Elevator Music For The Ivory Tower
My friend Bill Brownlee is an eternal optimist regarding the state of jazz music in general and the health of the scene in Kansas City in particular, and I have a great deal of respect for that. He also has a few more years on me with regard to his knowledge and firsthand experience on the topic as well, and because of that I value his opinion tremendously.
[Cruise over to his personal blog, his MP3 blog or his jazz blog should you want to blow a couple of hours. I can get lost in any one of those sites.]
Anyway, yesterday Bill pointed to an interview with trumpeter Randy Brecker that appeared in the KC Star recently and made particular note of the following quote:
“I used to play on sessions literally every day,” he said. “I just found a couple of my old datebooks from the ’70s. I was shocked to see how often I worked in those days.” … “Luckily I was able to have my foot in the door in several places. … I was doing a lot of education things, and I got in on the ground floor as far as that’s concerned. It’s taken off exponentially. Now the biggest part of the jazz community is in colleges.” [emphasis mine]
While I agree with Brecker’s statement, it reflects a certain sad reality. It signals that jazz has less mainstream cultural relevance than ever before. The snobs and snoots have transformed a musical form that has deep roots in folk forms into academic masturbation, that it requires some sort of formal training or musical sophistication to understand and enjoy. Jazz is less about public performance and more about preservation and propagation of “traditional” performance practices akin to the Western classical music tradition.
While I will rail against this attitude with every breath in my body, you don’t have to look much further than the ever-slumping sales for new jazz releases to know that this fight is like pushing water uphill.
I suppose I should be grateful that jazz as an artform isn’t entirely extinct. But if it just ends up as a stuffed museum piece or (as the title to this post suggest) as elevator music for the ivory tower, it might as well be.
I’ll have to send you a copy of this essay by poet Philip Larkin called “All What Jazz” in which he discusses this very thing quite compellingly. Can’t find a copy online… He says academics make jazz (and poetry) that only they can understand, so you must pay them to explain it to you. Kind of a circle jerk, to continue your academic masturbation metaphor.
Ooh, yeah. Do send that my way.
Just to riff on some notes made by HIB(Brownlee)
Herbie Hancock left the world of academics but one course shy of a degree in music at Grinnell. He was later given a degree honorarily.
Cyrus Chestnut earned his degree in jazz composition at Berkely.
Kevin Mahogany studied at Baker University.
Wynton spent two years at Juilliard.
It is not academics stealing the soul of jazz.
Great points, UL. Definitely not saying that it’s the academy that’s stealing the soul of jazz, but rather those academics (critics, writers and — in some cases — the musicians themselves) that insist on talking about their art as if it is supposed to be out of reach of the common listener…that it’s an acquired taste or special training is required to fully appreciate it. Screw that.
Quite the contrary, the academy is probably the sole reason why jazz persists as an art today. I’m just continually disappointed that jazz’s relevance to the mainstream has been lost.
Then again, this year’s Grammy Awards and Herbie Hancock’s surprise win for Album of the Year shows that there is still hope. While the recognition is wonderful, it’s Herbie’s effort that should be applauded. Using a more contemporary songbook and enlisting the support of acclaimed and pop-oriented vocalists, Hancock reminds us all of the approachability the music can have without sacrificing anything along the way.