[Dixielandjazz] Is Jazz Dead?

[Steve barbone]

BOOK REVIEW By Joe Lang From the November Issue of New Jersey Jazz Society's
Newsletter. Long, about Jazz in USA and Europe. Some OKOM references, but
more broadly about "Jazz".

Cheers,
Steve


IS JAZZ DEAD? (or has it moved to a new address) By Stuart Nicholson

288 pages, 2005, $19.95 Routledge, New York & London

Stuart Nicholson is nothing if not provocative in "Is Jazz Dead? (or
has it moved to a new address)."  Nicholson has some strong things
to say about the current state of jazz, ones that are clearly
indicated in the parenthetical addition to the book's title.

The essence of Nicholson's position is that jazz in America is
falling behind the rest of the world, especially Europe, in the
areas of innovation, both artistic and commercial.  He expresses his
belief that the lack of sufficient government subsidies for the
arts, most particularly for jazz, in the United States as compared
to that which is available in most European countries, has put the
American jazz community at a distinct disadvantage.  This is due to
the obvious financial advantage for the musicians, but also for the
freedom that it affords these musicians to develop their styles with
a lesser reliance on commercial acceptance.  This allows them to
experiment with new forms, many of which involve incorporating the
indigenous music of their native lands, new sounds made available by
developing technology, and influences from contemporary popular
music.  This is compounded by the differences that he observes in
approaches to jazz education in America and Europe.  The following
paragraph, taken from the closing pages of the book, is a good
summary of what Nicholson develops in great detail in the preceding
pages:

"We are, then, at a key moment in jazz history.  The music is being
reshaped and reimagined beyond the borders of the United States
through the process of glocalization and transculturation with
increasing authority by voices asserting their own cultural identity
on the music.  Non-American musicians want to connect with their own
surroundings and want to give the music life and vitality that is
relevant to their own musical situation, so they are broadening the
expressive base of the music in ways over which American jazz has no
control.  Key to these developments in Europe is that they are not
responsive to commercial logic.  Sheltered by subsidy from the
homogenizing effect of this marketplace, the music has been able to
grow and develop in ways musicians want, rather than conforming to
the expectations of the marketplace or shaped by the conventions of
previous practice."

Nicholson is quite expansive in presenting a picture of the
developments in jazz outside of the United States, especially in
Europe.  He examines the myriad of influences that make this music
distinctive.  His familiarity with a broad range of styles and
artists is impressive, at least to one who has had little exposure
to most of these sounds.  He is obviously convinced that this is the
music of the future, and that musicians who ignore these trends will
ultimately find themselves marginalized.

There are many messages, both explicit and implicit, set forth by
Nicholson that will elicit reactions of a varying nature, ones that
will be primarily a function of how the reader views what is and is
not jazz.  Nicholson's perspective on jazz is a widely inclusive
one, and this shapes his views on the many issues he addresses.

I have always attempted to have open ears, but have also learned
over time that there are certain styles of music that fall easily on
my ears, and others that do not. This is especially true when it
comes to jazz.  Since music is for me primarily a source of
pleasure, I remain open to those sounds that please me, and resist
those that do not.  On many levels, reaction to music is a
generational thing.  As is true in so many aspects of our lives, we
remain greatly influenced by tastes that derive from our earliest
experiences.  Almost everyone that I know has a soft spot for the
music that they listened to in their youth, especially the teenage
years through early adulthood.  As jazz musicians have evolved, they
have also shown the strong effects of these influences. Today you
see many contemporary forms of music like electronica, progressive
rock and rap seeping into the playing of young jazz artists, just as
we have seen the influence of rock and soul music on the fusion,
funk-jazz and acid jazz that evolved during the 70's, 80's and
90's.  There has been an ongoing tension between generations of jazz
listeners.  The intensity of these confrontations was particularly
evident when the traditional jazz enthusiasts were faced with the
coming of bebop.  Even today, some sixty plus years after bebop
arrived on the scene, there are many who still view bebop as an
interloper.  Recently, I was talking to a young jazz musician who
has a deep love for bebop, and he indicated that most of his
contemporaries view bebop the way the boppers viewed Dixieland.  You
do not have to stretch yourself too far to imagine how the typical
mainstream jazz fan views some of the jazz forms currently coming
from overseas.  

Nicholson's feelings about the approach that Wynton Marsalis has
taken as the guiding light of the Jazz at Lincoln Center program
reflect those of Marsalis' many critics.  Nicholson feels that by
concentrating attention on the music's past, Marsalis, who by virtue
of his position and the public perception of him as a spokesman for
jazz, has ignored many developments in jazz that Nicholson highly
regards.  He is also of the opinion that this approach, due to the
funding and attention that it has received, has limited the
opportunities that are available to jazz that Nicholson considers
more adventuresome and equally important.  He quotes many performers
and critics who share his opinion.  Nicholson lumps Marsalis with
writers Stanley Crouch and Albert Murray as the voices that most
represent a view of jazz that he considers too limiting.  He also
alludes to the racial and political agendas in their perspectives
that have caused many to believe that their view of jazz history
warps reality, and ignores many significant contributors and trends
in the music.

I find a lot of plusses and minuses to the way that Marsalis has
chosen to select the music that is presented by the Lincoln Center
program.  He has certainly made a great effort to convince young
jazz players that it is essential to their understanding of the
music that they make an effort to explore the roots of the music,
and to understand that it did not all begin with Miles Davis and
John Coltrane.  I believe that to be a very positive development.
On the other hand, there are many of the significant contributors to
jazz that are given short shrift by the Marsalis and company
approach.  I believe, for instance, that like his musical approach
or not, Stan Kenton was one of the most important figures in jazz
history, for his contributions as an innovator in big band music,
and as a jazz educator.  If one were to judge Kenton based on the
information about him in the book that accompanied the Ken Burns
Jazz series, a series that had Marsalis and Crouch as two of the
primary advisors, you would be led to believe that Kenton was an
insignificant figure in jazz history, and a racist to boot, truly an
inaccurate picture of the man and his deserved place in the
evolution of jazz.  There is a plethora of similar omissions and
wrong-headedness that results from the agenda driven views of
Marsalis and other like thinkers.  If Marsalis is determined to
concentrate on the past, it is sad that he is not putting jazz into
a more inclusive historical context.

Another area that Nicholson addresses is jazz education.  His
criticisms of jazz education in the United States is similar to
those which he directs at Marsalis, namely a reliance on the past at
the expense of laying the groundwork for newer developments in the
field.  He finds that most of the instruction in this country stems
from an emphasis on bebop and its immediate stylistic successors,
and ignores the potential freedom that is available by exploring the
more open approaches to improvisation and musical sources that one
finds in many European jazz education programs.  Not being a jazz
educator, nor having intimate knowledge of the differences in jazz
education here and abroad, I cannot judge the accuracy of
Nicholson's presentation of the contrasts in the various programs.
I do know, however, that many of the programs in the United States
pay scant heed to the significance of the pre-bebop styles of jazz.
Students who develop a strong interest in or preference for older
styles of jazz are often made to feel like fish out of water at the
schools that they attend.

Nicholson also addresses at length the commercial aspects of jazz.
The American record industry, which is dominated by the four major
distributors, is very bottom line driven.  There is little tolerance
for allowing artists to develop slowly, and this is especially true
when dealing with a niche market like jazz.  To the extent that jazz
is successfully marketed by the majors, it is mostly reliant on back
catalog material, and the rare new artist who is given the kind of
record company promotional support that would normally be afforded
to a more pop oriented performer.  In current times, the
beneficiaries of this kind of support have mainly been vocalists,
many of whom are not true jazz performers, rather pop oriented
artists marketed on a jazz label.  The most obvious case is Norah
Jones, a pleasant performer with almost no real ties at all to the
jazz idiom.  This emphasis on the bottom line leaves almost no
opportunities for the true jazz performers, of any age, to obtain
major label releases with strong promotional support.  The
alternatives are independent labels, many of which are very specific
in the styles that they present, and, increasingly, self produced
product being marketed on the Internet and at performances.
Ironically, many significant American jazz performers are doing much
of their recording for European and Japanese labels, and much of
this product is available here on a limited basis or not at all.

There are similar problems associated with live performances by jazz
musicians.  It is increasingly difficult for a musician to survive
as a full time jazz player.  Opportunities to perform are limited,
the number of players seeking to perform is large, and the
remuneration is often paltry in relation to the talent available.  A
significant number of full-time jazz players survive as such mainly
because they obtain gigs out of the country that pay significantly
better than similar jobs do here.  This is even changing as tastes,
particularly in Europe, are changing, and some of the more current
jazz styles being developed over there are garnering a larger
audience.  This is providing more opportunities for European based
players, at the expense of American artists.

European musicians also benefit from extensive government support
for the arts.  Nicholson strongly believes that jazz in the United
States will recede even further without a similar infusion of public
funds to support jazz in this country.  Your reaction to this aspect
of his concern is going to depend in great part on how you view the
relationship between the arts and government.  In most of Europe,
government funding for the arts is a significant source of income
for many artists in all fields.  In the United States, there is a
lot of controversy about government funding of the arts, and is rife
with a range of side issues.  A full examination of this subject is
beyond the scope of this review.  One thing that should be
mentioned, however, is that there are countless private funds in
America that are very generous in their support of the arts, and
they do provide sources for grants to artists that achieve much of
what is achieved through government funding in other countries.
There are, of course, many differences in how this affects jazz, in
particular, since many of the private fund sources have typically
been less generous in their support of jazz than of many other
disciplines that vie for arts funding.  At its most basic, the issue
of the proper role of government and the arts can not be completely
separated from the beliefs one has about the proper role of
government in relationship to the individuals it governs.  In a
general sense, the Europeans seem to favor a more active role for
government in all aspects of the life of individual citizens, from
cradle to grave, while the United States has demonstrated a stronger
reliance on the role of individual responsibility in determining
one's level of success.

"Is Jazz Dead?" is an important book, one that should spark some
open discussion of the factors affecting jazz, and its relevance to
contemporary culture.  There has been too much name-calling and head-
in-the-sanditis in the world of jazz, and not enough objective
discussion of the realities that face this important music.  It is
time that people of good faith lay aside preconceived agendas, and
address what is best for this art form in its entirety.  In this
book, Nicholson has provided an intelligent starting point for this
kind of examination of the future of jazz.