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

I don't know how it is anywhere else in the world for the only country I've ever traveled to is Canada.

What I've noticed is the remarkably low interest our nation has in jazz music. I'm 18 years old, and I'm watching my generation get lost and stupefied by the electronic music flooding our radios, with thought-less lyrics.. no emotion.

Jazz is pure emotion, every member of a trio to an orchestra has an important role in captureing the feel and the sound of the song.

A computer does not posses this ability.

What's wrong here? Does anyone have any idea?

Don't upset yourself! Jazz is alive and well. It isn't mainstream, particularly for kids. So what? YOU listen to it, YOU play it. Tell your friends, some will listen.

Get Chick Corea to dress like Lady Gaga and all will be well.

Sometimes it is just a lack of exposure. My best friend has said she probably would not have ever listened to such a wide range of music if it wasn't for me constantly finding stuff and telling her "Hey, listen to this!" when we were teenagers. Twenty years later I'm still doing this to her. Of course, some people will stick with just what's familiar and have no interest going beyond their "genre comfort zone" and that's sad.

I think it is linked to the general decline in music education in the US. Jazz is not accessible to people who aren't musically trained, for the most part. Huge hats made of silver cubes are, though (Lady Gaga).

No, it's just marketing. Kids will crowd a jazz bandstand, swooning at the instrumental solos, if you tell them to. Remember when Frank Sinatra was considered a threat to the morals of American Youth? (Well no, neither do I, but my grandmother told me about it:-) I certainly remember British cinemas being ripped up by kids watching middle-aged men play "trad", basically New Orleans revival music.

I think we like to think that these are unique times, but it's pretty much been like this for jazz since the beginning.
Jazz music lives on the fringes of popular music. The popular music of the 20's, 30's and 40's was what we call jazz but even back then a lot of what was thought of as 'real' jazz was on the fringes--Mary Lou Williams, Elmo Hope, Lennie Tristano, Bird.

Some people would say jazz is popular today. Just look at Diana Krall, Michael Buble, Nora Jones and Kenny G. The thing is that 'real' jazz fans don't consider those artists to be playing 'real' jazz. Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Mingus, Tristano etc etc weren't popular in their day compared to the popular music of the day.

Even many of the people today who say they are jazz fans because they listen to Diana Krall, George Benson, Pat Metheny, Wynton Marsalis and Keith Jarrett's Koln concert haven't even heard of most of the real innovators of today like Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter, Dave Holland, Dave Douglas, Vijay Iyer etc.

Popular music is largely driven by a desire for mass appeal. Jazz is driven mainly by a need for honest self expression and exploration. It wouldn't really make sense for jazz to be widely popular. I demands far too much of the 'not commited' listener. Unless someone is willing to put the time and effort into training their ears and consciousness into BEING able to actually get what's going on in jazz it doesn't make much sense that they'd appreciate it enough to support it. Pop music requires less of it's listener. Push play, feel the groove, relate to the lyrics, there ya go!

Jazz to most people is like Cantonese poetry; it may sound phonetically interesting but who knows what the heck any of it means (unless of course you speak Cantonese:)

This isn't to say you can't have the best of both worlds. It's just really challenging to do with integrity. Some artists manage to do what they do with full self expression AND incorporate elements into their music that has a (relatively) mass appeal. Herbie Hancock has managed to do this by combining his 'heavy' harmonic and rhythmic approach on the piano with pop grooves and pop singers that have mass appeal. It's almost like he's 'sneaking' the jazz into a popular context.

Jazz, to me is a very meditative music. It's asks me to look within. It's rings with every cell in my body and keeps me feeling alive. I've loved this music ever since the very first time I heard it. Why doesn't everyone love it like I do? I don't know--I could speculate but why bother, it isn't going to change things. I love pepperoni, anchovies and green olives on my pizza. My wife hates all three. But she loves Jazz as much as I do. So I feel lucky:)

I read an article about how the average listening age of jazz in the 70s were mid to late 20s and now days its more closer to 40s, which is very similar to the average listening age of classical music. The article went to talk about how jazz nowdays is pretty much considered to be art music.

Well I can say the same thing about classical music.. It really isn't dead, there are a a lot of great composers alive today but you won't know about them and think classical music is dead. The only reason I have some knowledge about that is because I sang in choir in high school and got exposures to works by Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitecare..etc.

I'm currently reading a book of journalism by Humphrey Lyttleton (British jazz band leader, writer and broadcaster for any colonials who might be watching :-) He tells of visiting American jazz stars being given a cool reception by diehard British fans because they put on the sort of entertainment-slanted show that pleased mass audiences in the US, they just didn't take it SERIOUSLY!

I've been at jazz performances (or with jazz fans listening to recordings) who were only interested in the "train-spotting" aspect. The minute a track started they went into earnest discussion of line-up, who'd played with who, what colour socks the drummer was wearing... didn't listen to the music at all!

The pop guys think they're expressing themselves too, you know!

What's wrong with jazz piano in the US is that the same forces that have infected
classical piano have taken hold in jazz piano, that is, the forces that want
everybody to play the same way and sound the same. When everyone sounds
the same, what's the point in listening to it anymore? Jazz and classical piano
becomes an exclusive club this way, where only people who "appreciate" the
technical "nuances" of the performance are "qualified" to listen to it. The audience
gets smaller and smaller over time like this.

First of all, not everyone sounds the same. Second of all, it's not just "these days" that people are taught relatively similar techniques. There has always been a right way of playing piano. Besides, these days, we have more different music than ever to listen to in the ways of jazz and classical, because we have music from all the composers who came before, and those composing now...I don't see why you say it all sounds the same.
It's just that classical isn't the popular music like it was "back then". Mozart was like today's top 20. Now that we have so many styles of music available, it's practically impossible for every style to have extreme popularity.

The world of jazz has never been larger. There are so many exciting different sounding musicians around at the moment its difficult to even know where to start. I don't really go with the theory that says that jazz only appeals to trained musicians as it has been my experience that when people who know nothing about jazz see it live then they quite often like it a lot. The problem is getting them to the gig in the first place. In my opinion the media has a lot to answer for, as without mainstream exposure jazz can never be much more popular than it is now.
General musical education will help as well, and that is in a pretty sad state (in the uk at least). Many people seem to think these days that musical education is really unimportant but they are so wrong in so many ways. I am always shocked that so many people such sheltered lived that they may well have never even listened to a piece of jazz.

Not around here! SF Jazz is building their own theater now.

I like the overhead view at the bottom of the page below. It looks like a shrine to the Grand Piano:

http://www.sfjazz.org/support/sfjazz_center.asp

Jazz will never be as popular as other forms for music because it is difficult to digest for most people. I would guess amongst jazz fans there is a larger percent of people that have direct experience with music (playing an instrument for instance) compared to other forms. You don’t have to play music, but at least it requires an analytical person to fully appreciate the level of musicianship in Jazz.

I agree with you to a point, as indicated by my earlier post which said something similar to what you say. But the posts since then have made me reconsider.

One of the things I've enjoyed most in contemporary jazz is drum solos. I think that you really don't need much training to appreciate rhythmic innovations in particular.

Harmonic innovations are maybe less accessible, but even there, there is an 'innate literacy' (to coin a term) in most humans. It's a language they know but didn't ever have to learn.

To be sure, there is much to be gained with study of rhythm, as with harmonies (and melodies, for that matter, and history, and even biographies). And indeed, for jazz the amount that is gained by this is probably proportionally higher than in the case of more popular music.

Gyro, can you name even ten current jazz pianists who "sound the same"? You are either full of it and don't listen to jazz, or your ears so bad that you can't distinguish between players.

I can't think of 2 guys so alike that they are interchangeable. Keith Jarrett doesn't sound like Herbie Hancock or Bill Evans or Oscar Peterson.

Brad Mehldau, Vijar Iyer, Esbjorn Svennsen, Tord Gustavsen, Bobo Stenson, Denny Zeitlin, John Taylor, Taylor Eigsti, Aaron Parks, Marcin Wasilewski, Gerald Clayton..... these guys all have distinctive sounds.

Even Diana Krall sounds quite unique, as different as Eliane Elias.

You probably think Kenny G sounds like Branford Marsalis! And Wynton sounds COMPLETELY different from his brother.

Don't BS us with that "all jazz sounds the same" when you have shown that you don't even listen to it.

The three of his brothers who perform, actually. I have a fondness for Jason's drumming, in particular.

Kenny G. says...



I sound like Kenny G... Pure jazz!

He's with Marcus Robert's group, I should listen to them more. And don't forget the dad, Ellis, heck of a pianist himself.