gunter hampel posted this on FB today

[kh1958]

Yeah, jazz is dead, and has been since ___________________________ (fill in the blank).* It's dead, and there's no money in it, but those who want to play it keep finding a way to play it, those who want to hear it keep finding a way to hear it, and those who love it enough keep finding a way to record and distribute it.

And personally, I usually prefer to hear contemporary musicians play their own compositions. If that's what they're into.

* A. The big bands died out.

B. Bebop.

C. Rock and roll.

D. Free jazz.

E. Fusion.

F. Wynton.

G. The internet.

H. All of the above.

It was either 1927 or when the Beatles broke up.

[JSngry]

Just what is the half-life of a Jazz atom, anyway?

[AllenLowe]

Jeff - in this context you are creating straw arguments, I fear. No one here has claimed jazz is dead, only that it has hit a bit of a creative crisis. Which is absolutely accurate, I think.

Same thing with theater at various times (and continuing). Personally I think it's very much (though not only) an American problem; while we love to talk about history and tradition, etc etc, we are pretty a-historic in our understanding and analysis, which often leaves our creative people with little to go on.

Talk to a contemporary young playwright and ask them, for example, how familiar they are with Beckett, Buchner, Brecht, Kleist, Koch, Kroetz, Botho Strauss - if they look at you blankly,well, it's the same look you will get if you ask a young jazz musician about certain equivalent jazz people. And it's why so much contemporary dramatic theater sounds like Neil Simon without the laughs. It's just soap opera and glib sociology. And this is not merely a recent trend; I saw it first hand when I studied theater in the late 1970s.

I have never taken the position that one has to be well versed in the history of a form in order to advance it or proceed to do it well - though I do think that such knowledge can help a musician make vital connections, and get him or her through blank periods; and that what we see as malaise in today's jazz is related to certain formal failures that, themselves, are the result of a kind of artistic narcissism.

Edited May 14, 2013 by AllenLowe

[jeffcrom]

Jeff - in this context you are creating straw arguments, I fear. No one here has claimed jazz is dead, only that it has hit a bit of a creative crisis. Which is absolutely accurate, I think.

The Gunter Hampel post that was the impetus for this thread seemed like another "death of jazz" lament. But I could be totally off base, since it was a little hard to follow.

Talk to a contemporary young playwright and ask them, for example, how familiar they are with Beckett, Buchner, Brecht, Kleist, Koch, Kroetz, Botho Strauss - if they look at you blankly,well, it's the same look you will get if you ask a young jazz musician about certain equivalent jazz people.

This is certainly true, and continues to make my jaw drop. The first call tenor player in Atlanta once told me that he had never heard Sidney Bechet. When I was able to speak, I suggested that he might find Bechet worth checking out.

[AllenLowe]

this goes with my new theory that the internet has expanded things while contracting them. I am a little shocked at some of the unawareness of younger musicians, and when they do seem aware, they seem to spew pre-digested pieties about the tradition, etc without really knowing much of the substance.

I used to worry that I was needlessly conservative in this respect until I realized that all great modernists in other areas - literature, theater, painting - tended to be deep cultural historians as well, from Joyce to Beckett, to any great modern painter, to composers like Boulez and Hodeir.

Edited May 14, 2013 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I don't think it's specifically the internet, Allen; I think this is something that's been going on in the recording industry since the late sixties. In those days, and before hand, of course, the recording industry was controlled (in fact, because of the numbers, NOT controlled) by an enormous number of people with different ideas - that was true to some extent even for the majors, but was particularly obvious as regards the indies, which were locally based. Even within a particular locality, and within a particular kind of music, the different entrepreneurs had quite different ideas about what was good music in their localities and fields of interest; compare PJ and Contemporary; or BN, Riverside and Prestige in jazz; or Chess and Vee-Jay for blues; or Hi and Stax for R&B.

In the late sixties and seventies, a lot of these indies were consolidated into, mostly, the majors. Insofar as they weren't closed down and milked for the oldies business, the output of the companies tended to toe the line of what the new owners wanted. This led to some uniformity. It also led to greater power to influence the markets in the hands of the majors; power which, as industrial giants, they understood well how to use. Once a market becomes controlled, it's difficult to make it uncontrolled again, though a social revolution, such as occurred in the forties, can do it. But we haven't had a social revolution since the seventies; only a technological revolution, once more in the hands of the industrial giants. So consumption of music has remained monolithically directed. Of course, many indies have been opened and closed since then, but who would argue that they have anything like the impact of the majors?

Musicians start as music consumers. Monolithic direction of consumption doesn't help creativity; doesn't help spread notions of creativity.

MG

[robertoart]

I don't think it's specifically the internet, Allen; I think this is something that's been going on in the recording industry since the late sixties. In those days, and before hand, of course, the recording industry was controlled (in fact, because of the numbers, NOT controlled) by an enormous number of people with different ideas - that was true to some extent even for the majors, but was particularly obvious as regards the indies, which were locally based. Even within a particular locality, and within a particular kind of music, the different entrepreneurs had quite different ideas about what was good music in their localities and fields of interest; compare PJ and Contemporary; or BN, Riverside and Prestige in jazz; or Chess and Vee-Jay for blues; or Hi and Stax for R&B.

In the late sixties and seventies, a lot of these indies were consolidated into, mostly, the majors. Insofar as they weren't closed down and milked for the oldies business, the output of the companies tended to toe the line of what the new owners wanted. This led to some uniformity. It also led to greater power to influence the markets in the hands of the majors; power which, as industrial giants, they understood well how to use. Once a market becomes controlled, it's difficult to make it uncontrolled again, though a social revolution, such as occurred in the forties, can do it. But we haven't had a social revolution since the seventies; only a technological revolution, once more in the hands of the industrial giants. So consumption of music has remained monolithically directed. Of course, many indies have been opened and closed since then, but who would argue that they have anything like the impact of the majors?

Musicians start as music consumers. Monolithic direction of consumption doesn't help creativity; doesn't help spread notions of creativity.

MG

Yep. And there's nothing more embarrassing than seeing people who have embraced and channelled their 'music' or other artform, towards 'the monolithic direction of consumption' - try and develop a conceptual and creative clue - long after their formative creative muscles needed working on. And then again, it's also often a bit embarrassing to see people who have so obviously put art before commerce - for the most part - reach out to the mainstream.

Chuck - if I had a clue and the money and the time, I would love to do it.

Maybe Not Two records will do it. First off unlike some other labels, their recordings actually sound like the bands do live.

The quintet demands that they capture Randy Peterson in full volume. I'm afraid ECM would castrate the sound of the band.

In fact the weakest of the Joe Maneri quartet recordings is "In Full Cry" and it is because it doesn't sound like the band and one wouldn't even know that Randy Peterson was in the band. Of course it is the one Joe Maneri quartet recording on ECM

Thank God for the Europeans and Japanese.

And Allen Lowe

[jeffcrom]

I don't think it's specifically the internet, Allen; I think this is something that's been going on in the recording industry since the late sixties. In those days, and before hand, of course, the recording industry was controlled (in fact, because of the numbers, NOT controlled) by an enormous number of people with different ideas - that was true to some extent even for the majors, but was particularly obvious as regards the indies, which were locally based. Even within a particular locality, and within a particular kind of music, the different entrepreneurs had quite different ideas about what was good music in their localities and fields of interest; compare PJ and Contemporary; or BN, Riverside and Prestige in jazz; or Chess and Vee-Jay for blues; or Hi and Stax for R&B.

In the late sixties and seventies, a lot of these indies were consolidated into, mostly, the majors. Insofar as they weren't closed down and milked for the oldies business, the output of the companies tended to toe the line of what the new owners wanted. This led to some uniformity. It also led to greater power to influence the markets in the hands of the majors; power which, as industrial giants, they understood well how to use. Once a market becomes controlled, it's difficult to make it uncontrolled again, though a social revolution, such as occurred in the forties, can do it. But we haven't had a social revolution since the seventies; only a technological revolution, once more in the hands of the industrial giants. So consumption of music has remained monolithically directed. Of course, many indies have been opened and closed since then, but who would argue that they have anything like the impact of the majors?

Musicians start as music consumers. Monolithic direction of consumption doesn't help creativity; doesn't help spread notions of creativity.

MG

Great post. It made me think of my favorite city, New Orleans. The music scene there is sometimes distressingly insular - the musicians and fans there sometimes seem unaware that there's a great big musical world out there; to them New Orleans is the whole world. But there are positive aspects to that: there are local record companies catering to local tastes. You can still have a local hit there. (I remember visiting a decade or so ago when Snooks Eaglin's "Josephine" seemed to be playing every time I turned the radio on.) And the music, whatever the "style" is, has kept a flavor not to be found anywhere else. One of my Atlanta musician friends told me of the time he was driving into New Orleans, flipping between stations on the radio dial. He heard punk, death metal, jazz, and hip hop, and could tell that every band was from New Orleans.

Yeah, the homogenization of the world continues apace. But the point I was trying to make in my sarcastic post above is that there will always be musicians, consumers, and record producers (or whatever that role will be called in the future) who don't buy into the monolithic direction of consumption. None of them are going to get rich, but some will be compelled to step outside the mainstream anyway.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I wonder why what happened in New Orleans didn't happen in Atlanta? Both had thriving music scenes, with lots of important talent - just think of the people who came out of Atlanta's scene - Billy Wright, Piano Red (an influence on Jerry Lee Lewis), Chuck Willis, Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding. (I don't doubt that Atlanta's scene extend back before the late 40s, but I don't know anything about it.) I used to think that Atlanta's failure to be noticed was because (unlike Chicago, LA, Detroit, Memphis etc) there were no record companies there, and that Savoy, RCA and Okeh did the most work there, but I'm not sure that is quite true and there wasn't much in New Orleans anyway, with Specialty, Imperial and Atlantic doing most of the significant work there.

MG

[AllenLowe]

it may seem like a strange answer, but I would theorize that N.O. is the way it is because of the greater retension of post-African communalism.

just a theory. But there were definitley greater retensions of the Diaspora there than any other place in North America. And one of the best books on this, btw, and one that gives a strong sense of how this community developed, is Dr. John's autobiography,

though let us not forget the Haitian slave rebellion, which led to a lot of immigration (and, apprently, to Congo Square).

about the internet, we may be talking about different things. But the massive proliferation of sites, musicians, and releases, has really set me adrift; it's hard to know where the start anymore, though I am advised that social media is the only way to go (and I am slowly adapting to this). But I really find that younger audiences, whom I feel I need, are more cliquish than ever; it is very hard to get them to look outside their age bracket.

Edited May 16, 2013 by AllenLowe

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

it may seem like a strange answer, but I would theorize that N.O. is the way it is because of the greater retension of post-African communalism.

just a theory. But there were definitley greater retensions of the Diaspora there than any other place in North America. And one of the best books on this, btw, and one that gives a strong sense of how this community developed, is Dr. John's autobiography,

What's the title, Allen? I think I'll get it.

though let us not forget the Haitian slave rebellion, which led to a lot of immigration (and, apprently, to Congo Square).

about the internet, we may be talking about different things. But the massive proliferation of sites, musicians, and releases, has really set me adrift; it's hard to know where the start anymore, though I am advised that social media is the only way to go (and I am slowly adapting to this). But I really find that younger audiences, whom I feel I need, are more cliquish than ever; it is very hard to get them to look outside their age bracket.

I agree with you about the internet; but it's not different (from my point of view) than the position in the late fifties/sixties when one couldn't hear music other than what the Beeb thought suitable (which wasn't R&B) and I (and others I've met since) had to follow (through the medium of Billboard) record companies like Atlantic, Prestige, BN, Chess, Vee-Jay, Motown, Imperial etc in order to find stuff, relying on the taste of the entrepreneurs to find good music. If those companies, or even successor companies, were still around, the internet would be a good way of following their releases. It's because there's no longer a largish group of useful indies in all fields that the internet is such as mish mash of everything and nothing.

MG

[jeffcrom]

I wonder why what happened in New Orleans didn't happen in Atlanta?

Well, the musical culture in New Orleans is deeper and older than that of Atlanta. There were great African-American musicians in NOLA going back well into the 19th century. While there were good musicians in Atlanta and environs by the early 20th century (for instance, Newton County, east of the city, produced lots of great blues guitarists, like Barbecue Bob), the city just never developed the same cultural depth found in New Orleans.

And Atlanta was built (and developed) as a transportation center - it grew so rapidly because it was the perfect spot for railroads to converge, and it now has the busiest airport in the world. Atlanta was (and is) all about coming and going, buying and selling - there's been so much interaction with the rest of the country (and world) that I don't really think there's any distinctive "Atlanta sound," at least since the Barbecue Bob/Willie McTell days.

New Orleans is somehow more isolated, despite being on the Mississippi River. I think that has more to do with attitude than anything. Why copy what New York or Detroit is doing when we have the best music in the world right here?