Jazz is Dead - Not! | Jazzbo Notes

Mar

7

Jazz is Dead - Not!

≡ Category: Loose Talk |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

REASONS FOR PESSIMISM

It’s a perennial statement: “Jazz is dead.” And for a while, in the 80s, when guys like Wynton Marsalis were doing their best to embalm jazz, it seemed like it might even be true.

It is true that most of the jazz giants from the 60s and 70s have either passed on or become less relevant over the years, and I was beginning to despair of anyone taking their place and to tell you the truth, no one really has. There isn’t anyone that I know of radically pushing the music forward the way John Coltrane or Miles Davis did.

ON THE OTHER HAND…

However, I am astonished at how many younger musicians are fluent in the jazz vocabulary. Finally, people have even picked up on Miles’ long neglected electric period in the early 70s. True, none of these young musicians has made a masterpiece on the order of Elvin Jones’ Live at the Lighthouse or John McLaughlin’s My Goals Beyond, but there is plenty of challenging, creative work being done these days at a very high level. Artists like Dave Douglas, David Fiuczynski, Roy Hargrove, Michael Wolff, Uri Caine, Jim Beard, Brad Mehldau, Omar Sosa, and Vijay Ayer are all producing significant, worthwhile work. And, speaking of jazz giants, Pat Metheny is doing by far the best work of his career, having recorded his first unequivocal masterpiece, The Way Up, a few years ago.

WHAT REALLY DOES WORRY ME

The thing that worries me is not the creative side of the music, which is actually pretty healthy. I’m more worried about the business side. As de-evolution proceeds apace and the majority of the public gets dumber and dumber and dumber, I’m afraid there will be less and less demand for serious jazz, which after all requires a fair amount of sophistication to enjoy. The music business as a whole is suffering (music companies aren’t making the obscene profits they used to and feel entitled to), so imagine how much worse it is for the jazz end of the business. Jazz titles that should be perpetually available go out of print all the time (see my post Finding Out of Print Titles).

MY SOLUTION

Heaven only knows what is going to happen, but I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to make hay while the sun is intermittently shining and grab every great CD I can afford while it’s still possible.