Jazz is still the word – oh yes!
The voting on this site is over, and the 11% who feel jazz is no longer the right word to describe the wide diversity of the music you sometimes find in that section in the record shop (OK, online!) have been soundly trounced by the 66% who feel there is nothing wrong with the word jazz. And I reckon the Paul Simon fans (“I can call you Betty and you can call me Al”) who came in second at 23% would probably lean in the jazz direction had there been second place voting rules.
Kevin Le Gendre summed it up perfectly in the liner notes to his new compilation Now’s The Time II – and you can read them in my review here.
I quite understand the point Stuart Nicholson was making in a recent Observer review of new discs by Acoustic Ladyland and Troyka. He alluded to Ladyland main man Pete Wareham’s wariness of the label because it ends up keeping his music away from a rock crowd, which is the one Wareham feels is its natural audience (I am making assumptions here and am happy to be put right if this is not the case).
And I understand that survival and one’s own career need to come first. But, taking the bigger view, both Nicholson and Wareham would be better served, I reckon, showing some allegiance to the history and faith in the concept of jazz, surely? That is what has inspired them to get to where they have got to today. And if they feel that is not where their natural audience now resides, surely it’s time to bring their audience into the house of jazz, not leave it.
It was the same story with Soweto Kinch and his frustration at not having his CDs in the hip-hop racks. But, a vague awareness of the coverage Kinch has received over the years (no accurate research or survey here) would suggest that most of the coverage he gets is in the jazz media. It’s difficult enough being a musician. There’s no need to add to the anguish by rejecting the followers you do have in order to go after ones you might not get, or certainly not in great enough numbers. Babies and bathwater seem to apply.
I don’t think Ornette Coleman is particularly embarrassed about being referred to as a jazz musician, is he? I’m not sure that John Zorn is, and I don’t think Derek Bailey was either. And that jazz can encompass Peter Brotzmann and Frank Sinatra is, to my mind, cause for celebration, not alarm. Surely to make whatever music is in your heart and mind and then add jazz to it as a label of convenience is to say all the right things about it? About its freedom, about its honesty, about its sincerity, about its dedication to tackling the most important and difficult challenges in music – that of spontaneous composition.
Jazz has always been a broad church – let’s just keep throwing its doors wide open and inviting everyone in.
This is an interesting problem/question and one which I have sometimes come across in the music I make with Led Bib. For me, I am very happy for Led Bib to be thought of as a jazz band, for me it is just that, not ‘punk jazz’ or ‘death jazz’ or whatever people want to call it, as you say ‘jazz’ has always been a broad church. The difficulty is, Led Bib, and other similar bands can sometimes reach people who wouldn’t ordinarily be interested in jazz and the jazz label may put those people off, just walk into any HMV ‘jazz’ section and see how many young people are in there for example.
And also, is there not a problem that you put a saxophone in your music or have jazz musicians playing and suddenly the jazz tag gets put on it. I think Pete Wareham is right, why can’t Acoustic Ladyland be thought of as rock? It follows a rock song structure, there isn’t a lot of improvisation, so what is it that makes it jazz? Is it just because jazz musicians are playing it, or because it has a saxophone?
The same could be said for The Invisible. A great band, but, for some reason some of the press want to say they have a jazzy sound….are they listening to the music, or do they just know the players involved?
There’s an interview with Zorn in Jazz Times where we discusses this very issue http://jazztimes.com/articles/24597-john-zorn-the-working-man
Thanks, Mark, for stressing the complexity of the issues. I agree there is no easy way through this. And thanks, too, for pointing me towards the Zorn interview which is excellent. I particularly like his response to Wynton Marsalis telling him at a jazz festival, “that’s not jazz”, and Zorn replying that he knows it isn’t but this jazz festival is “the only gig I’ve got”.
Yeah, the Zorn article is really interesting, especially as he rarely gives interviews.
I think your point about Soweto wanting to be in the hip hop section is also interesting and I suppose applies to Acoustic Ladyland as well. In one way this is throwing out the baby with the bath water, sure, but, I think that this isn’t to do with what type of press cover each album. I would assume, possibly wrongfully, that Soweto would prefer a big feature in a hip hop magazine over a jazz one, not because he doesn’t like jazz of course…The difficulty is the jazz media is very supportive of ‘independent’ artists, if they weren’t they wouldn’t have much to write about! In hip hop, rock etc. it is very difficult to penetrate the big magazine titles unless you have a big money campaign behind you.
In the end I think the loser in all of this ends up being the consumer unfortunately. I was recently talking to the distributor of our latest record about a racking campaign at a high street retailer and they said, if it was in rock, no matter how obscure the music is, you would shift nearly ever copy, but in jazz….it will most certainly be slower. That is of course not to say that people won’t buy it because it is jazz, but you will get people who won’t take a chance on it.
At the end of the day, no matter how strange the music is anyone is creating, I think people want other people to enjoy it, I know I do. That isn’t the driving force, but who wouldn’t want people to like what they are doing. I think the drive to shake of the jazz label is often done to try and get more people into the music, however foolishly, but it is also possible that they are trying to get rid of the jazz label because it isn’t jazz and they don’t want to limit what they can achieve by the label. If Acoustic Ladyland got the coverage in the rock press that they do in the jazz press they would be reaching a lot more people than they are now that’s for sure.
For me, I will just keep making music…hopefully people will like it. I think it’s probably jazz.
Can’t really argue with any of this. I do worry about the non-jazz attitude to jazz as not for them or not something to take a risk on. I agree that, labelling aside, the rock audience can be more adventurous. I worry also that there are too many in the jazz audience who are reluctant to go outside it. Recently Birmingham Jazz put on The Necks and got loads of new faces, predominantly from the alt rock scene (Wire readers, maybe?) but the regular BJ contingent stayed away (and missed a damn fine gig as a consequence).
Still, despite all the caveats, I believe that there is life in the old dog jazz yet… and am delighted Led Bib are helping to keep it alive and moving forward.
I have no problem being classified within the jazz world and bringing out “jazz” albums. It’s all about a frame of mind and not necessarily about being directly in a lineage (as in the mould of rock or classical “family trees”). I too get complaints when an album released on Babel is not in a pure jazz lineage. It’s by far the easiest for me, where I have albums on the label including the other BJ (the South-East London variety) playing blues or his comedic thrash, Huw Warren playing John Dowland, Portico Quartet and Led Bib.
I find Pete’s difficulties especially surprising. When Acoustic Ladyland moved from Babel to V2, a much much larger label with little jazz there, Skinny Grin sold less than Last Chance Disco and remains lower in the Amazon ranking than the latter album which of course went out within “jazz”.
Categories seem to be something that have exaggerated importance for commentators and also for the music industry (where each style has to be put into its box for the sake of journalists or shop salesmen). Thank goodness, audiences and musicians remain much broader and in the end go back to whether music is “good” or “bad”.
There is a protective jazz audience, such as that which you allude to as the ones who don’t come to The Necks, who require criteria such as paying dues or whatever. Similarly there is a resistant world that baulks at the word “jazz”, similarly missing out on things that they would otherwise enjoy.
In the end, I’ll just shrug my shoulders, complete this missive and return to my involvement in JAZZ.
Really interesting article. I’m a big Soweto fan, and really enjoyed seeing Acoustic Ladyland live a couple of years ago. It’s much easier to get friends to come to gigs with me for these guys than, say, Ab Baars & Ig Henneman (that scared ‘em!).
There’s clearly an accessibility issue with “jazz” but it only dates back so far. One thing that struck me with the Zorn interview is when he says that back in the ’60s he and his contemporaries were listening to everything. Not anymore, or at least, not for most people. Maybe this is beginning to change back a bit or more likely, from Ornette really, jazz went too far/became too free to remain accessible to even experimental listeners. Whilst free jazz type music still exists “jazz” will still intimidate most listeners and that’s understandable. Again to reference Zorn, often he is making music for the few.
Given this, no wonder Soweto/Wareham are uncomfortable with the “jazz” tag.
The other angle is that “jazz” has no contemporary collective sound or culture. Again, go back to the 60’s or before and you have bebop. That was what jazz was and in many ways remains. What is it now? Bebop is dead (right?). If jazz is bebop, then jazz is at best dated. If jazz has moved on to some other sound, and it stands to reason that it could and would since jazz existed before and after bebop, then which sound do we associate it with? I’m not sure there is a clear answer any more, unless we root jazz in either a nostalgic idiom or in being avant-garde ergo esoteric (or by playing a saxophone, which seems the weakest and most accepted definition).
Either way, being “jazz” is clearly not much of a selling point any more. There could be no more persuasive reason to let the genre retire.
Who felt that the Jazz category/genre needed to be crammed full of all crap and nameless noise that came along i.e. John Zorn, Kenny G.?? We’ll call that “mistake number one”…if the genre had simply been left alone, there would be no discussion, about changing the word. Instead people need to pigeon hole and it begins huge problems, do you people think that Louis Armstrong and John Zorn practice the same art form? The core of Jazz is honed improvisational skills, PERIOD. If your music sounds like a meth addict tap dancing on a piano…you might have something interesting there …BUT IT IS NOT JAZZ. The only instances when the lines are blurred is when you have bands like Steely Dan ( a group of talented improvisers) but I don’t even think they would tell you that is a Jazz group but it’s a hell of a lot closer than Iggy Pop’s new album. Do the noise makers lack the talent and creativity to name their own Genre, rather than change mine? The noise pollution in the Jazz Genre has only aided in it’s downfall , confusing newcomers etc.
To all the noisemakers out there, if it is your art, your creation, and if in it you can express yourself and find beauty…then GIVE IT A NAME!! AND STAY THE HELL OUT OF JAZZ.
go to my blog jazzapocalypse.blogspot.com
While I think we have explored most sides of this arguement, I couldn’t help butting in again.
Surely the above argument is strange. In one hand you’re saying jazz is about ‘honed improvisational skills’ and then on the other you are saying Kenny G and John Zorn are not jazz. Whether you like either of them, they both have honed improvisational skills. So is the argument you are making that they need to have honed improvisational skills in the style of jazz 1920-1960ish?
I am not a fan of Kenny G by any stretch of the imagination. But, he makes a music that I would assume he thinks sounds good. And, like him or not, you can recognize his sound a mile off. That’s a lot more than you can say for many of the so called ‘jazz’ musicians who are being pumped out of the music colleges the world over and are very proficient at making a jazz(meaning 1940-1965ish) sound when required.
As for your point about naming the music. Jazz from the beginning has been a name that people felt uncomfortable with, from Duke Ellington to Miles Davis. It wasn’t a name that they made up because of their talent. Zorn, I know, and I would assume Kenny G too would not want to call their music jazz, it’s the journalists who do that because that is probably the closest thing to what they do. And I would hope that musicians have better thing to do with their time than come up with names for the genres of music they are working in.
Surely jazz is an ever evolving art form and to define jazz as a specific sounds (say bebop-1960) is in danger of making it a museum piece. Jazz is a vital artform and people have always been upset with the new things, from Louis Armstrong being upset with bop, to Max Roach being upset with Ornette, to Keith Jarrett being upset with electronics, to Wynton being upset with Zorn, the list will go on and on. Thankfully some people will continue to be concerned with music and not what genre they fit in.
I think you are also confused about the downfall of jazz. I think there is a lot of interest in the so-called ‘noise makers’ with a young enthusiastic audience. The ageing neo-boppers are getting older…and making jazz a museum piece instead of a vital artform is what will kill it.
It’s been a good debate to have, so thank you all! And keep them coming…