UK Jazz: why do the 1950s-70s attract more attention?

[A Lark Ascending]

There always seems to be considerable international interest and regard for the Hayes', Colliers', Harriott's, Westbrook's, Surman's, Ardley's, Brotherhoods' etc etc; yet very little from the 70s through to today outside of the UK itself. Even with players with long careers, it's the early records that seem to excite most interest.

Is it just that the early period has been codified and 'masters' and 'masterpieces' approved and validated? Whilst the music since is so varied, largely unheard and hard to get a grip on as a result.

[The obvious exception being the free/improv or whatever you want to call it end of things. There just seems to be a more internationalist approach to music there generally].

Edit: Health Warning - this is not a plea to listen to more recent UK jazz - I know there are all sorts of reasons why individuals choose to listen to A rather than B. Just curious as to the general neglect of more recent UK jazz beyond those of us who get to hear it regularly in situ, while the older stuff gets frequent plaudits.

Edited February 6, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

Don't we have the same sort of thing with regard to American jazz? "Considerable international interest and regard" for Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane .... What American figures from recent decades can match these? Could it be that on both sides of the Atlantic those bygone decades were the jazz age?

[A Lark Ascending]

Don't think that is the case. There's plenty of interest in recent US jazz - everything from Breckers and Murrays to the multitude of US jazz musicians currently performing. They fill halls in the UK whenever they appear.

I'm not doing a 'who's best?' thing here. The influence of the pioneers goes without question. Subjective preference always has to be factored in.

And I understand the greater interest in US jazz...it is the land of the music's birth.

I'm just curious why an international audience seems to give up after the 70s.

My perspective...and I accept that is an interpretation based on subjective experience...is that there is a vast richness of UK jazz beyond the 70s that is at least as exciting as what happened then. I'd go further and argue that some of the recordings that have been lionised from the 50s-70s are quite tame compared with what recent musicians have produced. Which is not a criticism of the originals...breaking the mould is a tough job.

I just feel classicism in general tends to over-inflate the value of pioneer music.

[sgcim]

I've been reading a few books on jazz in the UK, and all the British writers agree; the Beatles pretty much ended the audience for jazz in the UK, regardless of the quality of the music.

[A Lark Ascending]

I've been reading a few books on jazz in the UK, and all the British writers agree; the Beatles pretty much ended the audience for jazz in the UK, regardless of the quality of the music.

Not true.

I came of age just after the Beatles (they broke up as I was getting interested in music). Didn't stop me getting interested in jazz in general and British jazz in particular. And there's an endless stream of new, young jazz musicians appearing. Jazz did not have the same level of popularity in the UK that it had in the trad boom but...

There is a very successful circuit of UK jazz that has been in existence since the 40s/50s. All sorts of genres. I could go to jazz gigs most weeks.

Some of the music from the 50s-70s has been deified.

After that it gets some attention on the European continent, little beyond.

I can understand it not penetrating the States - there's so much native music to enjoy; and the States are generally indifferent to the culture of the rest of the world.

Just find it interesting that 'classic' UK jazz gets attention and then interest falls off.

[This interest in the 50s-70s is not just a UK thing - think of the number of references you get to someone like Lars Gullin compared with more recent Scandinavian jazz].

Edited February 6, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[ArtSalt]

An interesting question is whether modern jazz was ever really that big in the UK?

I am not convinced it was as popular as some would have us believe. I mean mainstream popular.

The answer to that question may be pertinent.

[This interest in the 50s-70s is not just a UK thing - think of the number of references you get to someone like Lars Gullin compared with more recent Scandinavian jazz].

As well as the UK and Scandinavia, you could also add Italy to the list.

[Big Beat Steve]

Reading about upcoming jazz gigs on this forum and elsewhere featuring names that are totally unknown to me and that I would not even be able to situate stylistically - even broadly - in fact I have often wondered about who of these would figure AT ALL in some future in-depth history of jazz (that includes more recent decades). We have been discussing minor figures such as Steve White and many other collectors' discoveries within the scope of jazz from the pre-1960 era here but which minor figures from today's jazz would ever find their way into jazz books today, even only with a passing mention?

I think all of the earlier posts above contain a bit of truth, but couldn't it also be that jazz from the more recent decades is so fragmented style-wise that it is hard for those who "basically" would be interested in "jazz" to know what they're getting at all if they tried some jazz gig by some relatively unknown just on the premise that it is "jazz"? I have a feeling this is particularly true for Europe (certainly not just the UK and maybe even for the USA)?

Maybe the fact that there are so many totally different streams being lumped in under the general header of "jazz" makes it unrealistic to expect all of the niche audience of jazz (that is and has alway been small overall) to embrace them all? Like a reputed German jazz collector, writer and reissue producer once remarked to me (referring a.o. to styles that lean towards the "world music" and the experimental ends of the spectrum): "If it cannot be categorized anywhere else it is called "Jazz" today."

I mean, look at rock music. Would you expect any rock fan with clear-cut tastes (no matter how wide-ranging they are) to love soft rock, today's Brit pop, grunge, heavy metal all alike (and I am only naming a scant few of the streams within rock)? There never have been many of that sort who like all substyles of "rock" across the ENTIRE spectrum alike and you would not expect there to be, would you? ?

And I'd imagine that today's "anything goes" attitude that some hardcore fans and exponents of today's jazz proclaim (up to the assertion that "no, jazz does not have to swing anymore for it to come in under jazz anyway") would strain the tolerance of many other listeners' tastes even more.

As for Scandinavian jazz, from all I have read I have a feeling that Swedish jazz underwent a major slump in the 60s (particularly as far as the national audience and live music spots were concerned) but regained some momentum later on. And from the little I have been able to follow there, the various facets of the jazz scene there seem to be fairly stable and vibrant ever since. Same for France and Germany the way jazz developed there from the 70s. And they do have their contemporary local/regional heroes in various styles of jazz, though of course all in all it REMAINS a niche market limited in size.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[BillF]

An interesting question is whether modern jazz was ever really that big in the UK?

I am not convinced it was as popular as some would have us believe. I mean mainstream popular.

The answer to that question may be pertinent.

No, it was never "mainstream popular" in the way that, say, Acker Bilk was, but it did get a following from a sizeable - and discriminating, as we would have said - chunk of the youth audience. Sgcim's comment that the Beatles ended the jazz audience is true - from that point on jazz lost the youngsters. Sadly, in my experience jazz gigs today are still largely reliant for an audience on those same people - now with hearing aids and mobility scooters.

[sidewinder]

We have been discussing minor figures such as Steve White and many other collectors' discoveries

Bit of an aside from British Jazz and I may have told this one before but can I tell my Steve White story? At an open air gig years back in the US, noticed a strangish nervy guy with a sax in a bag (might even have been a brown paper bag) stood right next to me in the audience fidgetting away and and hyped up. From the stage was the call 'Is Steve White out there?..' and out he steps to give a very rare public performance for us all. Priceless !

Edited February 7, 2015 by sidewinder

[A Lark Ascending]

It's not the relative popularity of UK jazz I'm getting at. It's that once you get to people who listen to UK jazz, why it's the 50s-70s that dominate? I appreciate that some listeners enjoy the sounds of an earlier era and don't much care for what came after. But I often notice people who regularly listen to international jazz that is stylistically broad and from across the eras come to a halt in the late 70s where UK jazz is concerned. Again, not saying there is any imperative to listen to the later music...just wonder why it is invisible.

You get something similar in classical music - the domination of established 18th/19thC classical music with some 20thC names who are closely connected to that tradition (certainly the case in concert halls near me).

Very different to popular music where the emphasis is very much on the new.

I suspect I have an odd take on this as I only came to jazz in the late-70s so never experienced the 'classic' era of UK jazz first hand. I enjoy exploring it (as I enjoy exploring 18th and 19thC classical music). But I often find myself wondering with things like the Rendell-Carr band...'Well that was fun...but I'm not sure it's that special.'

Usual disclaimer about personal taste.

Edited February 7, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[Big Beat Steve]

I suspect I have an odd take on this as I only came to jazz in the late-70s so never experienced the 'classic' era of UK jazz first hand. I enjoy exploring it (as I enjoy exploring 18th and 19thC classical music). But I often find myself wondering with things like the Rendall-Carr band...'Well that was fun...but I'm not sure it's that special.'

Usual disclaimer about personal taste.

I hear you, and I understand.

But isn't my take even odder, then? I came to jazz in the mid-70s, can't even recall what the key early exposure was that got me into jazz, but it definitely was the classic jazz and swing from the 20s to the 40s (so probably those "DIxieland" revival bands had an early impact thought they were quickly forsaken for the real thing) and then got into bebop and other modern jazz up the mid-50s or so pretty fast too. By the time I was 17 I had embraced most of what there was from ODJB via Fats Waller via Basie to Django to Diz/Bird to Sonny Rollins (e.g. "Saxophone Colossus") (speaking of British jazz, BTW, I think the frist British act I ever bought a record of - when I was 16 or so - was Joe Daniels's Hot Shots, though German and other European jazz I explored initially included much more modern artists, but not beyond the 50s either . , )

All historical music even by the mid- to late 70s and something I never could have experienced first hand either. Yet the intense attraction was and still is there. And when I was played the then-current jazz (jazz rock, fusion, European Avantgarde), the gist of my reaction then was "Where's the jazz?"

Usual disclaimer about personal tastes too.

Those early stylistic preferences have conditioned my jazz leanings and still do so to this day, though the boundaries have expanded (even if not radically ) to include subgenres I did not (yet) get back then.

So have I been a moldy fig for the past close to 40 years?

Edited February 7, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[Guy Berger]

Bev, I think the ratio of interest in British jazz post- vs pre-1970 is comparable to the ratio for US jazz. It's just that the interest in US jazz is higher generally speaking.

[Jazzjet]

Interesting question, Bev. It may just be that most UK jazz listeners are of a 'certain age' and naturally hark back to the music that captured them in their youth and the feeling of excitement and involvement that goes with early discovery. The same applies to pop and rock. I would suggest that the same age group (generally) probably doesn't think much of modern pop and rock compared to the 60s/70s variety. There may also be a cultural element to this in that from the mid 60s Britain at last started to find its own identity and distance itself from the war generation (some historians identify Churchill's funeral in 1965 as a turning point moment) and perhaps the music from that era had and has a greater resonance.

Logically, it follows that today's music will be recognised as a 'golden age' around 2060!

For what it's worth, the overwhelming bulk of my listening is pre-80s with just a few exceptions.

[A Lark Ascending]

Probably exposure too. I've been able to see a lot of contemporary UK jazz first in Nottingham in the 80s and 90s, then at the festivals at Brecon, Cheltenham, Appleby and Bath in the 90s/00s and over the last twenty years or so in Sheffield and Nottingham (and St Ives!!!!) again. So I've always been very supportive of it.

Though I have noticed that since the festivals started drying up about 5 years ago I've started to lose my awareness of the newer performers, tending to go out for those I'd got to know up to around 2010.

I've also got increasingly wary of the more Indie-rock/noise/jazz groups that I was seeing more of at Cheltenham the last few times I went. Not my cup of cocoa. I need a bit more than 'edginess' to sustain by attention.

Edited February 8, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[ArtSalt]

From what I hear from contemporary indie and popular music, even that masquerading as jazz, is that edginess is completely lacking.

We have arrived at the future where the music of the past is more radical than the here and now.

It was never meant to be this way, or was it?

Strange days indeed.

[RogerF]

Graham Collier - Down Another Road
Mike Westbrook - Metropolis
Nucleus - Solar Plexus
Harry Beckett - Flare Up
Tubby Hayes - Mexican Green
Keith Tippett - Dedicated to You But you Weren't Listening
John Surman - The Trio
New Jazz Orchestra - Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe
John McLaughlin - Extrapolation
Alan Skidmore - TCB

This selection spans the five year period 1967-1971. I can remember most, if not all the music from these British jazz albums.
Ask me to remember the music from 10 British jazz albums from the period 1977-1981 or subsequent years and I cannot.
I think this is partially due to coincidences of extraordinary talent and serendipity more than anything else. Also they were just
more memorable and, dare I say, better or more original? (runs for cover ).

[mjazzg]

Might it be that whilst there has been many fine players since 80s in the UK there hasn't been very many with such an individual voice or even, dare I say, innovative approach to make themselves heard above what is now a globalised din? The UK may have produced world class players in the last 30 years but not that many who have stood out enough as different or taking the music into new areas. This might simply be down to the overwhelming noise of the din rather than the lack of real innovation although I'm not too sure.

Whereas my understanding of the regard in which the 60s/70s 'heroes' are held is because they were producing music that was different - Tippett's large ensembles and Ovary Lodge, Brotherhood of Breath. Surman (see the other thread), Westbrook, Azimuth to name those that come immediately to mind (there are others I'm sure). Now I wasn't listening to these contemporaneously so can't attest to their difference or innovation then. Also was there more of a critical mass back then creating a scene, focused around particular labels Ogun for instance?

In the 80s when I started listening the 'big noises' were marketed almost in reaction to that 70s scene. We got Courtney Pine, Andy Sheppard, Tommy Smith et al all dressed in suits. Each of those musicians subsequent careers revealed the marketing ploy for what it was as none of them remained ploughing that furrow. Outside this 'jazz revival' sat the marvellous Loose Tubes and their fellow travellers alongside other interesting bands such as Pinski Zoo. Not for this lot the sharp suits but sharp and often innovative music instead

The Loose Tube legacy is huge in a family tree manner but who of those players have really forged individual careers of innovation? Django Bates surely. any others? Iain Ballamy with Food perhaps?

Currently I can think of only and handful of UK players that are really pushing into uncharted or little discovered areas whilst not forgetting what's gone before - Seb Rochford and Alex Hawkins are both great examples of this as might be Laura Jurd, Reuben Fowler or Shabaka Hutchings in time.

The improv world is different and there are players in that scene from the UK who rightly command an international reputation - witness the enthusiasm for Messrs Noble and Edwards, John Butcher, Paul Dunmall and others on this board. There seems to me more of a sense of generational progression in this music where for instance Evan Parker influences John Butcher who both influence Seymour Wright and the music is pushed correspondingly forward and outward towards new margins.

I'd love to hear from others which UK musicians they feel has been truly innovative since the 80s? All of this is purely personal observation and I know names have been missed out who should have been mentioned.

[A Lark Ascending]

Roger,

I could name you ten UK records since 2000 that I I enjoy at least as much of those (don't worry, I won't!).

I enjoy all ten of those you mention - but to my ears only the McLaughlin is exceptional. Westbrook, Tippett (especially Tippett - DTYBYWL still sounds like a student piece to me) and Surman, again to these ears, did much stronger things later on than those you mention.

I think there is a tendency to deify the early work of musicians in popular music (and equally the first works within trends or genres). As the catalogue lengthens it is rare for a musician to make such a stylistic change as to grab attention again so what comes after gets neglected. Even if it might refine that original charge into something more broad and considered.

Funny, but classical music seems to have little problem in giving credence to a composers later compositions - in fact the 'late' periods often get the highest praise.

Mark (mjazzg),

Does music have to be innovative to be significant?

Maybe that's the issue. Music with 'novelty' (not meaning that as a put down) gets noticed, that which just evolves slowly gets passed by.

With free/improv you are in a different world (even though it overlaps) - it just seems more internationalist.

The other point I'd make is the US non-avant jazz is no more innovative than British jazz - neoclassicism or post-modernism rules. Yet it plays to international audiences.

Edited February 8, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[RogerF]

I could name you ten UK records since 2000 that I I enjoy at least as much of those (don't worry, I won't!).

I enjoy all ten of those you mention - but to my ears only the McLaughlin is exceptional. Westbrook, Tippett and Surman, again to these ears, did much stronger things later on than those you mention.

I think there is a tendency to deify the early work of musicians in popular music (and equally the first works within trends or genres). As the catalogue lengthens it is rare for a musician to make such a stylistic change as to grab attention again so what comes after gets neglected. Even if it might refine that original charge into something more broad and considered.

Funny, but classical music seems to have little problem in giving credence to a composers later compositions - in fact the 'late' periods often get the highest praise.

Bev, I think the deification aspect is somewhat determined by the sense of time and place - and I was there at that time - busier later on so wasn't there as much - although the notable aforementioned exception in Loose Tubes. I only selected 10 albums as a sample but I could have probably selected 100 from that period which to my mind were exceptional. I would be the first to admit that it's all terribly subjective but I do suffer a certain tinge of guilt from listening more to that ('golden') period than to later years by the same artists. Westbrook's "London Bridge" may be a greater work but I am more emotionally drawn to "Celebration" or "Marching Song". Like I say though, I do feel guilt over this because the musicians are developing their art over time. Perhaps as the composers' respective technical abilities and ambitions increase, the relative simplicity of their earlier works means they are easier to recall. So they're not better, just more memorable?

[A Lark Ascending]

Oh, I accept that we all tend to warm to the music we grew up with and have a perfectly justifiable prejudice towards it. I default to the rock music of the mid-60s to mid-70s in the full knowledge that there has been a wealth of excellent rock music since that is beyond my ken. You were there when the music was happening - of course it sounds more vivid (just like the politics of the 60s and 70s seems more vivid to me than that of today [even though the stakes are just as high])

Incidentally - 'The Cortege' gets my Westbrook vote. I like Metropolis but I don't get the sense that the blowing bits are his natural voice - he's trying things out. Everything seems to come together for me in The Cortege.

I suppose what I'm getting at is seeing younger listeners getting excited about Hum Dono or Dejeuner rather than what is happening now. Seems like a learnt response to me. These are the classics...we're supposed to like them. But if you weren't around then, I'm not sure they do stand up as strongly. That's not an argument for more recent listeners not listening to them - the historic origins of any music are fascinating.

All subjective...and there's about as much chance of reaching a definitive answer as there is about the quality of mp3, CD and vinyl!

Edited February 8, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[mjazzg]

Mark (mjazzg),

Does music have to be innovative to be significant?

Maybe that's the issue. Music with 'novelty' (not meaning that as a put down) gets noticed, that which just evolves slowly gets passed by.

With free/improv you are in a different world (even though it overlaps) - it just seems more internationalist.

The other point I'd make is the US non-avant jazz is no more innovative than British jazz - neoclassicism or post-modernism rules. Yet it plays to international audiences.

No, not necessarily. But I do think it's more likely to be noticed (especially in the short term) if it is noted as such. The two contemporary musicians I mentioned, Rochford and Hawkins are both quietly creating a significant body of work that continues to develop and with hindsight may end up being described as "evolves slowly" but I would still argue for both being innovators.

[Jazzjet]

Graham Collier - Down Another Road

Mike Westbrook - Metropolis

Nucleus - Solar Plexus

Harry Beckett - Flare Up

Tubby Hayes - Mexican Green

Keith Tippett - Dedicated to You But you Weren't Listening

John Surman - The Trio

New Jazz Orchestra - Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe

John McLaughlin - Extrapolation

Alan Skidmore - TCB

This selection spans the five year period 1967-1971. I can remember most, if not all the music from these British jazz albums.

Ask me to remember the music from 10 British jazz albums from the period 1977-1981 or subsequent years and I cannot.

I think this is partially due to coincidences of extraordinary talent and serendipity more than anything else. Also they were just

more memorable and, dare I say, better or more original? (runs for cover ).

Couldn't have put it better myself, Roger.

Maybe the thing about this period is that British jazz found its identity rather than slavishly copying American styles. It's always been difficult to define the nature and identity of British jazz of this period. To me there are echoes of church music, British classical music and folk themes overlaid on the standard jazz framework, plus elements of the rock revolution and openness to experimentation of the time.

[sidewinder]

John Surman summed up the late 60s to 71 period tonight on stage when setting the scene for 'Tales of the Algonquin'. Lots was happening in British Jazz and things changing very fast over a very short period of time. A quantum shift in the music as a result of its freeing up by Coltrane, Ornette, Cecil and Mingus etc and lots of musicians feeling their way through the new freedoms. Not mentioned but another factor for sure must have been the incredible talent back then just reaching its full maturity. Magical time indeed !

Edited February 8, 2015 by sidewinder

[RogerF]

John Surman summed up the late 60s to 71 period tonight on stage when setting the scene for 'Tales of the Algonquin'. Lots was happening in British Jazz and things changing very fast over a very short period of time. A quantum shift in the music as a result of its freeing up by Coltrane, Ornette, Cecil and Mingus etc and lots of musicians feeling their way through the new freedoms. Not mentioned but another factor for sure must have been the incredible talent back then just reaching its full maturity. Magical time indeed !

Talent indeed! Not surprising then that two of the participants on one of my "100" (Where Fortune Smiles, w/ John McLaughlin and Dave Holland) went on to even greater things with Miles Davis.

[A Lark Ascending]

I don't doubt the importance of the 50s-70s in terms of radical change - a confluence of all sorts of influences.

One of the most interesting is the impact of the Welfare State and educational reform. All those musicians from ordinary backgrounds turning up in arts schools and the like, getting a chance to indulge their passions rather being stuck in a grinding job. I suspect a lot of us made it into the middle class as a result of those changes.

I just wonder if in being spellbound by the excitement of those times we don't rather over-inflate the actual value of the recordings (which is not me saying they are poor - I like loads of them and am as keen as the next man to pick up the reissues. I know...you get completely lost in subjectivity at that point). They'll always seem like gold dust to those who lived through it. But in a blindfold test to someone sympathetic to jazz but without those memories?