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Jazz is not Dead!
Jazz is not Dead!
Date Posted: December 21 2009
Written By: Paul Abella
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Frank Zappa once said "Jazz isn't dead. It just smells funny."
Yeah, and unfortunately, much of the what we've come to call jazz has had another 35 years to keep fermenting since Frank made that quote.
If we must continue to be a community that believes:
1) that our music's best days are behind us...
2) that our best "standard" compositions were written 50-90 years ago...
3) that our list of best jazz composers doesn't include names like Christian McBride, Charlie Hunter, Branford Marsalis, Seamus Blake and a multiple page laundry list of others...
4) that it was great when jazz picked up on the popular music of the Broadway era, okay I guess when it picked up on the fine music of Motown and the Beatles and downright heretical when it plugged in to continue to learn from the music around it...
5) jazz is the music of cocktail swilling swingers who wear silk scarves and garters for their socks who congregate in dark rooms with their mistresses...
6) that jazz is "important" music...
...then jazz will continue its slow and painful slide down and eventually off of this mortal coil.
For all of the articles, emails and Facebook statuses that get written in the pro and the con on this issue, how many of us have taken a trek down toThe Whistler,The Hideout, or The Dark Room on a jazz night? Have you seen the acts there? There is a jazz scene, and an eager audience for it! But it wants to hear music of the moment, just like the fans of every other kind of music out there.
But, what do we do?
When we talk about "modern music," we either talk about music made in the 60's (Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard or Wayne Shorter), or we talk about music that is only modern because no one's made any modern advancements upon it (AACM, etc).
But where is the jazz intelligentsia when it comes to bands in Chicago that are making completely valid and modern music that incorporates world music, hip hop, punk-rock, psychedelia or even heavy metal but could never be called anything but jazz? These bands are largely ignored in print, by the jazz organizations and festivals throughout Chicago and everyone but the saddlebag toting hipsters that actually want to hear new music and are willing to pay to go see it.
Where is the jazz intelligentsia when it comes to bands that are ditching the Great American Songbook repertoire in lieu of a book that speaks to them and their audience?
If we really want to see jazz thrive and survive, it is time that we as a community, support each other as a community. Not just the singers supporting the singers, or the guitarists supporting the guitarists, or the be-boppers supporting the be-boppers, or the avant-garde supporting the avant-garde.
How much of jazz is dying because perfectly great bands can't seem to get an audience because they're not playing the generally accepted jazz venues?
How much of jazz is dying because people won't support something that sounds like their norm?
If the jazz scene is going to panic every time that they see an article like this, or respond with the same once hilarious quotes, then it's time to really do something about it. Get on each others' mailing lists, support each others' shows. Recommend each other for gigs at venues. But simply fretting over someone else thinking jazz is dead because it seemingly is? Well, that's the worst thing we can do.
Let's prove to the non-jazz world that jazz is anything but dead in 2010, shall we?
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