Post Django Gold, the trend continues

[Larry Kart]

My point is that it just seems like such an off the beaten path subject to use, especially when trying to scare up a cultural squabble (which it seems these "authors" are trying to do). Why use an art form 90% of the people in this country already consider long gone for such a purpose? Hell, that doesn't even make for good rubbernecking material.

I mean, ultimately, aren't we Jazz fans the only ones who truly get any mileage out of the Marsalis/Crouch thing?

I think the "art form 90% of the people in this country already consider long gone" part is crucial. It's about semi-idle resentment that anything "we" don't care about anymore even exists and that we've also been told that it's inherently noble and good for us.

About the Marsalis-Crouch and "Jazz Is America's Classical Music" shticks, I take your point, but that sort of stuff might well echo somewhere in the backs of the minds of people who never paid much if any conscious attention to it. Again, it is (or it might be) the "nanny-ness." Jazz as spinach.

[ejp626]

It makes far more sense to publish the satire in the New Yorker, where a least a considerable number of the readers will be up on jazz (though probably more will be classical aficionados). It doesn't make any kind of sense to go in the Washington Post.

I think what slays me is just how lame it is to say "This isn't a satire," and then later on to admit that it is. Unbelievably lame. It's so disappointing watching mainstream media becoming addicted to click-bait type articles. I just don't see how anyone can avoid the fact that news (and popular culture) is coarsening and is worse than 15-20 years ago.

[Scott Dolan]

My point is that it just seems like such an off the beaten path subject to use, especially when trying to scare up a cultural squabble (which it seems these "authors" are trying to do). Why use an art form 90% of the people in this country already consider long gone for such a purpose? Hell, that doesn't even make for good rubbernecking material.

I mean, ultimately, aren't we Jazz fans the only ones who truly get any mileage out of the Marsalis/Crouch thing?

I think the "art form 90% of the people in this country already consider long gone" part is crucial. It's about semi-idle resentment that anything "we" don't care about anymore even exists and that we've also been told that it's inherently noble and good for us.

About the Marsalis-Crouch and "Jazz Is America's Classical Music" shticks, I take your point, but that sort of stuff might well echo somewhere in the backs of the minds of people who never paid much if any conscious attention to it. Again, it is (or it might be) the "nanny-ness." Jazz as spinach.

OK, I can live with that.

I think you , jazzbo, and ejp are all making very salient points.

[johnblitweiler]

The purpose of the "jazz is America's classical music" hustle, as David Baker pointed out 40 years ago, is to get our hands on some of that grant $ that has been going to symphonies, operas, classical-music schools, such. Nothing wrong with that in principle -- it's terrible that some great artists struggled (or were even down and out) for years, decades. That previous sentence includes many of my favorite bop-era Blue Note, Prestige, Savoy, Riverside, etc. artists. Nowadays it's great that some other great artists get enough $ to be financially secure for the rest of their lives, and only need to create.

What's wrong with "jazz is America's classical music" is overkill -- Larry is so right, these satirists are spitting out mommy's mouthfuls. Of course jazz and classical music are two separate traditions, each with its own unique integrity. Some of the classical music I hear on the radio is utter garbage, I seldom hear jazz that stoops so low.

[Scott Dolan]

Well, there is Smooth Jazz...

[CJ Shearn]

My thoughts on the whole thing published on my own blog. http://insidethespangalang.tumblr.com/

[jes1982]

"A work of parody"? Parody of what? Django Gold's piece? In order to parody that, or anything for that matter, you'd have to imitate the nature of what you're parodying. Moyer didn't even try. As for "Ask anyone who knows me," I have asked several people who know Moyer what they think about him, but I can't say in a public forum what they said.

That was probably just a comment by a reader, not by the author.

John Coltrane is "John Coltrane", and Wynton Marsalis is "jazz giant Wynton Marsalis". How much funnier than that can you get?

Definitely. Post wouldn't have put up two rebuttals to a fake argument.

[Leeway]

I dare Django Gold and Justin Moyer to have the guts to write a "satire" about Kim Kardashian. Kim's publicist would get on the phone and have them out of a job within hours. Or how about a "satire" about football, or (dear to the New Yorker's heart) Vogue Magazine or the New York Film Festival? Putting down jazz is too easy because there's no one with muscle to fight back, y'know?

It's like I was saying the other day. Whatever happened to comedy that mocks the powerful?

The classic definition of the purpose of satire is: To afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted. Afflicting the afflicted is a no-go. So, yes, afflicting the powerful is a good thing; however it's also dangerous to these Grub Street types so they go for lower-hanging fruit. One not likely to bite back (to mix my metaphors).

Edited August 16, 2014 by Leeway