Jazz musicians: look in the mirror!
A frequent lament among jazz musicians these days is that people aren't attending their performances. There's a pervasive attitude that if they can't find an audience, it's someone else's fault. Generally, they place the blame on the recording industry (for placing too much emphasis on big-bucks pop stars), the public schools (for not teaching enough music), or the government (for not spending enough money on subsidies for the arts).
I say the problem -- if it is indeed a problem -- lies with the artists themselves. Jazz -- never a very popular art form to begin with, or at least not in the past 60 years -- has become an abstract, irrelevant art form, or at least one that thumbs its nose at the idea that it should try to appeal to people who are not musicians themselves. You've either got free jazz (so-called because no one will pay you to play it) or obsolete jazz that merely rehashes music from 1959. Why should people go out to hear either one of those? As I discussed in my column on Henry Pleasants awhile back, if you stop caring whether your music appeals to listeners... well, pretty soon, you're not going to have any listeners!
This isn't to say that there aren't still a lot of great jazz musicians out there, playing great music. The common thread among these musicians is that their music can be appreciated or understood at more than one level -- they appeal to the musician and non-musician alike.
But complaints about the lack of a jazz audience are a mere cop-out. If you're not drawing a crowd, maybe that means you're not playing the right kind of music. Much as it pains me to have to state the obvious, jazz is not the only kind of good music out there. So if jazz isn't drawing a crowd, go play something else. At the risk of repeating myself, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and other bluegrass-derived musicians play to full houses of enthusiastic fans. The stuff they play isn't watered-down popular music, either -- it's technical, advanced music that also happens to be listenable.
If jazz musicians can't make their music listenable, it's their own fault. The solution to the problem isn't more money thrown at music education (although that would be a good thing), nor is it to tear down the recording industry, nor is it to increase government arts funding. The solution is to find ways to make good music that people are interested in hearing.
I say the problem -- if it is indeed a problem -- lies with the artists themselves. Jazz -- never a very popular art form to begin with, or at least not in the past 60 years -- has become an abstract, irrelevant art form, or at least one that thumbs its nose at the idea that it should try to appeal to people who are not musicians themselves. You've either got free jazz (so-called because no one will pay you to play it) or obsolete jazz that merely rehashes music from 1959. Why should people go out to hear either one of those? As I discussed in my column on Henry Pleasants awhile back, if you stop caring whether your music appeals to listeners... well, pretty soon, you're not going to have any listeners!
This isn't to say that there aren't still a lot of great jazz musicians out there, playing great music. The common thread among these musicians is that their music can be appreciated or understood at more than one level -- they appeal to the musician and non-musician alike.
But complaints about the lack of a jazz audience are a mere cop-out. If you're not drawing a crowd, maybe that means you're not playing the right kind of music. Much as it pains me to have to state the obvious, jazz is not the only kind of good music out there. So if jazz isn't drawing a crowd, go play something else. At the risk of repeating myself, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and other bluegrass-derived musicians play to full houses of enthusiastic fans. The stuff they play isn't watered-down popular music, either -- it's technical, advanced music that also happens to be listenable.
If jazz musicians can't make their music listenable, it's their own fault. The solution to the problem isn't more money thrown at music education (although that would be a good thing), nor is it to tear down the recording industry, nor is it to increase government arts funding. The solution is to find ways to make good music that people are interested in hearing.
posted by Urbie at 8:25 AM
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