|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
71.241.219.236
It seems like more jazz is being recorded and released these days than anytime in the last forty years. I assume that someone must be buying these releases but aside from a tiny handful of "big name" musicians IME the live audience usually seems to be twenty or thirty to maybe seventy people, the same as it has been for the last forty years. There is also a conspicuous lack of venues outside of America's three largest cities plus maybe three or four others. To make matters worse a huge chunk of those venues book primarily only the safest and often the blandest music. Is this simply an issue of lack of exposure? It seems that even the most abrasive and "difficult" rock forms can draw more people in more towns and have more venue options.
Follow Ups:
In the biggest nearby city to us ( Edmonton) there is a 9 day long Jazz fest , that consists of many jazz bands in locations all over the city , many of them in bar's , tickets are often sold out a year in advance an the places are always full . I look forward to it all year long . Many friends take there holidays then so they can go hard .
Living in NYC I see/hear lots of jazz.
I have seen a slight decline in attendance for some of the annual festivals I attend. But on the other hand, there are a lot more 'new' venues for jazz, mostly in Brooklyn and most are smaller spaces, which I think is a good thing...jazz is not for stadiums and massive Halls, unless we are looking at Big Band and Orchestras of course.
I have seen a fair number of young people (under 35-40) coming out to hear the music. So I think there is continuing lineage for the jazz tradition.
And there are so many new music out, technology makes the process of recording/releasing quality music so easy...well at least easier(maybe cheaper too) than a few decades ago.
CyberWorld is now the home of the self produced/promoted artist.
Jazz is alive and well. Long live Jazz!
I barely get out of Manhattan to hear jazz.
Puppets Jazz - 5th Ave/12th St
Tea Lounge - 7th Ave/Union - different modern big bands every Monday night no cover (pssst Rick...)
Brooklyn Lyceum - 4th Ave/Union - Sundays and Wednesdays
Sycamore - Cortelyou/Westminster - Sundays (full disclosure - I'm part of the organization that puts this on)
Douglass St. Music Collective - Douglass/3rd Ave
Those are all pretty good bets for modern current stuff, for other styles there are other places. I'd be happy to make a specific recommendation any time, drop me a line and let me know what you're looking for at dave at davesmithtrumpet dot com.
Here......
"Is this simply an issue of lack of exposure?"
Exactly.......
The masses are dealt a constant stream of Kanye West, the Black Eyed Peas, and Linkin' Park.......... They've never heard of Pat Metheny or Brad Mehldau like they've never heard of Beethoven or Liszt..........
YouTube has helped to a degree, but people still need to be made aware that there's music beyond the realm of modern pop and American Idol. But since the mainstream media would rather have mind control over the masses, alternative entertainment to this audience is and will continue to be a pipe dream.
Interesting article in the LA Times on arts attendance. It focuses on a pair of studies, one of which links decline in attendance at arts events (of all kinds, not just jazz) to the defunding of arts programs in schools that began around 1972. The other suggests that the dearth of younger people at arts events is a product of there being fewer younger people now relative to the total population and that the real problem is the lack of arts "omnivores" who attend all sorts of events and who used to account for some 60% of ticket sales.
All pretty interesting, as are some of the further observations about how race and income play into this. But none of it addresses what I think is the fundamental phenomenon: basically, people are spending a lot of time online, playing computer games and visiting social media, and watching their hi-def big screens, and they're not spending as much time learning to play instruments, listening to sound-only recordings, or going out to hear live music.
I think a lot of analysis misses for the forest for the trees here. People look at jazz clubs closing down and they say, "what's wrong with jazz?" Or they look at orchestras going broke and they say "why is classical music declining?" If you step back far enough to look at the big picture, you realize that a lot of things, from television viewership to visits to our national parks, are way down over the last 10-15 years. To me, it seems obvious what's changed: people are living their lives online, spending hours every day in front of flickering screens, and there are quite a few things they used to do that they aren't doing as much anymore.
All of this hits jazz especially hard, partly the jazz economy (ha! that phrase always make me laugh) was so small to begin with that once you decline by a few percentage points, you're left with practically nothing, but also because the soul of jazz is live performance. More than any other genre, jazz needs to be played and heard live.
But, as Yogi said, if the people won't come, you can't stop 'em.`
I remember this like it was yesterday....... Sometime in the late 1960s, network TV used to air both jazz and symphony concerts in prime time....... Then suddenly, for seemingly no reason, the programs stopped, and stopped completely. As a young child at the time, I couldn't understand why my favorite music shows were taken away.........
Something happened in the late 1960s with network television, and IMO, music, in all facets and genres, declined since that time. Classical, jazz, and even rock.
... and a reflection of what little value society places on music.
I think until about the mid '70s, there was a sense that the arts had some importance in our culture. Up to that time, pretty much every school had a music program, as well as programs in theater and visual arts. In fact, some of the poorest schools had some of the best programs. But beginning in the late '70s, what we might call the "taxpayers revolt" started, and the defunding of schools began, and the arts were immediately deemed as something that could be cut to save money. So music went from being something that every educated person would know something about to ... I dunno, a distraction from "important stuff" like math and business and a luxury to be indulged in by those with the private funds and the time.
TV reflects this. There was a time when major networks thought they had a responsibility to broadcast weekly performances by Toscanini, Bernstein, etc. These days, we're lucky if we can get an orchestra concert two or three times a year on PBS.
I believe that network television does not reflect societal tastes, it *dictates* societal tastes.People have been conditioned to follow the crowd, and too often, the network media *defines* that crowd. In the vision of its executives. Creating an illusion of "popularity", *before* the product actually gets popular. (The Grammy Awards has become a prime example of this. The music used in ads during nationally-televised events is another.)
If I were King, I’d break up the alphabet and cable networks, and have the local networks fend for themselves. Any national news and events should be gathered by these local networks on their own volition. And since local networks cannot dictate what the public likes (unless there is mass collusion), it will in time start reflecting public sentiment again.
And believe me, if some jazz or classical concerts were present on accessible TV, and people in good numbers get a chance to access it, I really think this type of music could once again gain popularity on its own merit. (The problem is with the current media, such exposure would kill shows like American Idol. And maybe even diminish some of its prefabricated "stars".)
Edits: 03/23/11
Here is the long explanation:
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Grown-Up-Americas-Development-Civilization/dp/0312340486
The short version is that the general American public stopped growing up about 50 years ago.
I don't think jazz has often had a relatively large audience.
Everyone I know who was into jazz is still into it, listening and playing (where there's an opportunity).
Very few musicians working (for money) steadily anymore, but even then they're not really playing jazz. They're playing what the customers want, and that is usually pop crap.
The best jazz musicians I know, or know of, are teaching.
The jazz audience is in the old folks home. I go to the Vision Festival every year in New York. It is the leading festival for "free jazz" (I hate that label, and wish it could be avoided, but is "creative music" really any better?) in the States. I'm 51, and I'm probably in the lower half of the audience demographic.
Young "hip" audiences have no interest in jazz, unless is the most retro and dare I say the "whitest" that is available. Here in New Orleans, there has been a huge grassroots revival of interest in "traditional" jazz among the hipster set who have settled here post Katrina, yet this audience displays no interest in going to hear the masters of traditional New Orleans music that still play here. There attention is solely with their peers performing mundane versions of commercial tunes from the 20's. It is as if we are now in a parallel universe in which Paul Whiteman really was the "King of Jazz." The key I think is that younger audiences are not searching for challenges from music, whether intellectual, spiritual, physical, or emotional, so this leaves jazz (in all its outward forms–trad, be-bop, fusion, free, post-modern, etc.) out in the cold. And without a younger audience (those with free time if not money) there is no real audience.
Yes, there are plenty of jazz gigs (probably the vast majority) where the mean age of the audience is probably in their 50s or 60s but it isn't always the case. I've been to a number of gigs where the mean age was probably more like 35 or even younger. The younger demographic performances were almost all in non-"jazz club" venues, the exception being the late Fred Anderson's old Velvet Lounge in Chicago which was anything but staid. I do think it helps to attract this audience if the musicians are closer to their age but I've also heard them roar with approval for guys like Peter Brotzmann.
People from NYC, Boston, Hartford, Philly and Chicago need to weigh-in but my sense is that the audience for Mary Halvorson, Jon Irabagon, Adam Lane, etc. is not entirely and perhaps not even mostly, old white guys.Much as I hate to acknowledge it I'm starting to think that old white guys (like me) may be part of the problem: if you're twenty or even thirty a venue populated mostly by paunchy old guys with grey hair doesn't exactly seem like a place you want to be.
Edits: 03/21/11
Firehouse 12 in CT is alive and well.......
They book interesting (at least to me) musicians and 75 seats is a size that makes some sense. Are there cheaper (cover) and maybe grittier venues in New Haven or Hartford or Bridgeport they compete with?
All shapes and sizes. Not for the over 65 crowd that wants to be able to talk with music in the background......Not for tourist either.....
One of the problem with jazz since bebop came along is that it has become
ever less accessible to the general public. Players like Harry Connick
and Diana Krall who work hard to make it accessible - i.e.,
understandable to the not-musically-trained listener - do just fine.
MK
People have often said that bebop or free jazz or whatever moved the music away from audience tastes, but the fact is that during every era--including today-- there have been musicians performing jazz of every imaginable style. Audiences have always had a wide range of choices, and never more so than now.
Let's take the 1960s, just for the sake of example. Many people have written that the free jazz of that era was responsible for driving audiences away. And to a certain degree, I would agree: it seems obvious that the 'free' music of Cecil Taylor or Albert Ayler isn't going to pack the dancefloors or wind up on juke boxes. But it wasn't as if all other forms of jazz disappeared during that era. On the contrary, Louis Armstrong was still going strong, as were Duke, Count Basie, Woody Herman, Ella, Monk, Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Horace Silver, etc etc etc. The whole "free jazz killed the jazz audience" overlooks all of this, and assumes that free jazz was the only choice, and once people rejected it, jazz was done. But people had plenty of choices other than free jazz.
Fast forward to now. I would say we live in a time when there is more music of more genres available to more people than at any time in history. And yet, judging by the sales of recordings and concert tickets, people are consuming less of it than they used to. Why?
I don't think it's a matter of music being accessible: any style you want, seek and ye shall find. But people aren't seeking as much as they used to. Where during the '90s it wasn't uncommon for a top-selling CD to sell more than 1 million in a week, these days you can top the billboard charts by selling 40,000. The concert business is way down, too: orchestras are going bankrupt all over the country, live music clubs (for all genres, not just jazz) are becoming fewer and fewer, and the only rock bands that pack arenas are the aging boomer bands that made their names decades ago. The music business, as a whole, is circling the drain, not just jazz.
Like all 'serious' music, jazz is always going to be a niche market, and it's always going to have a smaller piece of the pie than the Kanye Wests and Taylor Swifts of a given era. When the pie gets smaller, jazz's piece shrinks along with everyone else's.
nt
BTW, lots and lots of music out there today.....it is hard to keep up.
nt
I don't actively dislike Diana Krall or Harry Connick but I don't find them very interesting either. I don't expect jazz to attract a mass audience but it would be nice if it could reliably attract 100 - 200 people in most cities in America of more than say 170,000. I don't think dumbing down the music or marketing on the physical appearance of the performers is an answer.
nt
Deleted old moniker out of interest in not contributing to Rod's site but found myself making comments anyway. Hope you're well.
Edits: 03/21/11
Have not forgotten about the LPs for you and others...sitting in a stack...I have at least set them aside! I picked up three of four BJU titles....all very good music...The Ben Wendel date is excellent. Rhagavan is a hell of a bass player....
Hey Geo, are you giving away or selling your records?
giving some away.....shoot me your address......
Thanks, you've got mail... I hope everything is okay.
Cool, I still have my VPI :)
I don't have the Ben Wendel one, I should get it. Yes Rhagavan is great, played with him once at a session before I knew who he was and he floored me.
I'll tell them you're happy :)
send me your mailing address by PM and I will send some records to you....
Until Yoshi's, and excellent Oakland club, opened Yoshi's San Francisco a few years ago. Unfortunately, not enough people turned out, and Yoshi's now books a combination of jazz, world music, not-quite-jazz vocalists and so on. Sad.
Yep, but two decades ago, actually more like four, there was the Blackhawk, The Jazz Workshop, Both/And, and Keystone Korner. In that chronological order, I think. Went to the Blackhawk, twice- saw George Shearing and Cal Tjader- before it closed. The Workshop tons of times. Like wise the Both/And which was nearby for me, and Keystone Korner maybe a half dozen. With the tax dollars the city takes in from tourism, they oughta subsidize The Jazz Workshop and farm out booking and running. Cannonball was playing one night and Carmen McRae was sitting right behind me. She was gigging at Sugar Hill across the street. Yep, I have that album. Once, I was seated at a table so close to the stage I could have reached out and touched the bell of Coltrane's tenor had I wanted to. Traded some albums to the owner of Both/And for lifetime free admission. Good times. I miss them madly.
Edits: 03/21/11
Looking at the calendar of Avram Shelton (sort of picked at random but I knew he had California connections) he has played at Mama Buzz, the Uptown and Disco Volante in Oakland, the Ivy Room in Albany and the Makeout Room and the Luggage Store in SF all within the past six months or so. I know nothing about these venues or how successfully he is making even marginal a living but the fact that he has opportunities to play argues to me that the Bay area is doing much better than most American urban areas.
In Chicago it has been rock bars, coffee houses, bookstores, galleries, lofts, dive bars, etc. that have provided venues for most of the younger (both audience and musicians) jazz crowd. Despite rapidly approaching geezerhood I actually tend to like these sorts of places and small (100 - 400 capacities) halls better than the often expensive, conservative and stuffy "major jazz clubs".
I suspect that in addition to these sorts of venues the existence of community radio or college stations that program jazz in non-"preaching to the choir" contexts can help to build an audience.
I totally understand that musicians in their forties, fifties and sixties may not be overly excited about gigs where they might only take home $50 to $100 each or in touring out of van but if the younger guys can do this it might ultimately be good for everyone.
I think that depends on what you consider "major" and what you consider "jazz." Places like Jazz at Pearl's were open throughout that period, but I guess that wasn't big enough to be "major," since they generally presented local musicians. And places like the Elbo Room, which is bigger than Yoshi's, presented a lot of "acid jazz" stuff during the '90s (as well as some straightahead jazz groups like Black Note). And there have been lots of others that came and went over the course of a year or two.
And then there's the SFJazz Festival, probably the best ongoing presenter of jazz outside of NYC, which has presented pretty much any artist you can name in venues around the city for at least 20 years. I guess they don't count as a "major club" since they use places like Herbst Theater, but that's going to change as they're in the process of building their own venue.
But... yeah. The live music biz as a whole has been shrinking over the course three decades or so. There aren't as many jazz clubs, but then there aren't as many rock clubs, or blues clubs, or folk clubs, either. A friend of mine puts it down to the tougher drunk driving laws: you can't really go out and have a few drinks, catch some music, and then drive home anymore, which is a good thing, I suppose. I think that's a factor, and a big factor in some areas, but I also think it's technology: computers and home entertainment centers. People would rather stay home and look at flickering screens. It's especially bad for jazz, because the only way to practice the art form is to play, play, play in live situations, and those situations are few and far between these days.
to a club that booked national/New York performers, such as Todd Barken did before he imploded. Yes, thank Dog for the SF Jazz Festival, pretty grim without it.
that would normally play at a club or smallish hall (such as Herbst Theater).
Over the past 15 years the SFJazz Fest has expanded to practically a full year program, and I'm sure most of the acts they sign (many now that are non- jazz)
have contract stipulations preventing performing at other venues within certain time frames, which lessens available "name" draws for what few clubs remain - jazz or otherwise.
There's only ever been so many "jazz" clubs in SF over the past 30 years (as compared to before that), with only so many local acts playing them. Previously there were enough touring acts to supplement the locals. I saw Sonny Rollins, Oscar Peterson, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, The Heath Brothers and others at The Great American Music Hall in the 70's and 80's. Not that the GAMH booked local jazz acts though, but I don't believe they book any type of jazz act anymore.
Now, with the SFJazz Fest being so incredibly successful (partially due to having enough foresight and balls to book many non - jazz acts), there's even less touring acts to balance out booking for the few remaining clubs, jazz or not. Of course, there's many other reasons a non profit like the SFJazz Fest has been able to grow and remain successful, but one solid reason is that they haven't depended on jazz alone to survive.
I have lots of friends in rock bands that play plenty around the Bay Area, tour often enough and release a CD or LP every year or so. There's a strong enough scene still for them but of course they aren't in it for the money and they all have day jobs.
I no longer know anyone in a jazz group except one tenor player in a rehearsal band. That's ALL they do...
" Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination." -Michael McClure
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: