Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Jazz is withering away in america

Ellis with Jason:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh1uymlSZs4

The one I am least familiar with is Delfeayo, but I have heard all of them, including Ellis. Delfeayo use to play with Elvin Jones.

I think Delfeayo concentrates more on producing than playing. Have you seen the Marsalis family special show? All the brothers played to honor Ellis' retirement. Harry Connick Jr plays too, does a duet with Ellis of Caravan.

That clip is from the show, lots of it on youtube.

thank you AJF for the exceptionally detailed response.

I also love everyone's enthusiasm, thank you.

I just wanted to mention again that I am from America, and that to hear Jazz on the radio I have to tune into a Canadian station. I am unaware of Jazz music popularity anywhere else because I don't really know people, or experienced gigs, etc. outside of my country.

I've been to a colored jazz musicians club in Buffalo, NY recently on Broadway, and I can say that no one was my age.

I can't believe I'm about to defend one of Gyro's statements, but here it is... I think it's telling that a non-fan of jazz thinks it all sounds the same.

Wizard, you mentioned a handful of top-tier pianists with distinctive voices to illustrate the diversity of jazz styles... but these cats are really the exception. These guys are the museum pieces, the masters whom everyone imitates. This holds true to a lesser extent for the second-tier cats (Brad Meldau, et al).

Let me suggest a categorization, a taxonomy of the surviving species of jazz:

The top guys -the stars- exist in a somewhat untouchable realm. They are visible to a large audience, and they play festivals and big clubs, and they get paid well. You are unlikely to find them at a jam session. As the Masters like Oscar pass away, is their niche filled by the next generation like Hiromi and Brad Meldau? It is uncertain. This jazz is alive, but it is stuck on a pedestal.

But the jazz stars are a very small fraction of the whole culture that is- or used to be- jazz: The small clubs, The after-hours jam sessions, The streets, The gigs that the masses of players in New York City do every night. Especially the jam sessions. At most of the jam sessions, there is a palpable pressure to play a certain vocabulary, to demonstrate all those Charlie Parker licks you learned in every key. The jam sessions are alive, underground, in the big jazz cities, and with occasional occurrences in small cities. Alive, but not the hotbed of innovation they should be. The pressure is to look to the past for vocabulary.

Then there's the music schools, teaching generations of young players the same standard bag of tricks. There's "The Jazz Piano Book" teaching everyone the same rootless voicings. And there are the Wyntons of the world saying that X is jazz while Y is not, preserving it in a glass case so it won't change. This jazz has been embalmed.

Moving outside the major jazz cities like NY, and outside of academic circles, and aside from the top-tier jazz superstars, what is left of jazz? Where is someone like Gyro- who is clearly not a jazz aficionado- likely to hear live jazz? I'll answer that question: in a restaurant, as background music. In a restaurant whose owner wants quiet, undisturbing jazz that is good for the digestion, and that won't distract people from their conversations. This branch of jazz has been restaurant-ified.


The four main species of jazz:

1. Jazz Stars.

2. Academia/Preservationists.

3. Small Clubs/Jam Sessions/The Streets.

4. Restaurant Jazz.


Much jazz either looks backwards and plays the old standards, or has moved forward and become so rarified and clever that it has severed it's ties with popular culture completely. There are attempts to make exceptions like Herbie's "The New Standard" and Brad Meldau playing Radiohead and Nirvana, but IMO they fall short. It no longer has strong ties with popular culture as it once did.

We used to have the most wonderful jazz station in San Francisco, KJAZ (Alameda, actually, if I remember--- across the bay). Oh, how I have missed it. But, College of San Mateo's radio station, KCSM has stepped up to somewhat fill its place; it even employs some of the former KJAZ staff.

It is streamed live on the web, http://kcsm.org/ . I don't doubt there are others, if one knew how to find them.

This new jazz performance venue in San Francisco is an interesting development. Of course, finding a place to go to hear music live is always the problem in the crowded and expensive big cities. The downtown location is very prominent--- I can't think what they have knocked down to make room for it on the 200 block of Franklin Street, but at least there are the two big parking garages nearby, at Civic Center and Performing Arts Center. That is always the big pinch for any new construction in SF (that, and coming up with the cabbage to afford it).

Long ago and far away now, but my favorite place of all was a smoky little trollhole off Central Square in Cambridge, where I used to stop off late at night after work. No cover, or minimal; couple of beers got you in. No, they didn't have the top talent and it was so smoky you would have thought it was on fire, but somehow I just really loved that place.

I don't know about withering, but this stuff has always been something you had to make the effort to find--- it doesn't scream at you from behind every television commercial. Yet it lacks the chicte' (of a sort) of the classical venues, and their funding base... so it's had to struggle along on its own.

Kimball's (the club--- actually, there were two of them) was another kind of favorite jazz spot in SF. Right around the corner from the Opera House. They used to have some great performers. I wonder if it is still there; I'm pretty sure their sister facility in Emeryville is still in business.

I joined a Jazz Meetup in my area last year that had just started up on line, and I was the only member who ever showed up. The meetup was begun by a local jazz group who played at and tried to get people to get together at a local restaurant. It was strange because over 30 people had joined the meetup on line, but nobody ever went to them. One person said on line she thought jazz was "over her head," but said she'd try to go. I think some people do think it's too sophisticated for them. They don't know how down to earth and just plain fun to listen to it can be. There are so many styles of jazz these days, too, so maybe people don't even know what it is anymore. How would you define "jazz"?...improvisation?

I put an ad on craigslist to find folks to play jazz with. I had tons of response. We've been playing every single Monday for the last 6 months or so. People love it.

As far as I'm concerned, Jazz isn't dying, it's blooming!

Gyro

For a non classical music listener, Bach and Vivaldi sounds the same, Beethoven and Schubert sounds the same, Chopin and Lizst would sound the same. It's like saying all Asians look the same,
There is a merit in taking time to appreciate the nuances.

Also how can you discredit nuances in classical music? It's the subtle things you do with dynamics that makes melodies sing. It's how you control the volume on ever note in the chord that makes the wound rich. Or do you prefer an amateur pianist banging the piano playing Lizst with fortissimo and no dynamic contrast?

It's okay to not want to know things but don't let your ignorance be the reason for putting down other people's art, especially since they spent their lifetime on it

I only get spam in response to anything I post on that site -_-.

Knotty, I also want to ask was it hard finding a bassplayer? and other members? or did things come together smoothly. I want a bass player to jam with SOOOO bad

Well, there are plenty of great art music out there that are pretty much invisible outside the small circles that are involved in it. It could be Tango, Indian Classic music, or contemporary classical composers like Xenakis, Morten Lauridsen.. etc There are a lot of underground pop artists like that too that still make a living doing stuff outside the mainstream media... just listen to "morning becomes eclectic".

And the more I pay attention to the scene the more I realize that there are TONS of great young talents out there, and there have been plenty of great artists who go unnoticed like Clare Fischer, Richie Bierach..etc, and they will always be people like that.

It's like saying rock music is dead.. it's true that it's no longer at its height of popularity, but people still do innovate and the art form will continue to evolve. I feel like people who say jazz or rock or whatever is dead is just romantacizing the past, and putting the past on a pedestal.

I don't think any of these music will disappear, they will all be just small micro-universe existing under-the-radar, and only those who really are affected by it will seek it. I think it's the post-modern world we live in.

I posted an ad on Craig's list (Musicians section) and found a wonderful bass player/singer. He's mostly into the "oldies", but says he has a great interest in learning to play more jazz standards now. I also got one response from someone looking for a keyboardist for their swing band, and the rest were strictly interested in "classic rock".

This is as negative and misguided a response I've had the disappointment of reading on PW.

One thing I noticed is that even in small towns, you will find really great hidden talents. There are some world class, or could have been world class musicians who decided not to choose the path of a performer for different reasons.

Someone mentioned how Terry Trotter decided not to go on the road with Miles Davis because of his family. He is not well known but he is amazing piano player. I had a chance to talk to Josh Nelson a younger guy who took over the accompanying gig with Natalie Cole after Terry stopping doing it. He is brilliant too, but he decided not to go to NY, self-publish his cd and be a relatively unknown player outside his circles.

My point is that there are tons of people like that, and there are probably tons of great young players who is going through the same kind of things Terry Trotter, Alan Broadbent, and Shelly Berg went through years ago.

There is definitely no shortage of great players out there, and frankly it's unfair to compare Chick, Oscar, Herbie to Eldar and Hiromi... because Eldar and Hiromi IMO don't represent the Chick Corea and Oscar Peterson of our generation. Listening to Tigran Hamasyan, Aaaron Parks, Marcin Wasliewski, Adam Benjamin/kneebody (to name a few) gives me a very different perspective on the younger players than listening to the more well known people like Hiromi.

+1, etc.

There are lots of great jazz artists around the country, playing regularly.

>>I only get spam in response to anything I post on that site -_-.
I got very little spam. And the ad and email address they assign is only valid for a short period of time, so this dies quick anyway.

>>Knotty, I also want to ask was it hard finding a bassplayer? and other members? or did things come together smoothly. I want a bass player to jam with SOOOO bad
Very easy. I put an ad, I got replies with 2 days. I told the guy to come play, he came. Very nice dude who's been coming for months now.
After I had a little band set up, I was looking for more, so I put another ad with a sample tape of us playing, and then I got a lot of people that wanted to play. People really really want to play, they don't always find folks to play with, they don't always have a spot where to play. But they want to play.

I have space. I bought a drum set to make it convenient to our drummer. Now we have a regular quintet going, we work on arrangements. We play 2 hours a week, a little bit of wine, lots of fun.

Classical all day and jazz all night
http://www.wrcjfm.org/

Amen!

Gyro has shown in his posts that he knows absolutely nothing about real jazz and hasn't a clue as to how to improvise, which is the spirit of jazz.

So for him to say what he did, take it with a grain of salt cause his ears are pretty much tone deaf when it comes to jazz.

He probably thinks Yanni is the second coming of Duke Ellington!!

Well that's just not possible - Yanni was born in 1954