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Can Michelle Save Jazz?
Kevin Lamarque, Reuters / Landov
On the same day the first lady hosted jazz greats at the White House last week, a new study found the art form is dying. Judith H. Dobrzynski asks: Can Michelle make jazz cool again?
Shortly after first lady Michelle Obama presided over a “jazz studio” in the White House last Monday, telling everyone that “the understanding and appreciation of jazz is integral to understanding and appreciating American history and culture,” a somewhat-contradictory message was coming from a government agency five blocks away. The audience for what she called “America’s music” is shrinking, fast, according to a study released late that same day by the National Endowment for the Arts.
We’re all used to hearing dire reports that attendance at the ballet, the opera, the legitimate theater is down. But jazz? Since the NEA began studying arts participation in 1982, jazz is the one performing art that had enjoyed steady increases.
The Obamas, being way more cool, would have a much bigger impact with young people—they could help replace jazz’s aging audience.
Yet sometime during the last six years (when the last count was taken) that trend reversed. The music that drew more than one out of 10 Americans out of their homes to concert or club sessions in 2002 attracted only 7.8 percent of us last year. Worse, jazz, which had always appealed strongly to the 18- to 24-year-old demographic, is now luring an older crowd: The median age of jazz consumers jumped from 29 in 1982 to 46 last year.
Mrs. Obama is, uh, 45. Still, wearing a white ensemble at the June 15 performance in the East Room, she looked like an angel to jazz buffs. She talked about the way her maternal grandfather, “South Side,” blasted the music throughout his home—“At Christmas, birthdays, Easter, it didn't matter, there was jazz playing in our household”—and she called out “salt peanuts” along with the crowd during the chorus of the Dizzy Gillespie song of that name.
“I just loved it,” says music producer and teacher Howard Mandel, the author of Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz and senior editor of The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues. As he watched a video clip of the June 15 event, he says, “I’m from the South Side, and I started crying. What she’s doing is great.”
Even before the NEA announcement, 2009 was shaping up as a difficult year for jazz. JVC jazz festivals in New York, Miami, and Chicago have been canceled. Early this month, JazzTimes, a 38-year-old monthly magazine, stopped publishing, at least “temporarily” while it regroups. In New York, the center of the jazz universe, Midtown clubs like Iridium and Birdland and downtown landmarks like the Blue Note and the Village Vanguard are doing OK—but are dependent on the wavering tourist trade to complement their steady, local constituency. “If you book the right acts, people will come out to see them,” says Jonathan Kantor, Blue Note’s marketing director, even while conceding that his audience is mature.
Smaller New York clubs, unable to cover costs simply with drink tabs during the week, are hurting more. One, Cachaca, closed in mid-March, partly because of rising rents. If the NEA's age and audience numbers are projected forward, these troubles are going to increase.
It’s true, young people aren’t completely absent. Some clubs catering to college-age kids are jammed on weekends. “Business is the best it’s ever been,” says Charles Brown, a manager at one of them, Fat Cat, in Greenwich Village. “It’s a community down here.”
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exploora
I think what happens, if a person who wouldn't normally get exposed to jazz becomes curious due to Michelle's introduction of musicians she could help to inspire interest. I think people though need some disposable money or vouchers to buy the music. People don't buy music the way they used. When I was a kid, I would save up get an album once a month. I think now people get songs off the internet, not whole albums. I might be wrong. I think people buy songs now and then it is harder to learn to appreciate musicians individually. Getting the whole album, looking at the album cover, that is a lot different, than just buying one song and possibly going to the artist's web site. Concerts and cds are a lot more expensive now.
I am starting to like classical music, I actually own a couple of CDs now, and have some the tunes on my mp3 player.
exploora
I also think some clubs and restaurants that have musicians play, turn the music up way too loud.
It is a danger to a person's hearing if it is too loud, and it is no longer background music. Whereas when they play music from the radio or a cd, they don't turn the volume up as loud, so people can talk to teach other.
I don't think people now really want to make things nice the way they used to. It seems like more people are money grubbing, looking for ways to charge fees for this and fees for that, and give far less value for what they do and I am not just talking about banks, and of course speudo banks like credit unions which pretend to be for the members, but would take your last thirty dollars too, and don't train their new staff to maintain the relationships they have made with members.
I know in my town it is terrible for being money grubbing, and the talent reflects that whole attitude. People can't get beyond the materialistic to get passionate enough to get good at their art. They think shock is enough.
Everything seems over priced where you go to listen to live music, people are pushing trying to sell you things, and then sometimes they make you feel, as soon as they have your money they want you out of the door, maybe that is why they turn the music up so loud.
The money grubbing mentality I think is just like the way so called democracy has gone, it is more about quantity than quality. and it shows up in everything.
exploora
I think it makes a big difference going somewhere, and there is free wifi, it sounds crazy I think it is true, that having other things to do while listening makes a big difference. In the old days people used to smoke in clubs, it isn't like they were just sitting there doing nothing, now people don't smoke, and technically should have more money if they are working to do more things.
frenchyjoe
Today's Jazz is uninspired. Most Baby Boomers make good instrumentalists but bad musicians playing scales and rhythmnic repetitions. Old Jazz is best - even Dixieland. Maybe the next generation will pick up the torch. In the meantime it's best to go back to old Jazz and Classical music. What a treasure trove they are.
Also Jazz is downgraded when colored people claim it as "their" music as if they invented it. But American music has always been a mixture of influences and peoples and for the Blacks to claim it is to denigrate the contributions of the Whites who have been there from the begining. Maybe in the future when Blacks get over their pride and low self-esteem Jazz can again become a force in American culture.
Ritarita
Wow.
I guess there are still
People like you around.
ajsd76
Huh! Jazz, not invented by black people? Downgraded by the claim of ownership? Do you understand the history of Jazz? Really? You can think whatever you want but that doesn't change the facts. Whites have had a great contribution towards Jazz, and Bill Evans comes to mind, but to denigrate the fact that Jazz was preponderantly a black invention is to decry history at the least, and hint at racism (I'm sorry I have to say this) at worst. Name me 10 artists that come to mind when you think of Jazz...Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Ornette Coleman, Lester Young, Benny Carter...see the pattern...Please accept and acknowledge what is as it is.
Ritarita
That's a great list
But it's just for starters.
And Louis Armstrong should be
Right at the top.
thommie
I would guess that the reason Jazz is beginning to decrease in popularity these days is because many young people, particulary in urban areas, are not exposed to musical instruments in school the way many of us, who are in our 40's or older, were exposed to in school. There has been a steady attack on music and art appreciation in most inner-city schools as a result of "budget cuts", regardless of which party was in office.
As a result of the deprevation of art, music & performing arts in the schools, our kids brillant as they are, created rap which reuses or recycles old music in a new way (our kids were green before it became hip). Having jazz jams is nice but it cannot replace the way you feel when you experience playing an instrument with a group and having that sound be beautiful and appreciated by others--and I might add there is a life lesson in that, team work, blending, harmony and math to boot. If you want to deal with youth violence and other maladies of society, I say we should start by "PUTTING ARTS & MUSIC BACK IN THE SCHOOLS"
janet1003mn
Bingo. Amen. And well said. And may I add that music education, in general, has been proven to improve school performance in other subjects -- particularly mathematics. We used to provide a well-rounded education, understanding that all each subject was important individually, but also in connection to others. What we choose to fund (and not fund) in schools prove that priorities are quite sad, and our children are suffering for it.
exploora
You beat me to it, connecting the math to the music, and of course there is less support for math too even though everything which derives from change is technically a derivative. Currency, futures, to hedge is not a bad thing, i think the best people at business are able to balance the ups and downs with markets that tend to work in opposite situations, so they can compliment risk instead of over regulate risk the way governments tend to do.
cenerentolo
jazz is dying????
HAH!!!!
opera anyone?
joel2400
The melody of jazz is disappearing, being replaced by the technical mastery of the individual performers who are unbelievable players but alienate themselves from the listening audience. The music must come first if you want to keep jazz lovers interested. The same goes for getting our young people involved in the jazz genre.
crnkovic
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." Frank Zappa: Be-Bop Tango (1973)
tbagshaw
Jazz has been left to become a highbrow art form that is now taught in the collages and university's. Musicians a now learn there skills in "Jazz School" Nobody starts from the bottom and learn there playing skills from going to jam sessions or from there elders. Thats why jazz does smell a little funny at the moment and will for a long time to come the new stuff is a little stale in some cases or sounds a bit to academic. Most of the best new players seem to gravitate towards playing with the last of the elder states men still playing ( Brian Blade with Wayne Shorter anyone?). Awareness is always good but it may take a more than Mrs.Obama to revive this great music that it founding country has forgotten.
Ritarita
Still you have to admire her
For doing it-
And don't underestimate the power of FLOTUS.
She puts on a sweater and it sells out
In 30 minutes.
She's now the most photographed
Woman in the world.
If she likes jazz so will a LOT
Of other people.
downbytheriver00
I don't know why Jazz no longer sees the popularity it used to. Like everything else I'm sure it's due to a variety of things, but the one that irks me is that it seems that the vocalist has been pretty much dead on the jazz scene for decades, and I'll bet this has a lot to do with it's lack of appeal to the younger set. The human voice is naturally easier to bring emotion to the performance as compared to any instrument, and more importantly the emotion that is brought through the human voice is so much more understandable by the average listener, yet most modern jazz is devoid of voice. Some of the best recordings in the history of music are of Billie Holiday who was able to tell so much through her voice. My personal favorite jazz recording of all time is Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane doing "My One and Only Love". Coltrane, as usual, is his unbelievable self, but Johnny Hartman's voice in that song is so pure and so true and sounds as if God himself is singing. It is the most beautiful and haunting sound I have ever heard in a recorded song. Bring a singer with the quality of Johnny Hartman into jazz again and I've got to believe at least some of the younger set will notice (if properly marketed).
As far as The First Lady's efforts, I say "You go Girl!". I love jazz and want to see it prosper, especially since it is the real original American art form (if I may be a bit jingoistic!)
ajsd76
Ritarita,
Thanks for mentioning Louis Armstrong...funny thing is, he was the one that I had an intention to start with in the list. And as you put, that's just for starters...
exploora
I went to one school where playing the recorder was madority, and though, and we practiced a song for a few weeks, for twenty minutes, not long. Studying music does not have to be expensive. Of course having a full symphony for a school band would be ideal, but to cut music out of school I think is as stupid as blocking an entrance off a main road into a business, and expecting everything to be the same for the economy. Take away the sense of rhythm and harmony, and then what do you have left, a sense of depth is gone and it shows up all the time.
ftapache
Jazz Is not dying. Jazz Is dying on the radio. Jazz is all over the internet, it is an integral part of our school system, it is in commercials and provides the backdrop for many movies. Jazz needs a greater presence on terrestrial radio where it is rapidly losing ground to news, opinion and any variety of talk shows. We need more music and less talk to wash away the dust of everyday life we face in today's world. Again, jazz is not dying. Thanks Michelle Obama for standing up. Now will someone make Quincy Jones our culture czar and spread our American art form around the world as well as here at home!?
Jannula
Jazz is nonmusical. It is a jumble of notes without rhyme or reason. It does not soothe you but makes a person nervous. I do not like to listen to jazz because I do not like it. I like music which is melodious and easy to listen to. Just because Mich Obama likes it and wants to revive it is not going to change my mind. Now the Obama's want to jam Jazz down our throats. Well, not here! It is a waste of time and Jazz can die for all I care. Hard Core Jazz is a Cacophony and a real waste. Anyone who listens to that noise does not appreciate real music. High class music.
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