Satisfy your curiosity over what jazz is in 2009 and have a read of the results of prolific jazz blogger Peter Bacon’s recent poll on what this music is called “jazz”.
http://thejazzbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/jazz-is-still-the-word-oh-yes/
Have your say and comment below.
From thejazzbreakfast
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.
Tags: Birmingham Jazz, Jazz, Peter Bacon, thejazzbreakfast
