Iazzletter PO Box 240, Olai CL93024-0240
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G€ne Lrc Ad Libitwm & Iazzletter PO Box 240, Olai CL93024-0240 O Even among college-educated adults, the audience for Can Jazz Be Saved? live jazzhas shrunk significantly, from 19.4 percent in 1982 to 14.9 in 2008. numbers indicate that the audience for jazz in Warning: The Audience f,or America's These alarming rate. What I find no less Great Art Form Is lltithering AwaY America is shrinking at an revealing, though, is that the median age of the jazz audience ages for attendees of live by Terry Teachout is now comparable to the performances of classical music (40 in 1982. 49 in 2008)' opera(43 versus 48), non-musical plays (39 versus 47) and a joint resolution declaring In 1987 the U.S. Congress passed ballet (37 versus 46). In 1982,by contrast, jazz fans wete national treasure." Nowadays .iazztobe a "rare and valuable much younger than their high-culture counterparts' Duke Ellington, Charlie ihe music of Louis Annstrong, What does this tell us? I suspect it means, among other taught in public schools, heard on Parker. and Miles Davis is things, that the average American now sees jazz as a form of performed at prestigious venues like TV contmercials and high art. Nor should this have come as a surprise to anyone, Center, which even runs its own New York's Lincoln since most o f the jazzmusicians that I know feel pretty much nightcl ub, Dizzy' s Club Coca-Cola. the same way. They tegard themselves as artists, rrot Here's the catch: Nobody's listening. entertainers, masters of a musical language that is but it's no longer possible for No, it's not quite that bad comparable in seriousness to classical music and just as - the great American art - head-in-the-sand types to pretend that off-putting to pop-loving listeners who have no more use for its future looks anything fbrm is economically healthy, or that Wynton Marsalis than they do for Felix Mendelssohn' out bleak. lazz has changed greatly since the '30s, when Louis 'Ihe the National bad news came in the form of Armstrong, one oithe rrpr.-" musical geniuses of the 20'h of Public Participation Endowment for the Arts latest survey century, was also a pop star, a gravel-voiced crooner who conducted by the NEA (in in the Arts, the fourth to be made movies with Bing Crosby and Mae West and whose Bureau) since 1982. These participation with the U.S. Census records sold by the truckload to fans who knew nothing made jazz musicians sit up and take irre the findings that about jazzexcept that Satchmo played and sang it. As late as notice: the eaily '50s, jazz was still for the most part a genuinely percent of adult Oln2002,the year of the last survey, 10.8 popular music, a utilitarian, song-based idionl to which jazz performance. [n 2008, Americans attended at least one o.dinuty people could dance if they felt like it' But by the thaL fell to 7.ll percent. '60s, it had evolved into a challenging concert music whose au<lience for jazz shrinking, but it's ONot only is the complexities repelled rnany ofthe same youngsters who were of adults in America growing older fast. The median age lalling hard for rock and qoll. Yes, John Coltrane's A Love rvho attende d alive- jazz performance was 29. In 2008, it was Supr eme sold very well for a jazz album in I 965 - but most 46. kids preferred Catifornia Girls and The Track of My Tears, also much less likely to attend jazz OOlder people are and still do now that they have kids of their own' pertbmances today than the,v were a few years ago' The Even if I could, I wouldn't want to undo the ages of 45 and 54 who percentage of Americans between the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music' But jazzperformance in 2002 was 1 3.9 percent' ln attended a liv e there's no sense in pretending that it didn't happen, or that 30 percent drop in 2008, it was 9.8 percent. That's a contemporary jazz is capable of appealing to the same kind attendance. of mass audience that thrilled to the big bands of the swing November 2008 concerns era. And it is precisely because jazz is now widely viewed as 5. Composition titles and lyrics should reflect romance a high-culture art form that its makers must start to grapple and values. For example, the outdated notion of "hooking (see above with the same problems as do symphony orchestras' drama should be replaced by references to up" companies and art museums a task that will be made all the reference to attention span). _ JS more daunting by the fact that- jazz is made for the most part by individuals, not established institutions with deep pockets. No, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra A Whiff of History that thinks it can appeal to under-thirty listeners by suggesting friend Paul thatthey shouldlikeSchubert and Stravinsky has already lost I have occasionally wondered what my late of Recording the battle. If you're marketing Schubert and Stravinsky to Weston, who founded the National Academy what the those listeners, you have no choice but to start from scratch Arts and Sciences (NARAS), would think of to honor excellence and make the case for the beauty of their music to otherwise organization has become not a vehicle - and abet intelligent people who simply don't take it for granted. By the through the Grammy Awards but one to reward Awards are no better' same token, jazz musicians who want to keep their own venality and comrption, The Academy equally beautiful music alive and well have got to start A few years ago, the Grammy Awards TV broadcast profession by thinking hard about how to pitch it to young listeners not managed to tick off a great many people in the - jazz,inchding a brief, dutiful, and next month, not next week, but right now. its dismissive treatment o f all too perfunctory showing of Dizzy Gillespie. The outrage establish a new Terry Teachout writes on the arts for lfre Wall Street on the West Coast led to a call to a meeting was Journal- and for his own blog. You can reach him at organization, alternative to NARAS, and serves, by Mel tteachout@,wsi.com. This piece was writtenfor the WSJ and called to advance this cause, led, if-memory was much high-flown is reprinted by permission. Torm6 and Leonard Feather. There of jazz. But one Judith Schlesinger is a clinical psychologist who writes for rhetoric about the nobility and importance and I stood up and All About lazz. She added this comment. thing made me especially uncomfortable, said so. "Do you know what's wrong with this group?" I by Judith Schlesinger said. "Too much gray hair." I said that if an alternative organization were to be with all forms After being tipped offto the existence of TT's article in the established, it had better make common cause and the higher WSJ, I went over and read it. It's well done, as always, but the of excellent music, including both classical et al' reality described is pretty dismal. Terry says he has no levels of "pop", including Gershwin, Kern, Porter, same form of suggestions for making j azzmore appealing to young people, because they were all suffering from the be called. so I thought I'd offer a few. audience attrition. I had no idea what it should 1. Male jazz m:usicians should immediately adopt the NationalAcademy of Real Music (or good music) would be it would wardrobe of prison inmates pants pooling on the floor, instantly contentious, not to mention pompous, but as the National underwear waistband showing- and perfect the art of be more accurate and certainly not as feckless the gratuitous crotch grabbing; - Academy of Jazz, which would get you about as far as practitioners 2. Female musicians should take style tips from Britney nearest convenience store. I even mused that the a group, but at a practical Spears and/or Irma La Douce and undergo whatever cosmetic ofrock should be barred from such people as enhancement may be necessary to turn back and stop time at level, you could not do that: you'd be barring such things easier the age of twenty-five; Sting, a formidable musician. It would make if 3. lazz should respect the fact that many multitasking we could prejudge music by its category, but you can't, and young people have the attention span of a gnat, and stop I suppose what bothers me is the very word.iazz, which was Evans, Bill expecting them to listen to anything for more than, say, two objectionable to Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Gil and a half minutes; Evans, and many others. a winged 4.Every jazzartistshould be Twittering and Tweeting and My comments sailed over the congregation like Nothing Booking Face, thereby acquiring close personal friends who brick, inspiring not an objection but only silence. was ever might support the music, and finallY: came of that meeting, and no such organization November 2008 Kenton, Count Basie vs' formed. Goodman, Woody Herman vs. Stan The insulari ty of jazz fans dates at least to the 1940s and Duke Ellington.. dismaying in its probably further, when it was thought that jazz and classical The Ellington gathering was amazing, were interested only in music were mutually exclusive, which was stupid from the parochialism.