Several years ago, Cleveland sax master Ernie Krivda shared this thought with me and with the other members of his group: Imagine, if you will, a scenario of a swinging big band playing to a packed, enthusiastic ballroom. 500 people dance wildly as a crowd of music lovers gathers around the bandstand to cheer. A beautiful girl singer stands center stage, dressed in a spectacular sequened gown. The band is dressed smartly in tuxedos, with choreographed horn flashes highlighting the driving riffs. From the side of the bandstand emerges a man dressed in a beret and goatee. He leans over to the pianist and whispers in his ear, -- Go ahead man, stretch out - express yourself!" Jazz went wrong at this moment. The musicians began playing to impress this one guy, and to impress each other. They forgot about all of those people in the audience. AND: In reality, the man in the beret was none other than BEELZEBUB, the serpent from the Garden of Eden. (Although, I remember Ernie retelling the story once and identifying the man as Bill Milkowski)
Is jazz art or entertainment? The Swing Era was the last time in which jazz commanded mass appeal. During the bop era, an attitude developed among musicians that they were creating art music. While bop had little to do with the decline of big bands, it also did little to hold on to their audience. This may have been conscious, or it may have been unintended. Some modern players--Dizzy comes to mind-- made real attempts to entertain, but found the gap between the complexities of the music and the tastes of the masses difficult to bridge. Dizzy's audiences always got a great show, but why wasn't he more popular?
Promoters of modern jazz have often embraced its limited appeal. Joe Segal, Chicago's premier presenter of bop for 60 years, often tells the audiences at his concerts: "You're going to hear some great music. If you find it entertaining, that's your problem!" It's a joke, but then again, is it? Bassist Mike Barnett has a favorite phrase he likes to use with his fellow band members at the end of a jazz club set-break: "Shall we impress them with our expertise?" he says sarcastically, "them" being the club patrons who have come to talk and drink, not to be impressed by skillful playing.
Trying to turn bop into a show has its pitfalls. Promoter Norman Granz, who came up with the "Jazz at the Philharmonic" concept, hoped to engage the audience by turning the concert into a cutting contest, with each player receiving cheers from their fans following dazzling solo turns. While this presentation was great at the time, long term it has had the horrifying effect of conditioning the audience to applaud after every jazz solo, whether they liked it or not, and whether it's appropriate to interrupt the music for such an obligatory, often meaningless courtesy. Usually today's club patrons pay no attention to the stage, carrying on conversations at their tables. From the front of the club, BEELZEBUB knows it is traditional for him to applaud after the bass solo. The other patrons hear him applauding, and momentarily look up to see what the fuss is about, joining in the applause for 3 seconds before returning to their conversations. They have had the live jazz experience. Hooray for art!
Today's jazz musician calls himself an ARTIST. He trains diligently, learning to navigate the complexities and traditions of his honorable lineage. He's not a real player until he succesfully negotiates "Giant Steps" in 7/4 with all the requisite patterns and earmarks that show his fellow players that he has arrived. Hipness is valued over expressiveness, style over content. The musicians are often didactic with their audiences, instructing them on tradition and history. We are told that Jazz is America's greatest artistic gift to the world and it must be treasured. Is it good for you, like SPINACH? Do you HAVE to like it? Are you a bad American if you prefer something else? If I don't enjoy your playing, must I pretend to?
Ernie once made an album titled "Satanic." This was in the 1970s, a period of his career he now disavows as "misguided and self-indulgent." It is a great recording: real, timeless art. At jazz camp several years ago, one of the students brought a copy of the original LP for Ernie to autograph. Ernie refused and instead told the student, "You shouldn't be listening to that, kid."
Will jazz ever be popular again? In the early 1990s I was touring with the Woody Herman Orchestra. We were playing a dance in Grand Island, Nebraska. Paul McKee and I were standing together, talking during a set break. A lovely couple, who appeared to be in their 80s, approached us. The woman said," It's so great to see young people playing this music that OUR generation grew up with. Do you think the big bands are coming back?" Without missing a beat, Paul responded, "Nope. Dead. Been dead a long time. Gonna' stay dead. Never coming back." With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me with the couple in uncomfortable silence.
In my view, you are not making the distinction between art and commercial music; you're lumping them together here, and while there is always crossover, I don't believe they are the same thing. Keep in mind that Guy Lombardo, Lester Lanin, and Paul Whiteman were working just as much or more than any other band during the swing era. A lot of the musicians in these bands, even the hipper bands at the time, were doing it not because it was musically satisfying, but for a good paycheck. Even the bandleaders who were into hipper music were always fielding requests and complaints asking for more danceable music; the jitterbuggers were a minority, and the bandleader's primary responsibility was to play something that everybody would like. There are so many stories out there about how the guys would labor through the first couple sets, then when the leader would leave during the last set, they would pull out the fun charts and pull out the stops. Or else, as soon as their gigs were over, many of these cats would be out the door to the nearest jam session to get a chance to express themselves!
If I were to make a comparison to classical music, I would say most of the big bands would be the equivalent of a pops orchestra, playing William Tell, Poet and Peasant, some opera arias, movie themes, and maybe a Beethoven or Mozart symphony once in a while (Song of India; American Patrol; etc. and every band had its arrangement of the current tunes on the hit parade). A small group could be more like a string quartet, and certain bands (Ellington comes to mind, and Thad Jones/Brookmeyer/Maria Schneider) would be more like a symphony gig, playing Strauss, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Varese; pushing the envelope in more avant-garde directions. I know each band had its own sound/format/style, but very few of them were primarily interested in the music; most of them were more interested in the market.
As to why it passed, I think it was like any other fad: the kids of the fifties found a new thing that wasn't their parents' music. In 1880 it was waltz and two-step, 1900 it was ragtime, 1920 was jazz, 1950 Elvis, 1965 the Beatles and Beach Boys, then Disco, Punk, Rap. The party is built around music, and even if you're not actively trying to piss off your parents, it's not a fun party if they are hanging around. If they are jazz fans, they are not going to hang around if there's rockabilly or punk or reggae playing, especially if it's loud enough.
Also, jazz fans, like every other fan, are not all there for the music. A lot of them couldn't tell you a thing about the music, but can recite every lyric sung tonight. Some of them just like the sound of the drums, and aren't even aware of the other instruments, except maybe as a shell around the drums. Some people just like the clothes, or the hairdos, or the flashing lights, or the dancers, and the music just becomes a part of the overall vibe, like interesting furniture. And don't forget that where the music is, there is booze, drugs, interesting or dangerous people. So to my view, for a lot of people, being a FAN is more important than being a JAZZ FAN. The wallpaper/lifestyle theory is how I explain the fact that even your biggest FANs will come up in the middle of your solo on Body and Soul and ask you if you will play a bossa nova next.
I think that only a few people out there really are fans of the music, are even aware of it as such. I know and treasure a half a dozen people, musicians and non musicians, who really FEEL the music that is playing. I'm always aware of the music if there is any playing, but I perceive it largely in an analytical sense: chord structure, melody/accompaniment, mood, even colors/light/dark sometimes. However, these people feel it throughout their bodies, have physical reactions to it, can leave a concert feeling euphoric, or ill, or physically shaking because of how the music touched them. In my experience this is a very rare thing, and even my response, what is this and how is it affecting me, is pretty rare. I'm always asking people about music, and by far the most common responses are vague, unemotional, bland: it's nice, I like the fast parts, the guitar solos are bitchen, the singer has a great voice. It's an engaging object, like the pictures on the wall, like the lighting.
Before you think I'm dissing anybody, fans or musicians, I want to say that I'm not against any of this stuff. I just make a lot of distinctions; it's the only way I've found to make any sense of life as a musician, or as a thinking person. One of the big ones for me is that there is a difference between art and craft. I think it's silly to think of myself as an artist when I'm playing a Broadway show or a jingle (or a Glenn Miller chart). I can enjoy it if I see myself as a craftsman, creating something predictable but nearly perfect. And when I'm somewhere playing jazz, it doesn't bother me if only a few people are there to hear it; to my mind, art is a moment shared with the people who witnessed it, and cannot be reproduced without losing its essence as art. I mean, if Charlie Parker played Confirmation the same way each time he played it would every recording be art? The first performance of In The Mood may have been art, but was the 500th? Is a reproduction of the Mona Lisa art? I would argue that the answer is no, but doesn't destroy the validity of the performance for me; it just moves it to another arena, where the meaning is different.
And again, not everything is going to resonate with everybody, no matter how aware they are. I don't like Wagner or Dali. I don't get Jackson Pollock. That doesn't mean I think it sucks, it just doesn't speak to me. I like Satie, MCEscher, Paul Klee. Maybe that's not the most profound stuff out there, but I like the perspectives, the humor, the environment. There are a lot of illustrations (books, ads, etc.) that I enjoy more than the great masters; I'd rather share my home with a Tenniel illustration from Alice in Wonderland than a Rembrandt oil, and I'd rather look at Leonardo's sketches than the Mona Lisa. But that's just my own taste.
Anyway, as I see it:
Starving artists starve because they are compelled to express themselves despite others' lack of interest.
Sellouts sell out because financial concerns become more important than self expression.
Everybody who creates finds a niche somewhere in this spectrum that works for them.
Some fortunate individuals' artistic expression synchronizes with a popular movement and brings them fame and fortune.
But you'll only make yourself crazy trying to figure out why people don't appreciate art.
Still, I am still wondering one thing. So many of us have been thrilled to an immense degree by Bird, Diz, Monk, Bill Evans, Miles, Thad, Brookmeyer, Mulligan, Trane, Horace, Elvin; more recently Frisell, Maria, Lovano, Tom Harrell; none of whom have very much at all to do with the picture you describe of the swinging, choreographed big band in the ballroom with the beautiful girl singer in sequins. They swing mightily, but the intention is that your soul dances rather than your feet, I might say.
So the question is, why has a lot of our music stopped connecting with people? Why not art that entertains, rather than drawing a line between the two? Of course this begs the question about the academicizing of the music (since when did "chord scales" get at anything like the root of what this music is about? And don't rhythm-section-play-along records negate the whole idea of spontaneous group improvisation?) I think the attitude of academicizing has more to do with alienating people than the style of music played. In this scenario the attitude of some players (certainly not those named above) of "check out what an expert I am" is easier to slip into than "let me search for something beautiful to share with you"--the latter requires not only searching but the additional step of reflection on what the result is on the listener. And that is the step that is easily forgotten when one is immersed in the practice studio more often than in front of people who react.
Thank you for your challenging thoughts, and I will count it as my goal to disprove the larger spirit of Paul McKee's statement. Even if I acknowledge (and am maybe thankful in some ways?) that jazz will not be "pop" music again, that does not mean that we cannot continue to search for beauty that, requiring some conscious attention for the listener to absorb it into their soul, in the end delivers a deep level of entertainment--like any great art.
As a non-instrument playing kid, I would listen to jazz radio at night while in bed. I distinctly recall hearing Eddie Harris for the first time, and I couldn't tell you then ANYTHING academically about what he did, I just knew I liked the sound.
I heard Von Freeman before I knew who he was. Same thing. I had no idea what he was doing, didn't realize his talent, greatness or notoriety...but that sound sure pulled me in.
I have an 80-year-old drummer friend tell me my soul was in the wrong body. I think he may be onto something.