The State of Jazz

I don't agree with the premise that jazz is in bad shape. There are more people making money playing jazz than ever before.

Something Barry said:

quote:

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Originally posted by Barry Lee:
Jazz CDs represent something like 5% of total music sales, and that's including the big crossover successes like Norah Jones. Basically, the rank and vile masses don't care much about it!

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Joe Responds:
Well, now here's the thing: 5% of the total market is like 5 times what 100% of the market was 60 years ago. Which is the point I've been trying to make, that jazz is a niche music, but the niche has gotten enormous due to the longitudinal growth of the music business AND music education, which in and of itself supports more than half of the professional jazz performers and writers out there.

I suggest that if you think jazz is proportionally in any worse shape than the rest of the music business you are looking in the wrong places. Try going to IAJE, Midwest, TBA or TMEA some time and you might get a sense of the size of the instrumental and jazz performance and publishing industry.

In 1940 there were probably a couple hundred jazz musicians in New York. Today there are thousands. They aren't making any more bread in today's dollars. But they aren't making less, and today's players are playing just as many jive gigs now as they did back then.

Do amateur musicians hurt the business? Absolutely not!! Interest in jazz creates interest in jazz. Saying that amateurs take money away from pros - that's like saying building more restaurants creates too much supply - not true! Building restaurants creates demand, which is why when you see an area with lots of restaurants all they do is build more and more, and they all get more and more crowded every day!!

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Originally posted by Barry Lee:
that niche is a ghetto -- as that FT critic suggested, as well as myself.

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Joe:

I feel like that's a story and sometimes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A niche is a niche; however whether it is a "ghetto" is purely a judgement of some more complex societal factors that don't really matter when it comes to how we feel about what we do and how we present it.

It is just as easy and valid to present the reality that jazz is a historically rich, profound and entertaining art form that tens of millions of people love listening to on a daily basis. Presenting it that way, rather than buying into some "ghetto" story, fits a lot better with how the music is supposed to feel, IMO.

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Originally posted by Barry Lee:
We don't need cheerleaders or "appreciation societies"; I even question the programs in "Jazz Education" that resemble nothing so much as football squads on a campus....

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I see jazz as a process and not as a destination. And just because someone has not arrived at a place where I would want to listen to them in my personal time, or whether i share their tastes in does not mean that they are not just as "in the process" as I.

Jazz appreciation is jazz appreciation is jazz appreciation.

And jazz education is a means, not an end.

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Originally posted by Barry Lee:
we need a genuine genius or two around here, and although we've got a few "stars" in the firmament, thanks to the media, I don't see much for real bright lights, do you? Innovators? Driving forces? This system isn't producing them. Buncha clones, aren't we, really?

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Originally posted by Barry Lee:
My point, I guess, is that jazz risks being entombed by that kind of institutionalization. Look at all the basically bankrupt symphonies.

Same deal. Dead, hide-bound genre. Blue-haired audience. Great music, sure. Try to sell it, though.

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Well, YMMV however we are going out there and traveling all over and we are putting between 800 and 1200 in the seats, night after night, and they are NOT exclusively blue hairs, and I'm telling you that we are playing some edgy and eclectic stuff and people are eating it up.

Guys are writing music and taking chances with music, and people can't get enough.

The only thing we do that most bands don't do is practice good stagecraft. And plus we have some OK players. And we work really hard to promote our tours.

I say this because people can let ideas like "the audience is old so we have to play all swing stuff" talk them out of doing their jobs as entertainers and musicians.

They are self-fulfilling prophecies because people let THEIR expectations of AUDIENCE expectations create unnecessary divisions in the music and causing them to believe they have to choose between playing music THEY like and playing the music the AUDIENCE likes.

Once you can do both of those at the same time you're there.

It's more work, though. A LOT more work. But it's worth it and moreover it's our DUTY to the music to make it happen and not just pretend that jazz is dead and we are victims of a dead culture. It's on us to create the life.

quote:

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Originally posted by Barry Lee:
I came across an interesting tidbit the other day, reading a book about Dorsey and Sinatra. In 1940, big band music accounted for $110 million worth of revenue. Records, sure, but mostly it was live shows (and radio contracts). Everybody was swinging! What's that in 2005 dollars, do you think?

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Big Joe Replies:
I think that's a shade above $1.46 billion dollars, which is about 5.5% of sales of recordings *alone* in 2000.

So if we are to believe that 4 or 5% of record sales are in a category broadly defined as jazz (just as in 1940 tons of gimmick and commercial bands comprised a lot of that $110 million), then in 2000 gross sales of jazz recordings almost eclipsed the total revenue from all aspects of jazz recording and performance in 1940, and that's JUST IN THE U.S..

Then, you have to correctly include revenues from the tens of thousands of live concerts and hundreds of jazz festivals and conventions across the US, Canada and Europe, which has to be billions and billions of dollars.

Then you have to count broadcasting and licensing occurring through ASCAP/BMI, and then you throw in the jazz publishing business, which includes the big five publishing houses plus hundreds of small publishing houses.

So not even counting the field of jazz education, seems to me that revenues from jazz recording, performance and publishing are at least five times what they were back in 1940 (in today's dollars), when jazz supposedly reached it's apex.

Don't get me wrong, there is generally a disconnect between many American consumers and real music - the typical US consumer is often the personification of years of conditioning by corporate America, people who only like things based on what others like and are generally unwilling to make independent decisions about quality. (Of course all of us humans fall prey to relying on the opinions of others at one time or another, so I make no judgment here - it is merely a herding trait we have evolved in order to survive.)

But the argument of whether jazz as a whole does better as "America's pop music" (1940) or marginalized as a "niche" category (2005) is an open question.

I tend to think that it is like relying on music to make a living versus playing it as an amateur. Unless you are a top, top player, you almost have to play music that you would not necessarily choose to play, and so (brushing up against the original topic of this thread) I think there's an argument to be made that playing as an amateur can be much more rewarding than playing as a pro.

Carry the analogy back to the business: sure there are lessons in history as to art and cultural traditions losing potency once it steps out of the mainstream. But there are far more examples of art becoming commercial and derivative when it is *subjected* to the mainstream!

So I really, really enjoy where the jazz world is right now. It is a massive industry, and beginning 40 years ago jazz education has become an absolutely accepted and almost universally-practiced addition to modern conventional school curriculum. The seeds are being sewn by the bucketful.

AND YET we are not subjected to the same money and legal pressures that have almost completely robbed jazz's illegitimate stepchild (rock) of it's soul and innovation.

So I believe we have the best of all worlds, and it is on us to capitalize on it now because this won't last - as the recording industry eventually becomes slick and smart enough to exert the complete control it wants on the digital music world, niche markets like jazz and classical and folk and Latin will get pounced on next!

The same goes for where I am personally - we get big audiences and are able to get the attention of radio people when we send them our music, likely a little because of the name of the band, and also a little because as a military jazz band we are a novelty and yet "USAF" gives us a certain legitimacy in many parts of "the heartland". So we have people's attention and our obsession is to capitalize on that because any one factor in the whole house of cards could be gone tomorrow and as I said we have a duty to the music to take advantage of what we have been given.

I believe if everyone operated that way jazz could be in even better shape than it is today.

quote:

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Barry Lee:
How in the world do we recapture (or at least participate in) that Zeitgeist, that cultural spirit I just know is out there, being mugged daily by the mass media machine?

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Big Joe Replies:

I don't think I want it. We're "right-sized" as it is. I would prefer to make the music better and better, and continue to draw the discriminating listeners that the record companies are going to have a harder time controlling with marketing.

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Joe Jackson:
...we're not going to have much success by headlining for prostitutes and street bums.

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Barry Lee:
To which I can only say...

Storyville! Billie! Kid Ory!

Does jazz exist beause of, or despite of, its origins?

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Joe Replies:

As I said, there are many reasons to play in the street. 

In 1920, a big reason was marketing. 

And while the heart and soul of what is good in the music has not changed much in 100 years, what has changed is the overall culture we live in, and the role marketing and advertising plays in democratic/free market economies.

So where the soul of the music comes from is one question, and the right way to present music to achieve a specific outcome is a completely different question, in my mind.

But in answer to your question, I believe that jazz exists BECAUSE of its origins! And it will continue to exists based on those same passions and needs, regardless of whether anyone's listening...

Barry Lee, you are da bomb. I 'preciate ya.

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