Mostly Other People Do The Killing

Heck, I can remember when Time asked if God was dead back in 1966. He seems to be doing OK.

Jazz will be just fine.

It did seem for a few minutes there about a decade ago that we'd see an offshoot of rap jazz up jazz, with beat style lyrics and cool jazz inflections, but I guess they didn't say 'fuck' and 'ho' enough. That might have been a cool jazz stepping off point.

Oh, well, if jazz can survive 'fusion,' then it should survive anything.

One thing guaranteed about jazz - we'll get one or two remix/remasters of KOB every year for the foreseeable future. That should help keep the flame alive.

(As a liberal, I think killing music teaching in schools is a great way to try and kill music of all types other than the pablum that gets popular airplay and helps reign in those crazy cats who may now not get exposed to different musical ideas. There should be an extra "R:" Readin', Ritin', Rithmatic, and Rhythm!)

Well, my kids don't hate either Manhattan Transfer or Herbie Hancock, and they are both teenagers who listen to modern pop, too.

Not only that, they will listen to it, and walk around humming some of the less abstract tunes. The older will even sing along with "Java Jive" (which is only marginally Jazz, I know, I know)

They aren't into Chick Corea or Spirogyra much, though.

So I say it "ain't dead yet".

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They aren't into Chick Corea or Spirogyra much, though.

Well, thank God for that.

Spirogyra shouldn't come into play until they are post-reproductive.

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Here's Terry Teachout's take, which argues that jazz has lost young listeners and should take a more populist approach, rather than exist as a marginalized high-art genre:

As it is with so many other interests in life (ex; beer, hard liquor, sushi, opera, etc.) there is a "break in" factor. Some people need to hear some of the more "listenable" styles of jazz (i.e.; smooth jazz, pop jazz) before progressing into the real thing.

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There are always these polemics... is classical music dead? Is fiction dead? Is print media dead? Is hi-fi dead? A single strand runs through them: that if it fails to captivate the mainstream audience, it must be dead/dying. Is this true???

No, I don't believe this to be true. Yes, the larger the audience the more something gets promoted and financed and different styles of music, I believe, goes through cycles. But hey, what do I know...I'm just one of those old guys who has a difficult time keeping up with technology.

"Rock is dead they say. Long live rock."...as The Who once sang. Rock hasn't died, yet, and I suspect that jazz will be around for a while to come.

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They aren't into Chick Corea or Spirogyra much, though.

Well, thank God for that.

Spirogyra shouldn't come into play until they are post-reproductive.

I guess it's safe to say I'm not into Spirogyra either, then

Spirogyra = smooth jazz = Black Urban music = Jazz-ish!

I went to the assisted living home to check on Mom. They had a large jazz band playing in the lobby. This is Roswell, NM. I didn't know jazz was dying. The tenants were all in the cafeteria eating supper. It was the visitors that came to listen to the band. Mom complained about the noise.

While I don't have any statistics on this, it seems to me that live jazz is perhaps more popular in Europe than in the US. While it's just an anecdote, every time I'm in a major European city there is some kind of live jazz happening.

Heck, a few years ago we caught some live jazz in Bangkok.

I try real hard to be a shepherd outside the bar...

Very true.

Jazz has always had a proportionally larger audience in Europe. Having manners class and culture is regarded as a good thing there. Having little or no class, bad manners and poor taste in just about everything is looked up to as the "every man" sort of thing in the US.

The only way to save Jazz and anything else good about America is to stop teaching that the lowest common denominator for social and cultural activity is what everyone should aim for.

i'm with SD on this one, Lamont, you may ruin your reputation if you keep this up.

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Oh, well, if jazz can survive 'fusion,' then it should survive anything.

Jazz does seems to have survived fusion but the real question is whether or not jazz will be able to survive Wynton Marsalis!!

Poor Wynton, he is the Larry Holmes of jazz...rising to prominence in an otherwise unremarkable era.

While Miles was a contemporary of Coltrane, etc...Wynton is stuck in a world with Kenny G and Yanni passing for 'jazz music.'

Well, Branford is quite terrific, so hopefully some sort of balance is maintained. (I do admit to liking Wynton, too - he is great at doing what's already been done, so he is at least keeping alive a tradition, as it were.)

Yes, I know that Wynton does lots and lots of things to help save jazz but all too often it's only Wynton's idea of what constitutes jazz that gets help. So much out-of-the-mainstream jazz, both past and present, gets left with no one to champion their cause. Great artists, such as Lennie Tristano (past) or Ken Vandermark (present), get regulated to the hinterlands and their incredible music is never heard by many so called jazz fans. Lots of really wonderful music goes largely unheard because these jazz fans are being spoon fed a diet of jazz that's sorely lacking in one of it's most essential amino acids: free improvisation.

So it's not that Wynton doesn't support great music, heck just about all the music Wynton "saves" deserves being saved, but rather that his scope is too narrow. The funny thing is that Wynton is not really hostile to free jazz yet he just comes off as being afraid of expanding the boundaries of jazz to encompass some slightly outside playing. What can I say, I know I always seem to beating the same old dead horse but hey, just read my signature.

please dont save it.

DNR. let it die

It is very entertaining having Johnny Cash's little miniature head saying all these funny things on the forum.

Speaking of Taschen and Jazz, check out their book Jazz Covers (they let you 'leaf through' all 497 pages online!).

And on your initial Q, these "is ___ dead" pronouncements strike me mainly as laments about aging.

Is subjectivism dead?

Some things never get old.

Let me trot out a theory I've tried before.

Jazz is in trouble because it's too good - think of what's happened with jazz as being like the Stephen Jay Gould argument about the spread of excellence in baseball explaining why there are no longer .400 hitters.

We don't get masterpieces and heroes because everyone pretty much knows everything - so jazz becomes a music of small gestures and differences.

And we need heroes and masterpieces - we need someone to root for.

s.

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Let me trot out a theory I've tried before.

Jazz is in trouble because it's too good - think of what's happened with jazz as being like the Stephen Jay Gould argument about the spread of excellence in baseball explaining why there are no longer .400 hitters.

We don't get masterpieces and heroes because everyone pretty much knows everything - so jazz becomes a music of small gestures and differences.

And we need heroes and masterpieces - we need someone to root for.

s.

The recording industry has gone through several cycles of this sort of thing, I believe. What usually happens is that somebody finds a new thing or a new way to play something, and the cycle starts over.

I'm fairly sure that this will happen again (and again, and again) as both technology and humanity rolls along. If you think about it, in the French Romantic period the "rock and roll" instrument was the pipe organ. Then it was the guitar, then the whole guitar-fuzzbox-etc, thing, then the synth.

Jazz has gone through cycles too, and has enough different genre material that I expect somebody will do the new version of "fusion" or whatever, create another cycle of popularity.

Meanwhile, in the modern world, we don't have to lose any of the good older stuff, either. For the forseeable future, we'll be able to play Herbie Mann to Frank Zappa, etc.

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It is very entertaining having Johnny Cash's little miniature head saying all these funny things on the forum.

I wonder if we could get the Cal Tjader version of "Ring of Fire" If there is one, that is.

Hi satkinsn,

That

All I've heard here so far is about "tight assed-can't swing-ass squeaks when they walk-white boy-jazz lite crap"

What about real Jazz Players?

Anyway, it ain't dead. But...the good ones are few and far between, as is usual in all musical genera.

I must be misunderstanding your point Ken since the post you replied to contained Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon who are both "jazz players" (irony noted if you read the interviews), the antithesis of "tight assed-can't swing-ass squeaks when they walk-white boy-jazz lite crap" and they both also happen to be alive.

As far as who's good and who isn't, I'll leave that to the critics.

Everybody is a critic. Thus my bit of humour of the twisty type.

jazz will never be dead as long as there are people to play it. just because the music does not make it on to an LP or CD does not necessarily mean the genre itself is dead. there are still many, many high school and college jazz groups playing around the world. there are still tens of thousands of unknown musicians with "day jobs" playing at local clubs all around the world. go to new orleans and walk down the street and listen to the street musicians. just because these guys will never make it on to a record does not mean that jazz is dead.

I'm surprised noone here said it so far:

"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny"

Went to see Wynton tonight with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

He, and they, killed!

Played a rendition of Monk's Ugly Beauty that had one section with five sax players riffing together.

They also did Epistrophy with a gorgeous simultaneous sax solo by two of the sax players, each soloing at the same time, yet weaving their sound around each other.

Performed maybe the best version of Lou Donaldson's Blues Walk I've ever heard.

The crowd was lively, the playing was superb.

Before the show, Wynton was hanging around outside in the early evening and chatting people up. If I had my iPhone, I could have gotten a pic with him!

The band was hanging out talking Pittsburgh Steelers with anyone who cared to join them.

No after party that I could find. Chico closes down early off campus! But, the local wine bar and the sushi bar both had jazz trios playing - some Bordeaux, some cheese, some nigiri - I'm stuffed on food, but wish I could have taken in more tunes.

Wynton isn't as big as I imagined, and he is shaped like a trumpet player. Kind of barrel chested - I wonder if it affects someone's general physiology. Anyway, Miles was the least trumpet player looking trumpet player I ever saw.

No matter the town, I bet there's jazz within a few miles of your home on any given day.

Jazz is in no danger.

Thanks for sharing. Wynton takes a lot of flak from jazz critics and the peanut gallery. I

I say to save Jazz, we should ban it from the United States and all the airwaves. you know...

send it underground. way, way , way, way underground.

God, I hate jazz.

I did record the Bad Plus several times, though..super nice guys. recorded Mehldau too...but he was an uppity dick.