Why Jazz is Unpopular: The Only Reason

[JSngry]

20 minutes ago, T.D. said:

 I find all that stuff plausible on some levels, but shoehorning jazz into such frameworks feels a bit forced IMO.

The music itself, not so much. But the business, especially as it exists today? Absolutely.

And me, mr. non-academic, this is the first time I've heard "corporate totalitarianism" as a thing, but sure, yeah, absolutely. It's on a roll!

[JSngry]

This is a hoot!

http://tomsmithjazz.wixsite.com/music/single-post/2018/04/01/THE-TRUE-STORY-OF-WHY-JAZZ-MUSICIANS-HATE-KENNY-G-AND-THE-REAL-ORIGINS-OF-SMOOTH-JAZZ?fbclid=IwAR3mPZv_u03MESMXm1DRpwKgrnNm4Ph_SS_Dtk86oECZIOZQApVuKMqc_iU

 

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What people didn't know, was that after Oprah, he was in with management reputedly linked to Fort Mill. Therefore, it was all too coincidental, and soon tales spread (true or not) that G was in bed with conditioned background music.

This inevitably affixed him to Muzak and Smooth Jazz, apace with public radio stations courting adult contemporary genres. This in turn gave G's base (which bordered on cultish) a place to grow by leaps and bounds, especially after he was farmed into Asian labor markets as a form of behavioral conditioning.

Whaaa...Asian labor markets?

OK, as an example, let's examine his saccharine tome "Going Home."

When day classes ended at China's Ningbo University (where I was a professor) 'Going Home' was bleated out to forty-thousand students, while small children hummed it on their way to parent carpools. Quite simply, when heard in China, it means stop what you're doing, decompress, and "go home." You can be purchasing bread at a grocery, and the moment it's heard, cash registers immediately stop. 'Going Home' is the most recognizable western song in China... and has absolutely nothing to do with music in and of itself. In fact (at least in China) its only purpose is to screw with people's heads.

Retrospectively, there is great difference between evoking individual thought (a primary goal of jazz) and altering minds for the purpose of building conformity.

as well as:

 

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When Tom Smith isn't pontificating on the status of jazz, he can be found on a mountain in Western North Carolina.

 

I am entertained by this!

[T.D.]

 

17 minutes ago, JSngry said:

The music itself, not so much. But the business, especially as it exists today? Absolutely.

And me, mr. non-academic, this is the first time I've heard "corporate totalitarianism" as a thing, but sure, yeah, absolutely. It's on a roll!

I'm not an academic, but was browsing in a bookstore a few years ago, saw Wolin's book Democracy Incorporated, and said "Damn, I gotta read that!" Unfortunately, his prose was too repetitious and clumsy for my taste. I should read Chris Hedges on the subject, because I liked his Death of the Liberal Class. My constant difficulty with such pundits is that I consider human behavior too random and diverse to fit neatly into their grand theories.

[king ubu]

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

... this is the first time I've heard "corporate totalitarianism" as a thing, but sure, yeah, absolutely. It's on a roll!

Totally. This has just landed on my pile of yet-to-be-read books:

 

I've made my escape from that part of the working world into administration and (not sure merikins can believe that) I'm very happy about this change ... also landed in semi-academia, so to speak, and on top of it all, I even get better pay.

Just think about the potential savings that could be made in corporate communism (it's the US after all that has made communism work, ain't it funny?  ) if all of those big-shots got fired and the actual skills of people and their ability to organise would be relied on?

[Mark Stryker]

Maybe jazz would be more than popular if we said “jazz” more like this: 

 

[sidewinder]

I blame this guy..

[JSngry]

10 hours ago, T.D. said:

My constant difficulty with such pundits is that I consider human behavior too random and diverse to fit neatly into their grand theories.

I hear that, but still trends emerge, whether guided or not (I think you gotta look at that on a case-by-case basis), and once a trend emerges, you can be 1000% certain there will be forces who make every effort to co-opt, guide, and eventually own whatever they can out of those trends.

And I don't think that's a uniquely "capitalistic" behavior either, it's an essentially hard-wired human behavior, we will always have those whose goal it is to in some form or fashion "own" the rest of us. As much trouble as you can get into by over-generalizing about it, you can get into at least that much more trouble by not recognizing it as it occurs.

[Scott Dolan]

14 hours ago, JSngry said:

Ok, read this: http://tomsmithjazz.wixsite.com/music/single-post/2019/04/07/A-POSTMODERN-RADICALIZATION?fbclid=IwAR3mPZv_u03MESMXm1DRpwKgrnNm4Ph_SS_Dtk86oECZIOZQApVuKMqc_iU

 

Hello!

Ugh...

BTW, it seems to me that you are talking more about factions than actual worlds. 

Didn’t many traditionalists hate 60’s Free Jazz? Both existed in the same world, going by your definition, correct? 

[JSngry]

Not talking about music, talking about business. Where the money comes from to generate the places and ways that these musics get heard.

Newport used to be able to book New Orleans bands & Gospel & Benny Carter & Miles & Cecil Taylor & damn near anything else. You could have a lot of feeders into one overall business model. There was a point at which they could all do business together. And they did.

Today, not so much, if at all. It's going to be interesting to see what the business model(s) look like, say, 50 years from now, when all the "last remnants" of anything from the old models are dead. That's what the JALC model has been good at, creating interchangeable placeholders, they got that shit going on really good now. They've got their system and they've sold it to their public. It's what any business wants to do, create a stable product that can be sold into, possibly, perpetuity!

Now, when Braxton or Roscoe or Wadida goes (let's go out 25 years for them), or Halverson or Sorey (let's go out, say, 75 years, they'll be dead by then, certainly), or anybody in that world dies...having interchangeable placeholders ready to step in is sorta NOT the aim of that business model (at this time, anyway). But people like Roscoe & Braxton have shown they'll get people to work with them who can carry on their ideas, and add their own thing along the way. And if they're so inclined, they can grow a market of their own as they do. Craig Taborn been doing this for a while, starting to get leader profile, finally.

But those worlds are not doing any real business with JALC. I'm sure there's a gig here and there somewhere for somebody, but that is not where they get their main business support.

Now, do the worlds reunite at some point, or is the deed done, the musical/business  mitosis? I'll likely not be alive to see how it plays out, but my guess is that they don't, unless and until the corporates at JALC decide it's time to move in and feed on this other stuff. If the "Big Ears world" continues to grow...they'll smell that money and proceed accordingly.

[Scott Dolan]

But Jazz was still a popular genre when Newport was booking those cats. That seems to be the primary difference. 

Last festival I attended was in Chicago around 2008-9, and the lineup was still pretty varied. They had some of the wilder acts in the smaller stage, Gerald Wilson closed out the next to the last night, and Ornette closed out the festival. 

[JSngry]

Well yeah, the difference is driving the split business models. Different people have different ideas about what this music "is", not just in terms of music, but in terms of product.

Just think about this - unless you stumble across a neighbor practicing, if you hear ANY music anywhere, you're almost certainly hearing it because somebody put it there. club, hall, record, radio, download, streaming, anything. Somebody saw to it that that product got made and placed. And sure, yeah, everybody wants to make money, to get paid. That's not the point either. There are wildly and widely different models in place today and of course they vary to meet the markets (real or potential) that go with the musics.

Who is doing what to get their product to who, how are they doing it, and why are they doing it as they are. That's the whole point of the point. That, and if the tail of the commerce is wagging the dog of the music (and if the dog has by now become all tail...that's one fucked up dog!)

So if you want to consider that, then this guy is giving you his considerations (focused on, it seems, the JALC model, of which he is not a fan, I would guess) for your consideration. And if you don't want to consider that, just walk away from the discussion, because it's not something you want to consider, and won't be.

Finally a true binary choice!

[medjuck]

20 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

FWIW, what made the writer think that the bandleader pictured under "Swing music's intellectual purge" was EVER considered a SWING (hence, jazz) musician?? THAT one was outside swing most all of the time. So what point was he trying to make or IS he trying to pull someone's leg after all? And this is only one such moment from the few paragraphs I have read IMHO.

I 'm not sure I've even  ever heard Kay Kyser  but he's an interesting example of cultural amnesia.  In his book "Jammin' at the Margins (Jazz and the American Cinema)" Krin Gabbard devotes several pages to Kyser pointing out that he was incredibly popular right up there with Goodman and Dorsey and sold way more records than Ellington  but he's usually dismissed as not only not swinging but not even playing jazz. However after generally denigrating him, Gunther Schuller in "The Swing Era" does admit that the band "could, when required, play with an infectious rhythmic swing". 

 

BTW I used to be an academic and the book this thread is about is a good example of why I'm glad I'm not anymore. 

Edited April 24, 2019 by medjuck

[Brad]

5 minutes ago, medjuck said:

BTW I used to be an academic and the book this thread is about is a good example of why I'm glad I'm not anymore. 

I sort of know what you mean. I was in a Masters History program years ago, which didn’t work out and my field had its own jargon.  

[JSngry]

Wasn't it Kay Kyser that did "Three Little Fishes"?

[Scott Dolan]

14 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Well yeah, the difference is driving the split business models. Different people have different ideas about what this music "is", not just in terms of music, but in terms of product.

Just think about this - unless you stumble across a neighbor practicing, if you hear ANY music anywhere, you're almost certainly hearing it because somebody put it there. club, hall, record, radio, download, streaming, anything. Somebody saw to it that that product got made and placed. And sure, yeah, everybody wants to make money, to get paid. That's not the point either. There are wildly and widely different models in place today and of course they vary to meet the markets (real or potential) that go with the musics.

Who is doing what to get their product to who, how are they doing it, and why are they doing it as they are. That's the whole point of the point. That, and if the tail of the commerce is wagging the dog of the music (and if the dog has by now become all tail...that's one fucked up dog!)

So if you want to consider that, then this guy is giving you his considerations (focused on, it seems, the JALC model, of which he is not a fan, I would guess) for your consideration. And if you don't want to consider that, just walk away from the discussion, because it's not something you want to consider, and won't be.

Finally a true binary choice!

You’re right. Labels trying to sell their music in the most viable mediums available. 

Definitely a whole new world! 

[Big Beat Steve]

31 minutes ago, medjuck said:

I 'm not sure I've even  ever heard Kay Kyser  but he's an interesting example of cultural amnesia.  In his book "Jammin' at the Margins (Jazz and the American Cinema)" Krin Gabbard devotes several pages to Kyser pointing out that he was incredibly popular right up there with Goodman and Dorsey and sold way more records than Ellington  but he's usually dismissed as not only not swinging but not even playing jazz. However after generally denigrating him, Gunther Schuller in "The Swing Era" does admit that the band "could, when required, play with an infectious rhythmic swing". 

 

I've read that book and would not even have disagreed that bands like his COULD swing every now and then - most sweet bands could. But does that make him an arechtypical example of what the author of that blog tried to express (or rather, what I think he tried to express )?

[JSngry]

I think there was not small bit of tongue-in-cheek with the Kay Kyser picture and caption.

There's a lot of that on that site, actually. "Academic" he may be, but humorless he definitely is not!

[Big Beat Steve]

11 hours ago, JSngry said:

I think there was not small bit of tongue-in-cheek with the Kay Kyser picture and caption.

There's a lot of that on that site, actually. "Academic" he may be, but humorless he definitely is not!

Which is why I had a hunch from the time I started working my way through some of that blog-blurb that he was trying to pull someone's leg. Though on THAT "academically" plastered-over level humor really is in the eye of the bereader (something every author ought to be aware of). And it also is a matter of where exactly humor is called for (or not) if you really are serious about getting your point across - as in the case of the Kyser picture (you do not put up a picture of Perry Como either if you want ot stress how commercial rock'n'roll had become ). Unless, of course, it is all about self-centered navel gazing of "see how academically cute I am with all the meanderings of what what I put to paper" (or web,. these days).