I know do have a common popular culture of their own, acquired by who knows what method exactly, and that some of it involves musical figures like Miley Cyrus.

By some consensus, a singer like Miley Cyrus is cool to all of them at once. She has a TV show, I suppose. But how do the other pop singers who are the one and only "in thing" this year become known to the entire group of kids? I really don't know, but some of them do.

In my youth, it would have been because we all heard them on the Top 40 radio many times a week, or when we were slightly older, on the FM "progressive rock" station, or because we read about them in Rolling Stone, when that magazine was seen as slightly edgy and a source of otherwise hard to find information.

But today, I am not sure how they arrive at that consensus. Whatever method it is, jazz has not made any inroads into it!

[seeline]

But today, I am not sure how they arrive at that consensus. Whatever method it is, jazz has not made any inroads into it!

Y'know, I'm not sure that that "consensus" made any sense to my parents - and now that I'm older than they were when I was a teenager, it doesn't make sense to me!

Who was it that said "The more things change, the more they remain the same"? it certainly seems true of "youth" and music, fashion, etc. - no matter what media are being used for talking, hanging out, passing ideas on, etc.

[Aggie87]

When my 10 yr old has friends over, they invariably end up in front of the computer, watching music videos on youtube. That seems to have replaced MTV for the previous generation or two as a means of keeping up with current music - "So and So said Chris Brown has a cool video for his new song, let's go check it out". I think it's spread through word of mouth generally.

[seeline]

I think it's spread through word of mouth generally.

i beleive you're right - which is how I remember finding out about a lot of bands that I liked, back when.

[Rosco]

Kids seek the excitement of being with other kids as much as they ever did. Computers and mobiles just provide another means of such communication. The idea that they are all locked in their bedrooms, disconnected from a common popular culture strikes me as one of those ideas thought up by Sunday supplement writers.

I didn't intend my post to imply this- far from it.

Music is a social thing, something we sometimes tend to forget or refuse to acknowledge. You walk to it, talk over it, go to clubs to hear it, go to gigs to see it played, you party to it, get drunk, get stoned and you-know-what to it. Nothing new in that and not something that's about to change anytime soon, either. What has changed is the way that these things spread. The music doesn't come up from radio or TV or magazines; As communication becomes easier, and more accessible to young people, the 'word of mouth' concept takes on powerful new variants; Music is spread through social networking sites, downloads (legal and illegal), file sharing. You like this song? Great, I'll send it to your phone.

Kids use music to identify kids who are the 'same' as them, who share their core beliefs. Same as ever. Thing is, those groups are becoming smaller and more specialised. Think of the genres of music available. Hip hop (in all its subgroupings, east coast, west coast, 'underground'), R'n'B, urban, metal, black metal, emo, screamo, grime, indie, hyphy, lo-fi, house, progressive house, drum & bass, reggaton, goth, industrial, EBM, IDM, darkwave, trip hop, downtempo, chill-out, techno, hardcore techno, happy hardcore, gabba, trance, big beat, breakbeat, boy bands, girl groups, yada, yada, yada. All of them accompanied by their own look and attitude and each one regarding the other on a sliding scale from acceptance to ambivalence to outright hostility. (Mods vs. rockers has nothing on how fractured today's pop culture has become). Now, how are you gonna speak to that lot? With jazz?

It ain't always a bad thing, though. One of the positive effects of the internet is that it fosters a healthy streak of 'post-modernism' (sic). Bev is spot on. I am always talking to kids in their mid to late teens who list among their favourite music Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Hendrix. A number of them- maybe not a large number, admittedly- are not only aware of jazz but have listened to it. I've talked to kids who've heard Miles, Mingus, Brubeck. It's another part of the mix. Now, whether that sparks enough interest to pursue it is another matter. It usually doesn't, and why should it? Everything is on offer, all of the time. And 'the media' (in its traditional sense) is increasingly peripheral to this process.

Perhaps more tellingly, and probably as a result of this post-modern tendancy, I find with increasing frequency that the teenagers I speak to feel 'their' music is less good than those of a generation or more ago. Now if that ain't cause for concern amongst record companies it darn well oughtta be.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Rosco

[Teasing the Korean]

...The idea that they are all locked in their bedrooms, disconnected from a common popular culture strikes me as one of those ideas thought up by Sunday supplement writers...

I hear what you're saying, but some of my friends who have kids would strongly disagree with your assessment.

[A Lark Ascending]

...The idea that they are all locked in their bedrooms, disconnected from a common popular culture strikes me as one of those ideas thought up by Sunday supplement writers...

I hear what you're saying, but some of my friends who have kids would strongly disagree with your assessment.

I remember my dad being worried about me in the late 60s - stuck in my bedroom in my own world. He thought I should be out doing things, mixing with other kids.

One of the effects of being relatively inward in mid-adolescence - something which has always been quite common, as not all kids find it easy to relate to other kids, especially at an age when children of the same age are maturing physically and mentally at very different rates - is that you easily find yourself burrowing into your own private world. Books, music, stamp collecting, train spotting. With me it was the fringes of popular music which eventually led me to jazz. Not a respone to something that was popular and in the teenage eye but a quite deliberate seeking for something different.

And yet...I'd have given it all for the confidence to get out and engage directly with my peers (something I thankfully learnt in later adolescence - but by that time my taste for the odd was set). If I had, I'd probably have developed more mainstream musical tastes.

Perhaps more tellingly, and probably as a result of this post-modern tendancy, I find with increasing frequency that the teenagers I speak to feel 'their' music is less good than those of a generation or more ago. Now if that ain't cause for concern amongst record companies it darn well oughtta be.

I have a feeling this might be tied in with commercial conservatism - the general zeitgeist of the centre that is obsessed with remaking the past. You see it not just in the endless recycling of old songs in new dress, 'classic' songs in movies and adds but in the remakes of old movies (most of which don't need remaking).

I suspect it's a phase - a bit like the dead period in pop music after rock'n roll and before the rock revolution. At some point there will be a collective weariness about nostalgia and something new will kick in.

And the chances are that we'll all grumble about it!

[Hot Ptah]

I wonder what age kids need to get to, before they like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. At age 12 they all seem to think that all music before 2007 is "weird" and "annoying", or "really weird" and "really, really annoying."

[Rosco]

I suspect it's a phase - a bit like the dead period in pop music after rock'n roll and before the rock revolution. At some point there will be a collective weariness about nostalgia and something new will kick in.

And the chances are that we'll all grumble about it!

That's the way pop culture has tended to work but I genuinely think, for the reasons I've outlined, than anything 'new' will not 'kick in', at least not in the way that rock 'n' roll, punk, disco or hip hop kicked in.

[Rosco]

I wonder what age kids need to get to, before they like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. At age 12 they all seem to think that all music before 2007 is "weird" and "annoying", or "really weird" and "really, really annoying."

I think you find once puberty has fully kicked in "weird" and/ or "annoying" tend to become regarded as positive attributes.

[Guest Bill Barton]

No airplay whatsoever does not help, plus i'll sound like an old reactionnary but a long and complicated musical piece without any lyrics in it, ain't gonna excite the kids in a world where instant reward is the main goal.

If you don't have the natural curiosity to go beyond what is offered on the charts, some do and some don't and for that age is irrelevant, you'll never ger real exposition to the music and its different styles.

You don't sound like a reactionary at all (old or young) in my opinion.

I didn't like fusion that much. I felt it was trying too hard to draw rock fans into jazz. I'll be the first one to say that jazz isn't for the faint of heart. You either love it or hate it. Fusion didn't really do anything for me. It seemed like all of the jazz elements had been sucked out of it and it was going for a more rock sound.

I got into jazz because of the sound the of it, the harmony, the melodies, the overall dynamic and rhythmic structure of the music was appealing. It had a blues feeling, but was deeper, more complex and intricate then the blues. Bebop is still my favorite style of jazz and remains one of the biggest challenges for jazz musicians to overcome. "Giant Steps" is the ultimate test piece for most jazz musicians.

You can keep all that funk, fusion, and free jazz crap. I hate that stuff.

That's not the point. We all have our personal tastes. And it's obvious that you're not shy about expressing your opinions. Discounting entire traditions or modes of expression is certainly your personal right. But the original question, "Why aren't more young people exposed to jazz?" is what I was addressing in the comment/question about Jazz-Rock Fusion. Then was then and now is now. And it appears to me in retrospect that - for instance - a recording like Birds of Fire or Inner Mounting Flame crossed over to rock fans and some of those rock fans began exploring jazz without hyphens. I'm no great fan of much of what came to be called Fusion with a capital "F" but I'm not about to say that it's all crap. And calling all "free jazz" crap? Okay, you don't care for it, but that's a personal opinion and it is inflammatory and insulting to write it all off, particularly on a discussion board where one or two people may disagree.

No offense to anyone here, but kids these days are exposed to some of the most awful crap I've ever heard. I mean it's no wonder they don't really get jazz, because they think that this "hip hop" and "rap" shit is music. It's not. It's pure unadulterated shit!

And previous eras of popular music didn't have their quota of "pure unadulterated shit?" Look at the Hit Parade lists sometime for the eras of what we now call Classic American Popular Song, when the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, et al. were writing their finest songs. Most of the truly popular songs are long forgotten for good reason.

You don't think "Giant Steps" is hard to improvise on, Jim?

Tommy Flanagan said it was one of the hardest pieces he ever played and certainly is saying alot. Flanagan on "The World According To John Coltrane" DVD.

Does one have to improvise on Giant Steps to be considered a jazz musician?

Does jazz have to be "hard to play" to be considered real jazz?

I can guarantee that many of the fusion tunes you dismiss in one fell swoop are as hard to play over as Giant Steps. Does that mean they are suddenly good?

With every post you make, you paint yourself as possessing a very narrow outlook.

I know what I like, Jim and fusion certainly isn't my cup of tea.

No jazz does not have to be hard to play to be considered real jazz. I was just saying that "Giant Steps" was or is a "test piece" for alot of jazz musicians. I have many friends who are far and away better at playing jazz then I'll ever be, but they have all said that "Giant Steps" is one of the most complex bebop tunes ever written. It goes through chord changes at such a rapid pace, it makes it difficult to solo over.

Am I missing something here? "Giant Steps" a bebop tune? Huh????

I will add that, in my opinion, the biggest challenge for anyone calling themselves a jazz musician to overcome these days is finding your own voice.

Well said!

Edited March 4, 2008 by Bill Barton