[Dixielandjazz] Why Jazz isn't cool anymore

[Stephen G Barbone]

>  "Norman Vickers" <nvickers1 at cox.net> wrote (polite snip)
>
> Here is a post from Panama City guitarist Ted Shumate.  The Nicholas  
> Payton URL is listed.  Ted mentions warning the audience with XXX.   
> I?d give it an ?R? rating for words not usual for a family list.

> www.nicholaspayton.wordpress.com

Great article Norm.

IMO Payton makes a lot of sense that jazz died circa 1959. (give or  
take a few years).

Basically because since that time, there are too many people, taking  
much too much time, trying to define what jazz is . . . or isn't. And  
who plays it, or doesn't.

For example, I love the folks who say Miles hated jazz, without a  
shred of evidence to back that statement up, or that he or Coltrane,  
or whoever did not play jazz. That's just simple BS from folks who are  
trying to define what cannot be defined, in their limited minds.

Or those fools who write letters to the American Rag declaiming that  
jazz bands MUST have banjo tuba, or a front line of trumpet, trombone,  
clarinet. If they don't, they are not jazz bands. Etc., etc., etc.

Isn't Payton right when he says "jazz was a label forced on  
musicians". Or "The very fact that so many people are holding on to  
this idea of what Jazz is supposed to be, is exactly what makes it not  
cool." Or when he says; "Jazz ain 't cool, it's cold like necrophilia."

In the 1950s, I loved to describe myself as a "Jazz Musician". It was  
cool or hip, or hot or sexy. However you want to describe it, it was  
wonderful.

Not so today in 2011. I describe myself as a musician and when people  
ask me "What kind of music?" I answer "the good kind."

But then, I suspect many of the great musicians of the past described  
themselves as playing music, not jazz. I know Bud Freeman did exactly  
that, as did Pee Wee Irwin. Bechet? He called himself a "musicianeer",  
not a jazz musician.

"Jazz"? Who the hell can accurately define "jazz" these days? Other  
than as  the name of a musical form that existed from 1916 to 1959. A  
sort of syncopated popular music. It is indeed dead by that measure,  
though there are still a few necrophiliacs around  who hang on to it.

Jazz is surely dead if you believe what Peyton claims;  "Our whole  
purpose on this planet is to evolve."

Anyway, even though he too makes a few questionable statements, it is  
a great article by a great trumpet player who refuses to let others  
define him. I hope others will read it in its entirety.

> www.nicholaspayton.wordpress.com


Way to go Nicholas Peyton

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband