The other day I was teaching a student the chords to "Minor Swing" by Django Reinhardt. You know, those minor 6th gems that bring out the sadness and terror we experience in life. She likes the song, calls it "the spooky jazz song" and while she is reluctant to improvise, every time she does she says: "now that wasn't half as terrible as I thought it would be!" Really, what she does sounds good to me. If she is interested in pursuing it she may become really fabulous at it.
My student is 15. She leans towards Nu Metal but does have broad musical taste. I can feel that resistance to the J word so I told the joke: "How does one make a million dollars in jazz?" We know the punchline but her punchline was far more, well, I agree with her: "Invent a time machine and go back 60 years!"
Ouch. In case you were wondering, the punchline is "start with 2 million."
So I come across these dialogues many times over. "Why isn't jazz more popular today?" and they almost always degenerate to picking on Wynton, Kenny G, Jazz Education, lack of education, people are stupid nowadays and don't have good taste. Lady Gaga ate up all the funding. Sour grapes and more sour grapes. I have yet to hear one discussion where someone actually ask a young person.
No, I don't think we live in stupider times. I think we live in times where stupidity is simply way more accessible now thanks to the internet. People like stupid things it seems. Look here on Facebook at all the stupid, mean and idiotic things folks share with one another. People have always been a mixture of love and meanness. I don't blame the state of the world on the state of jazz. And really, we haven't changed all that much in the last many thousand years except with what fast food is doing to our bodies!
I can remember seeing a jazz concert that struck me as hilarious. It was at Berklee with Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Hiram Bullock and I forget who drummed. During the daytime they gave a group "town hall" style talk. Somebody asked Hiram about his practice habits. His reply was "I don't practice, next question?" One upset student stood up and whined "but John Scofield was here last year and said to practice practice practice!" Hirams reply was: "Well, that's good for him. Me? I play all day and all night. I'm always playing, sessions, shows, I play and I don't have time to practice."
Here lies one key. He was constantly connecting to other people. It is important to practice to a point but at some time you learn better by simply playing. One thing you learn is how to connect to your audience. I can't imagine the mothers and fathers of jazz had as much time to practice as players do today since they tended to be on the road all the time......60+years ago says the kid with the time machine.
Another kid asked the panel something about the state of jazz. Hiram replied "Jazz is dead". You could cut the tension in the air with a steak knife. This was his statement, and it is true for him. Tell a room full of young people whose parents are paying through the nose for you to be in a jazz school and, well, them's fightin' words! Who cares what he thinks? But people were there to find answers. To find reasons for choosing the life they were choosing. The trumpet player whose name I can't remember said "I don't think jazz is dead" and the whole audience erupted into applause. Me? I was laughing my ass off. The whole thing was so funny to me.
Then there was the concert....Oh dear. Ok. Not at al a fan of the 80's chorused out sounds on stage and the cheeseball music. In fact it was awful and I wondered what the hell I'm doing at this school but, Hiram jumped into the audience, ran up and down the aisles and did a backflip onto the stage. That was tight! Much of the audience gasped in horror.
For the following year that concert was talked about. "That was behavior not becoming of a jazz concert!" I heard one guy say speaking of Hiram. Ha!!!! That was echoed over an over again.
When did jazz become so....classical? Rock is becoming that way too now. It's weird man. No wonder kids aren't excited by the vibe.
I don't blame the musicians entirely, the audiences are just as much a part of the problem. I've been to many concerts where people try to silence a talker even at free jazz events. I had the great opportunity to see David Murray in Baltimore where the audience was largely black. Best concert ever and not even so much because the band was amazing, the audience was alive with love. His first 10 notes and people responded "TELL IT NOW!" "Mmmm HmMMM!" We are humans. We are noisy. Even in the 40's with the Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts the critics hated the noisy audiences. I would have loved to experience that in my time machine! Ever listen to an old live recording? The players often are hollering at one another enthusiastically. They were....entertainers. As an audience member, I love that. The teenager in me NEEDS that! I've had friends at my shows get upset at talkers and people who walk out. Hey, if they don't dig it I'm glad they can walk and make room for the cat who does dig it. And I'm here to compel silence, not demand it. If they are talking that is a part of the music. And if I want quiet and I'm not getting it, that is my failure. My responsibility. I don't blame the world of pop music on this.
So back on subject. When I was auditioning for schools back in '86 I'll never forget walking into the front hall of Shenandoah Conservatory with my brother. They had a jazz group playing the most bland, horrible sounding adult contemporary drivel I could imagine at the time. The players were barely out of short pants themselves and my 18 year old hormone driven self was like "what the hell is this?" This was the Reagan 80's and I wanted them to end. My bro and I looked at each other in horror and confusion. "This is what Reagan was doing to young people". I wanted no part in it. Which was sad cause I loved me some Trane, Miles and all those cats hanging around 60 years ago. There was nothing this music could do to help my hormone situation out, nothing hip or cool about it. It was safe, dis-honest and shut down.
So if I were to ask myself as a teenager "how does one make a million dollars in jazz?", sadly my answer may be the same as my students. Make a time machine and go back to when it was alive and relevant. Oof. Or maybe just do it once more....with feeling this time.
J
A message to just be cool and handle life with care.
