Ageing audience for jazz?

[xybert]

I'm probably being over-dramatic; but I just don't get what, other than money (and that's probably enough) drives jazz musicians to intentionally make bad music while convincing themselves that it's good. I'm no purist, in terms of what I like to play and listen to, but there is a certain malleable termperament that I just don't get. i rarely say this is publc any more but I find things like a lot of what Ben is recording to be physically repulsive, meaning my skin crawls when I listen to it (and I don't, btw, include Snarky Puppy in this; whateve I think of their music, I can tell that it's a part of what they are; with a lot of Ben's latest it's feels just synthetic and foreign). And I am sincere about the musicians who have really given their whole lives to producing things that are, for better and worse, pieces of their being. If I am going to listen to pop I'll listen to it played by people who don't sound like they are trying to squeeze round pegs into square holes.

Or presumably listeners listen to bad music while convincing themselves that it's good

I don't know man. Like his music or dislike it (or utterly loathe it as the case may be) i highly doubt that his newer stuff has sold significantly more than his older stuff. For me it seems like he has organically progressed to where he is now slowly over the course of several albums.

Anyway, if he really wanted to get over i'm sure there are easier/more obvious ways. I highly doubt there would be any A&R types seeing dollar signs while listening to his last few albums.

Fwiw, Lightcap's Big Mouth is a helluva jazz band with fine tunes. Poppy it isn't and Taborn, Cheek and Malaby wail.

Another fine example of living, breathing jazz without compromise that IF actually HEARD would be enjoyed by many.

However it would be enjoyed by many who like jazz.

Hard enough to convince many actual jazz fans to listen to jazz as played by living musicians.

Maybe that is why jazz smells funny to some

Yes.

[AllenLowe]

in a way that's worse; if he sees this as artistic progreas than he's more deluded than I thought. I realize this seems holier-than-thou, but I liked his playing back in the '90s and now the music is just....de-fanged? de-testeroned? lobotomized? having trouble saying exactly how I find it; it's sort of deluded-white-guy music (there, I've managed to offend every segment of the audience).

[Shawn]

So, is the music really "deluded white-guy" or is that an opinion of a "deluded white-guy"? Or both?

Edited June 12, 2014 by Shawn

[jlhoots]

Is there a fight going on here??

[Shawn]

No. I went back and edited my post to clarify the intended comedic tone.

[Scott Dolan]

in a way that's worse; if he sees this as artistic progreas than he's more deluded than I thought. I realize this seems holier-than-thou, but I liked his playing back in the '90s and now the music is just....de-fanged? de-testeroned? lobotomized? having trouble saying exactly how I find it; it's sort of deluded-white-guy music (there, I've managed to offend every segment of the audience).

Or maybe he's just playing the kind of music that he enjoys playing.

[AllenLowe]

in answer to the first question, above, (post edit), yes, this sage advice comes from one deluded-white-guy to another;

in answer to Scott, yes, no doubt, he is doing what he likes to do; not unlike Jeffrey Dahmer, who was doing to people what Ben is doing to music.

[Scott Dolan]

in answer to the first question, above, (post edit), yes, this sage advice comes from one deluded-white-guy to another;

in answer to Scott, yes, no doubt, he is doing what he likes to do; not unlike Jeffrey Dahmer, who was doing to people what Ben is doing to music.

But that's the kind of snottery that turns people off to genres like Jazz and Orchestral music.

Besides, how do you expand the audience if you don't recruit from without?

Snarky Puppy's tune, Minjor, would appeal to a rather diverse group of listeners. Many of which will then hear them cover Monk, and possibly move in that direction. You can sit around and bitch about it until the cows come home, but that's really the way it's done for musical forms outside of the mainstream.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.

MG

In the same way that some people might regard moving from reading Steinbeck to reading Shakespeare as progress. Back to that over-reverence for established canons.

*****************************

We often talk about jazz as if it's a monolith, yet there are so many different musics working under that umbrella. I've experienced Bill's original situation of the jazz club/concert hall with a handful of older listeners.

But thinking about it, when I used to go to Cheltenham there was much more of a mix. But I suspect that had a lot to do with the enormous breadth of the bill, deliberately trying to attract a younger audience who might not be hung up on the history like we tend to be (most of whom are probably looking for a one night stand rather than a lifetime's engagement with jazz). Yet within that festival I could go to gigs where the age range was much more slanted on the elderly side.

There's a relatively new festival in the UK that seems to be succeeding that very much aims that way. This was last year's bill:

And here's a picture - not sure from what year:

Don't see anyone there with a notepad checking matrix numbers.

So maybe the jazz audience is more varied, age-wise, than we fear. It just depends where you look.

Where I suspect it is far more homogeneous is in terms of class.

(Here is this year; imagine there's some serious market research behind this:

]

Edited June 12, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[sidewinder]

'Grand Marnier Hidden Charm Bar' vs Ringwood Ales Cask Selection

[Scott Dolan]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.

MG

Explain to me how discovering music/musicians you'd never heard of before as not being progress? If you discover a new artist that you like, is that regression? Edited June 12, 2014 by Scott Dolan

[BillF]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.

MG

In the same way that some people might regard moving from reading Steinbeck to reading Shakespeare as progress. Back to that over-reverence for established canons.

*****************************

We often talk about jazz as if it's a monolith, yet there are so many different musics working under that umbrella. I've experienced Bill's original situation of the jazz club/concert hall with a handful of older listeners.

But thinking about it, when I used to go to Cheltenham there was much more of a mix. But I suspect that had a lot to do with the enormous breadth of the bill, deliberately trying to attract a younger audience who might not be hung up on the history like we tend to be (most of whom are probably looking for a one night stand rather than a lifetime's engagement with jazz). Yet within that festival I could go to gigs where the age range was much more slanted on the elderly side.

There's a relatively new festival in the UK that seems to be succeeding that very much aims that way. This was last year's bill:

And here's a picture - not sure from what year:

Don't see anyone there with a notepad checking matrix numbers.

So maybe the jazz audience is more varied, age-wise, than we fear. It just depends where you look.

Where I suspect it is far more homogeneous is in terms of class.

(Here is this year; imagine there's some serious market research behind this:

]

I wish 'em well, tho' there would seem to be little there for the aficionado who relishes a finely turned Lester Young solo, say.

[A Lark Ascending]

I wish 'em well, tho' there would seem to be little there for the aficionado who relishes a finely turned Lester Young solo, say.

No, not my cup of tea either.

But there are plenty of festivals knocking about in Britain that do cater for that particular taste. You'll usually find Alan Barnes there!

[Guy Berger]

6) Related to all these points, one of the big changes in jazz (particularly straight ahead) since 197x is the complete disconnect from popular music. I would even say that a lot of discussion by current fans of pre-197x straight ahead jazz tends to retroactively divorce it from popular music of that time.

You're definitely wrong there, Guy. Lots of jazz albums got onto the Billboard pop or R&B charts in the eighties. I've got a list of 388 by 131 artists... MG

Interesting list, which suggests my claim was somewhat hyperbolic. But if you were to construct similar lists for other decades, my suspicion is there has been a decrease post-1980 (and I would guess the 1990s and 2000s totals are even lower than the 1980s you compiled.

Jazz these days is much less relevant to popular culture than it was 50 years ago.

[BillF]

6) Related to all these points, one of the big changes in jazz (particularly straight ahead) since 197x is the complete disconnect from popular music. I would even say that a lot of discussion by current fans of pre-197x straight ahead jazz tends to retroactively divorce it from popular music of that time.

You're definitely wrong there, Guy. Lots of jazz albums got onto the Billboard pop or R&B charts in the eighties. I've got a list of 388 by 131 artists... MG

Interesting list, which suggests my claim was somewhat hyperbolic. But if you were to construct similar lists for other decades, my suspicion is there has been a decrease post-1980 (and I would guess the 1990s and 2000s totals are even lower than the 1980s you compiled.

Jazz these days is much less relevant to popular culture than it was 50 years ago.

Fifty years takes us back to Love Supreme (and the Beatles). I think you need to go further back than that to find significant relevance of jazz to popular culture.

[A Lark Ascending]

Fifty years takes us back to Love Supreme (and the Beatles). I think you need to go further back than that to find significant relevance of jazz to popular culture.

Possibly not in the top twenty sense. But jazz was still acting significantly on album rock (or whatever you want to call it) well into the 70s. Santana, Chicago, BS&T, Mahavishnu, Steely Dan, the US 'Fusion' bands all shifted a lot of product (and there were less successful bands like Soft Machine and the Canterbury chaps who still pulled in a substantial audience). They wore their jazz on their sleeves. That's where my curiosity was piqued.

Edited June 13, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

6) Related to all these points, one of the big changes in jazz (particularly straight ahead) since 197x is the complete disconnect from popular music. I would even say that a lot of discussion by current fans of pre-197x straight ahead jazz tends to retroactively divorce it from popular music of that time.

You're definitely wrong there, Guy. Lots of jazz albums got onto the Billboard pop or R&B charts in the eighties. I've got a list of 388 by 131 artists... MG

Interesting list, which suggests my claim was somewhat hyperbolic. But if you were to construct similar lists for other decades, my suspicion is there has been a decrease post-1980 (and I would guess the 1990s and 2000s totals are even lower than the 1980s you compiled.

Jazz these days is much less relevant to popular culture than it was 50 years ago.

Definitely. I said in my post that there were fewer jazz albums on the charts in the 90s (though still quite a good number. But yes, the number has been coming down since 1979 (which I think was the peak year since 1955 - though the charts have more records on them now )

It occurred to me the other day that, back in the fifties and sixties, there were loads of pop instrumentals on the singles charts - not just by jazz musicians like Bill Doggett, Johnny Dankworth (!), Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff - but by pure pop or R&B musicians like Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Johnny & the Hurricanes, The Mar-Keys, Booker T & the MGs, the Shadows, Sandy Nelson, Bent Fabric, the Surfaris, the Tornadoes and a host of others. I don't know whether instrumental pop singles still make the charts but I very much doubt it and it seems to me that the decline of the pop instrumental has actually got something to do with the decline in young people's interest in jazz. If people don't hear instrumental music (good, bad and indifferent) as a regular and natural part of their cultural diet, jazz isn't going to mean much.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

6) Related to all these points, one of the big changes in jazz (particularly straight ahead) since 197x is the complete disconnect from popular music. I would even say that a lot of discussion by current fans of pre-197x straight ahead jazz tends to retroactively divorce it from popular music of that time.

You're definitely wrong there, Guy. Lots of jazz albums got onto the Billboard pop or R&B charts in the eighties. I've got a list of 388 by 131 artists... MG

Interesting list, which suggests my claim was somewhat hyperbolic. But if you were to construct similar lists for other decades, my suspicion is there has been a decrease post-1980 (and I would guess the 1990s and 2000s totals are even lower than the 1980s you compiled.

Jazz these days is much less relevant to popular culture than it was 50 years ago.

Fifty years takes us back to Love Supreme (and the Beatles). I think you need to go further back than that to find significant relevance of jazz to popular culture.

But 50 years also take you back to Getz' 'Jazz samba' and well past George Benson's 'Breezin', both of which were #1 on the US pop album charts.

OK, if you go back to the thirties, jazz and jazz-ish material was most of what you'd have heard. And quite a lot in the forties. It hasn't been the same since. Well... Must be Charlie Parker's fault, then.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm not quite sure why you appear to regard (and may do in reality) someone's moving from Snarky Puppy to Thelonious Monk as progress. I'm sure most Snarky Puppy fans wouldn't regard that as progress, any more than I regarded my buying a handful of Thelonious Monk albums as "progress" from Willis Jackson. I don't think people's minds work like that.

MG

Explain to me how discovering music/musicians you'd never heard of before as not being progress? If you discover a new artist that you like, is that regression?

No, it's just something different. I discovered Willis Jackson and John Coltrane in the sixties; Fela Kuti in the seventies; Youssou Ndour and The Florida Mass Choir in the eighties; Ouza and Sekouba Bambino in the nineties; Gnonnas Pedro and Concha Buika in the noughts; and Fred Anderson, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and The Original Super 5 of Africa in the tens. Sorry, regarding this as movement in ANY direction is beyond me

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

No, it's just something different. I discovered Willis Jackson and John Coltrane in the sixties; Fela Kuti in the seventies; Youssou Ndour and The Florida Mass Choir in the eighties; Ouza and Sekouba Bambino in the nineties; Gnonnas Pedro and Concha Buika in the noughts; and Fred Anderson, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and The Original Super 5 of Africa in the tens. Sorry, regarding this as movement in ANY direction is beyond me

MG

Yes, that's how I see it too. I've accumulated musicians and musical styles but I don't see it as progression. The only progress is that with each new discovery your context of listening broadens which both opens you up to further discovery and gives you new perspectives on what you've already heard.

[David Ayers]

A bit like piano grades. Inferior minds believe that moving through the grades represents a kind of 'progress' in which you get 'better'. Educators in general foster this notion of improvement. Thankfully in the uk we have noticed nothing is better than anything else. Just different. Though whether we could come up with a better way of describing difference is moot.

Edited June 14, 2014 by David Ayers

[A Lark Ascending]

There definitely used to be something in the education system about teaching you to 'improve yourself' in the sense of learning to 'appreciate' the 'finer things in life'.

I can still recall an RE lesson taken by the head teacher ( who was a good bloke, very skilled at getting us expressing our opinions) where we were talking about our musical preferences. He listened to our views with interest but then informed us that in time we would forsake what we liked then and move on to the profundities and depth of Beethoven etc.

I was sceptical then and time has justified that scepticism. I've added to my musical interests but, apart from a few pretentious years in my early 20's, have never seen the need to replace or to head in a direction of improvement whilst leaving 'childish things' behind.

I'd like to think that today schools would encourage kids to explore beyond what is immediately available without suggesting that there is some sort of hierarchy of value that they should be moving up through.

Edited June 14, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[David Ayers]

How about improving your understanding of the French Revolution? or improving your French? or just playing the French Horn better?

[A Lark Ascending]

There's a difference between improving your French horn playing, which is a (far from simple) matter of improving certain skills (and the improvement can be clearly measured); and the suggestion that by going from listening to Son House to Beethoven you are improving.

Some would have us believe that exchanging Uchida for Schnabel is a measure of improvement. I'd say it's a measure of one's desperation to be admitted into The Wine Club.