This past weekend I attended the Chicago Jazz festival. As I looked out at the sea of people I thought about how many consider jazz to be a dead and forgotten art form. The Walrus news magazine wrote an article called "Life after the Death of Jazz" and the Chicago Tribune has written a piece called "The Death of Jazz." This is only to name a few. It is safe to say that the general consensus of researchers is that Jazz has been mostly forgotten. You know that music you have on your ipod that your parents don't understand or like? Whether its rock, pop, rap or electronic music I think you know what I'me talking about. There was a time when jazz was that music. Jazz was that rebellious youthful fad that bonded teenagers like us together at one point. Now of course your thinking, that point has passed, its happened to other musics too. But think about the fact that there are still plenty of people who are really into 80's heavy metal or 70s hip hop. So why is jazz so scarcely appreciated, especially among young people. Guitarist Pat Metheny has the right idea in my opinion, here are his thoughts.
A point Metheny makes is that in all genres there is both good and bad music. However the reason jazz has been forgotten is because it takes more work to discover the good stuff because there is so much bad music surrounding the good music. Furthermore, usually only the bad music is advertised when it comes to jazz. You never see an advertisement for the jazz greats living today like Chris Potter and Nicholas Payton, you have to find that yourself, yet there are commercials advertising the music of Kenny G. The reality is good jazz is hard to find, and Americans don't want to do the work to find it, because music is about pleasure, thus we believe there shouldn't be any work involved. This really got me thinking about the stereotype that Americans are lazy. There is a reason jazz is still popular in almost all other civilized nations but ours. Everything is so simple when it comes to music here. You hear something on mainstream radio, and you can purchase is from your computer or even your smart-phone. With jazz its not that simple. As Metheny points out, you have to talk to people to find good jazz. Americans don't want to do that which in my opinion is why jazz is so under-appreciated in America today.
I would like to first point out that I am no connoisseur of jazz myself and have only heard or different great jazz musicians, but I have never really gotten into that type of music. As a direct result of my ignorance, there are many questions I have about what Pat Metheny says in the video and what Aidan points out in the post.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, after curiously looking up Kenny G and Chris Potter, I could point out the differences in what I heard, but still had trouble understanding exactly why Kenny G is considered a mortal sin to real jazz enthusiasts. To someone like me, Kenny G seems like a talented saxophone player with really over-embellished synthesizers and kind of a resort-lobby sounding vibe.
My guess to the solution of my lack of understanding would be that his music isn’t really jazz, but more of its own genre (a genre that jazz aficionados would call elevator music I would imagine.) But even though his music isn’t really jazz, is it still considered really bad all by itself?
Music long outlives it's creators. For example Beethoven and Bach died long ago yet we still appreciate their music. Although my knowledge of jazz is very limited (elevator music even though I'm told it's not real jazz and whatever i have been told by my musician friends)I would say it is fair to assume that the equally great jazz musicians will have their pieces remembered in the future along with the other great musicians.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem I can see with jazz "dying" is that it lacks the publicity that more modern music gets. No jazz musician makes the front page or is in the nightly news(usually). If there were even just a little more publicity towards a younger crowd then jazz could quickly regain it's stature as a great and popular form of music.