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How To “Save” Jazz: A Plea For A Broader Education |
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[Note: This post was inspired from the current crisis at the Northwestern University School of Music. The jazz program there is quietly being eliminated, despite a resurgence of jazz education in this country. The students have finally found out the fate of their program and are frantically working to stop the closure. If you agree with what I've written, even if you have no connection to Northwestern, I urge you to visit this website and call Dean Toni Montgomery and tell her that you support the Northwestern University Jazz Program. Call 847-491-7575 and ask for the Dean's office.]
Jazz education in America is booming, but working jazz musicians are still poor. A study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that while almost half of working jazz musicians held a bachelor’s degree or higher, they made significantly less money than their similarly educated counterparts, and they usually lack retirement and health benefits. In other words, while there are more and more outlets for jazz musicians to get educated, there are fewer and fewer reasons to be a working musician once one’s schooling is finished.
This trend is echoed by the decline of jazz music as a genre in America. Over the last 10 years jazz sales have more than halved, falling even more steeply than other genres. If you ask any working musician they will tell you there are less jazz venues to play at, less jazz music on the radio, and less people interested in paying money to see jazz musicians play. While the jazz underground may still be active, jazz has steadily moved away from popular American culture. And with the lack of well-paid musicians, quality airtime, and an engaged audience, the first truly American musical genre is falling permanently off the average American’s cultural radar.
There are lots of ways to “save” jazz. If another Miles Davis or Charlie Parker arrived on the scene, jazz would have a celebrity who could project the music onto the national stage. While there are jazz greats today, like Wynton Marsalis, who are arguably more well known than the giants of the jazz golden age, they seem to be focusing more of their attention on intellectual pursuits as opposed to jazz popularity, and there is a great dearth of middle level celebrities to bridge the gap between the top of the heap and the fragmented underground. Perhaps if jazz could convince corporate radio to break with the current pre-packaged playlists and promote American musical innovations a lot of people could be introduced to new artists. Or if Americans decided to start patronizing live music venues instead of listening to canned tracks on their iPods, jazz could once again become the premier improvised musical format it once was. However, none of these things are sure ways to help jazz recover, and none of them seem likely to happen. Instead, I propose we focus on preserving jazz music until its renaissance comes. Without this preservation, I fear jazz will fade away beyond hope of recovery.
To do this, to preserve jazz music as a viable way to make a living, we need to focus on a broader education. In short, jazz musicians should be taught about the music business and the larger business world in addition to their chosen instrument. With a broader education, including how to start business ventures, how to read and write contracts, how to make connections, and how to be an entrepreneur, jazz musicians will be able to take their diverse talents and turn them into careers. On top of that, in order to save jazz, jazz musicians must come up with a backup plan for themselves so they can continue to play while making extra money in other ways.
With this solution in mind, the context of a jazzer’s education becomes supremely important. Jazz education at a conservatory, where musical excellence is the sole pursuit, prepares musicians for a fantasy world where paying gigs are handed to them on a silver platter, all they have to do is audition and play. Instead, music education should take place in the context of a larger liberal arts university, so musicians can avail themselves to the more practical classes these institutions have to offer. With a more broad class schedule, jazz graduates will be more prepared to take on the challenges of being a working musician in today’s iPod society. With as many as 40% of musicians working part time, a broader education will enable them to make the money they need to stay afloat quicker and more easily, enabling them to spend more time on their art.
Of course, this kind of education is hard to come by. Of the schools that offer a jazz bachelor’s degree in America, only some are from schools with a quality liberal arts program. Some, like the Berklee College of Music, offer extensive training to prepare their graduates for the working musician’s world. This training has helped Berklee students become more successful, but is the exception in conservatory studies, not the rule. This is why the elimination of any of these programs hurts the jazz genre so much. While there are plenty of places these students can continue their education, with jazz educational outlets sprouting up throughout the nation, few will provide them with the extra-musical skills needed to survive in today’s marketplace. Without broad based learning we are setting these musicians up for failure. And without musicians who can survive out in the marketplace, we risk losing jazz as a viable genre of music. And once jazz has ceased to be a living artform, it quickly loses the vibrant and creative people that it needs to have any hope of recovering.
One interesting trend to note, however, is the increasing availability of jazz education at the lower school levels. Prominent groups such as the International Association for Jazz Education and the Thelonius Monk Institute have been pushing for increased education in the early years. These efforts need to be reinforced. If a generation of young people grows up with an appreciation of jazz, I wonder how they can reshape the genre in 10 or 15 years. I just hope there is something there for them to appreciate.
I feel that a broad based education for jazz musicians is imperative to sustain this important genre. What do you think? Are musicians better off with a liberal arts education or is the conservatory the best way to create employed artists?
One thing I would be interested to find out about is the demographics of jazz fans. My guess is that jazz fans are mostly older, and that the young “ipod market” does not listen to jazz much at all. Overall music sales are declining, and older fans are buying much fewer cd’s or album tracks online.
In other words, I don’t think educating jazz musicians about the business will really change much.Anyone that wants to become a professional musician faces very long odds, but to make a living playing jazz is even harder.
Jazz must be popular among the working class again in order to survive. It needs to lighten up and get rid of its elitist snob attitude. Eliminating the covert Black on White racism would be a big help. Jazz lost its edge when it became the bastion of pseudo-intellectual snobs wtih music degrees. When Jazz was practiced as a folk art and was accessible to the working class as a dance music for example it thrived.Jazz lost its popularity when it stopped being fun to listen to. Too many of todays “Jazz musicians ” have too much technique and absolutely NO SOUL. They sacrifice musicality in their relentless pursuit of “originality” and their results are BORING There isn’t a tenor sax player today that is fit to shine Lester Youngs shoes! Whant Jazz to thrive? START SWINGING AGAIN!
@mike f
I’m not totally against the intellectualization of jazz, but I agree it has hurt its popularity. However, I don’t think it is either or, there is room for both. I know that a lot of jazz musicians I know have problems with Wynton Marsalis and others who don’t see as much room for both forms of the art.
of course there is! Another problem I wish to address is the fact that we are dealing with a generation of people who have NO ARTS EDUCATION. This is due to the arts education funding cutbacks of the 70s and 80s.Unfortunately many of these people who have had little or no arts education and don’t have a clue or give a damn about anything but the profit motive,the bottom line if you will, are now in the position to make business decisions that affect the arts.Many local governments (like Chicago) make it difficult for clubowners to even get a liquor license let alone get permission to present live music in their establishments. You don’t need to have a public amusement license to have a sports bar or even to have just a DJ but to have a band perform you need a license!
I agree with you there. That is why it will be so interesting to see what happens in 10-20 years, as a generation of young people with a jazz background comes of age. What will they be able to do with the genre, and will it still be around in any viable form for them to latch onto?
What are they going to do if there are NO PLACES TO PLAY?
There are only maybe 3 or so places in Chicago that feature “Jazz” or in most cases a facsimle of “Jazz” with any regularity. Even then there are so many people who want to play at these places that it is nearly impossible to perfoem anywhere on a regular basis. There is virtually NO LOCAL VENUE for musicians who are unknown to perform. The critics don’t seem to want to write about anyone except the “fat cats” like Wynton or Redman and they turn a blind eye to the lack of performance space for those who arn’t so anointed by the media.
The American public has essentially lost touch with the importance of culture in society. Everyone speaks out about “dirty lyrics” in hip-hop and rap but no one cres that those venues would rather deploy empty cheesie sounding drum machines and samplers then hire musicians.”Artists” (if you want to call them that) like Beyonce, Kenny G Celine Dion,and even Nancy Wilson (!) have been recording only using sampled music instead of hiring musicians! You’d think as much money as these people make they wopuld present at least a small band or orchestra! Again the profit motive over true quality!
I agree with you that we need an effort to preserve things until there is a resurgence in jazz popularity, but I’m not sure I agree with your statements about other genres like hip hop or dance music. We don’t live in an either/or society and there is room for all kinds of musical expression. I don’t think jazz is having trouble because it is expensive, I think it is having trouble because it has become a lot more cerebral, which takes it out of the pop world, and it has lost a lot of mid-level celebrities that sustain jazz at the local level.
Mike F, you make some great points. Unfortunately, you’re wrong about the quality of the music today. There ARE many cats who swing their asses off today, the problem is that they are not marketed at all b/c there isn’t much of a market for them, b/c of lack of arts education, an image- as opposed to product-driven market, etc. We live in a crazy world.
J Ro ans Sean
To a certain extent I DO agree with some of what you’re saying. I have always believed in co-existence.Unfortunately Capitalist America does not. 98% of the music you hear in the media is drum-machined and sampled. We live in a crazy world for sure my friends. We live in a gullible cattle like society of people with no clue because of their lack of arts education. They actually think nothing of PAYING A COVER CHARGE TO SEE A NITWIT SPINNING CDs!!!!!! Chicago once had tons of places that would at least give LIVE MUSIC not DJs LIVE MUSIC a chance…not any more baby! In addition to societal apathy you can thank the regulatory policies of Mayor for life Richard Daley and his gang of condo-crazed corporate zombies for that!
Very provocative essay. Excellent ideas–there are so many facets to this discussion. On the one hand, this is one of the most exciting times in the history of jazz because the music is developing in so many new and different directions (think of Chris Potter, Fareed Haque, Dave Douglas, Danilo Perez, and so on). On the other hand, the prospects for making a living playing jazz are very slim. But, this isn’t new. Charles Mingus worked at the Post Office during slow times in his career, even after playing with the likes of Charlie Parker. Wes Montgomery continued his job as a milkman to support his large family, even after becoming famous. J.J. Johnson and Oliver Nelson went to California to make their living writing t.v. and film music. It’s interesting that the sketch biographies that contain most of what we know about great musicians like these omit information about the basic economic realities their lives. Maybe part of the education process for musicians needs to be a reality check in terms of what many of our heroes did to support themselves financially in addition to playing jazz.
Listen to the souctracks of 98% of the movies, 98% of TV commercials and almost all TV series it’s SAMPLED with a DRUM MACHINE.Corporate America has betrayed the arts and NO ONE GIVES A DAMN. I would probably like rap or hip-hop if they used REAL INSTRUMENTS played by REAL LIVE MUSICIANS. Their is no longer a point of reference for the general listening public because they DON’T KNOW!!!!!!
This is main cause for Jazz entering a dark age The general public had their arts education taken away by “budget cuts” years ago. If that hadn’t happened I guarantee you most of theB.S. that gets perpetrated as “music” today would not be accepted. An educated public would have said “What is this crap? Are they kidding me with this empty B.S.?” “Where’s the drummer?”"Wheres the band for that matter?”
You are totally right here. Jazz education, and music education in general, needs to prepare people for the real world. And that means part time jobs and networking and bad gigs and contracts and all sorts of other things that aren’t practicing and playing. But these things are important and vital and they will keep musicians “in business” much longer.
I have been a professional musician for 35 years. My father and my grandfather before me were professional musicians. It wasn’t until the early 90s with the onset of the widespread use of drum machines and samplers that I had to look for non-musical employment. I only partially agree with your viewpoint here. You are obviously too young to remember when there were a lot of gigs everywhere. In Chicago there were hundreds of venues that employed music in one capacity or another. Again I repeat my argument, Jazz is dieing because of corporate Americas obsession with the bottum line. America is the richest country in the world yet the arts are a charity case. They would rather hire a DJ or use a samopler or a drum machine than pay for a musician. They would rather make $1,050,500 instead of the $1,000,000 they would make if they used real musicians.Its greed thatbis killing ANY music of artistic quality,not just Jazz
Please excuse the emphatic tone of my comments. When music is your profession you have a much different perspective from someone who doesn’t depend on it for a living.
Mike, I have no doubt in your convictions, but I think you couldn’t be more wrong in looking at computerized music vs. live music as an either/or choice. Live music did not decline (nor has it really declined, live rock acts like the Rolling Stones still make the most money when they tour) with the advent of computerized music. Live music such as jazz has declined because it is no longer America’s popular music. Many people would rather hire a DJ instead of a band not because it is cheaper (have you seen the DJ rates for parties? You could get a jazz band for that amount), but because DJs play the music they want to hear. To bring jazz and other live music back into the public’s eye you need to make them popular again. How you do that, well, that’s another question. However, I think it is naive to say computerized music is any less of an artform than live music and it is divisive to say you can only choose one or the other. Live music will not go anywhere, and if anything more live musicians are embracing computerized music as a way to add variety and vibrancy to their art.
I’m afraid live music HAS declined sir. There used to be hundreds of places in Chicago for example that featured LIVE MUSIC using REAL INSTRUMENTS no djs no karaoke LIVE MUSIC and I don’t mean featuring just the “fat cats ” who are very popular and can draw an audience almost without effort I mean places for the folks who wern’t fortunate enough to have fame handed to them. These people WORKED and some of them played entire careers without ever getting the recognition they may have deserved. Where are those venues for those who don’t happen to be Wynton now????? You are dead wrong sir saying that nothing has happened to live music. I’m not really against using technology to enhance a MUSICIANS performance I’m against using it as a substitute for a REAL MUSICIAN because you are to cheap and greedy to employ one. As for Jazz’s popularity you are quite right as I said before :Jazz will survive when it becomes popular with the working class,the common man if you willJazz needs to stop being the bastion of elitist snobbery. Here’s a good ad campaign: Jazz it’s not just for uptight nerds anymore!
Computerized music IS an either or choice! “Hey Joe why should we hire an orchestra when we can use a machine? We can double our profit margin! What ???….the musicians??? I don’t give a damn about the musicians!!!….What about the quality????Most people won’t even notice the change Most of the listening public hasn’t got a clue anyway!!!! What?……. tradition???…..screw tradition Were in this business to make money not paint a painting!!!!!””
J-Ro, I gotta disagree w/you man, the advent of digital/computerized music has led to a dearth of work for musicians, making it almost impossible to live solely as a professional musician. This is a situation that actually did not quite exist up until fairly recently, certainly in America’s larger cities not up until the past 15 years or so.
I guess it swings both ways Sean. I think you would be naive to discount the popularity of computer music. Jazz has taken a hit partly because computerized music (whether it be hip hop, dance, techno, Britney Spears, whatever) has enjoyed amazing popularity of late. For better or for worse it speaks to the average American better than jazz, and thus there is more demand for DJs, turntablists, and such.
However, there must be some part of it that is about money, as you and Mike point out. I’m inclined to believe it is less about money, but I would be naive to totally discount that motive as well.
It’s ALL ABOUT MONEY It’S MARKETING. It speaks to the “average American” because the computerized music is the only thing they are exposed to. The media only sells what THEY want to make popular. If Jazz were marketed with the same totalitarian agression as hip-hop you’d see a dramatic up-swing in its popularity. It doesn’ t cost much to make a “rap CD” All you need is a drum machine a sampling keyboard and a rhyming dictionary. I KEEP TELLING YOU MAN it’s about the “BENJAMINS”!!!!!! Minimum investment maximum yield…….. the 21st century capitalist way!!!!! Corporate media rakes in MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in profit yet they say that using musicians isn’t “in the budget”!!!!!!! As I said before an educated public ( we don’t have one because of those music ed funding cutbacks in the 70s and 80s) would have said “I’m not buying this B.S.” Instead they don’t know and don’t care!
Let’s compare music to food here for a moment. Let’s hypothetically say that there has been a rise in the popularity of hamburger as a result of intense marketing by the mass media. Now there are thousands of places that serve ONLY hamburger. Now fewer and fewer places serve anything else. There are of course different kinds of hamburger served sometimes with a little ketchup, sometimes with a little mustard, if the restaurant involved wants to spend the money on lettuce or the occasional tomatoe ( if it’s in their budget,after all do you know what tomatoes cost these days?) but basically its all still the same hamburger,The remaining few restaurants that serve things other than hamburger are now financially suffering and are becoming more and more hard to find . They have trouble maintaining an existence because the eating public are brainwashed into only accepting hamburger as their diet. they are led to believe that chicken for example is passe or that only fools and nerds eat spaghetti. Whereever you go you only see hamburger hamburger hamburger that’s what the music scene is like today nothing but mass-marketed mcmusic!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh one more thing about that “hamburger” I mentioned, very little of that “hamburger” is real meat, most of it is filler and artificial ingredients!
Here, I think you are woefully underestimating the American consumer. Tasteless as they may be, they are not sheep. True, there are monetary concerns involved, but computerized music did not become popular because “forced” down anyone’s throat. Computerized music became popular in direct competition with live music, and it has won out in today’s society. Honestly, it is sad when live musicians don’t admit this fact. That isn’t to say live music isn’t still popular (it is, people still go to concerts and clubs, maybe just not as much), or that live music won’t have a resurgence (look at indie rock). However, live music, like jazz, has lost its popularity in America, and with that you see the effects.
I can guarantee that if you could pack clubs with jazz music like you can with house music in Chicago, you would see way more jazz clubs. There is not a club owner in the world who would stop putting on a certain kind of music because another kind is cheaper. In this way music is not like other industries. You can’t just replace one genre with a cheaper substitute. The fact is, jazz clubs have closed because there is no longer as big of an audience as there once was. If the audience comes back, the clubs will come back, no matter the expense.
Second, though mass-marketed music has a ton of power in America, the American consumer has shown a remarkable ability to search out the kind of music they want to hear. The big labels are arguable as big as they ever were, but these days as much as 30% of new music is released on underground, independent labels. That’s remarkable! The scene out there is fragmented sure, but people will find the music they want to hear. I just think you are giving entirely too much credit to the mass-marketing big guns out there.
J ro: letme guess …you’re in your 20s am I right??? if that is so I was playing gigs and making a living before you were even born . I’m afraid your statement just showed me that you are somewhat naive about the music business and the brainwashing effect of saturation mass marketing.Your statement about club owners : “There is not a clubowner in the world who would stop putting on a certain type of music because another kind is cheaper” shows me that you have ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE WITH CLUBOWNERS!!!!!AND YES YOU CAN REPLACE ONE GENRE WITH A CHEAPER SUBSTITUTE ALL OF THE TV NETWORKS ALL OF THE TV COMMERCIAL PRODUCERS AND ALL OF THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS DID IT IN THE 90S THEY STOPPED HIREING MUSICIANS AND REPLACED THEM WITH COMPUTERS KID!!!!!! I can tell you arn’t a musician and your too young to remember when live music was the norm and NOT the exception!!!! JAZZ CLUBS CLOSE THE MUSIC STOPPED BEING MARKETED!!!! GROW UP KID!!!!!!!!!
OOps I meant to type the JAZZ CLUBS CLOSED BECAUSE THE MUSIC STOPPED BEING MARKETED!!!!! Wynton Marsalis (big brothers favorite jazz musician) is ample proof that the music CAN be mass marketed AND BE POPULAR!!! Computerized music did NOT win in any kind of “fair competition” with live music as you so naively state my friend. Sorry to be so emphatic.
J ro: As a fifty year old musician I happen to agree with Mike F that you are young and naive. Club owners are in the business to make as much money as possible and unless they know that your group is going to make tham a lot of money they will hire a cheaper group of less quality if it will make them more money.
J-Ro I have an anecdotal joke for you,
A snake meets a rabbit in the grass. The snake says to the rabbit “Pardon me sir you have long ears and a bushy tail and you hop aroung ,you’re a rabbit, right?” The rabbit says “Yes I am. May I ask YOU a question?” The snakes says “Sure what would you like to ask me?” The rabbit replies “You’re slimey and you have no ears, you’re a CLUBOWNER , right? ” (Old musicians joke dating back to the 1930s)
Well, I think I was going to stay out of this one. I don’t think I can change either of your minds. But here’s my final take on the subject:
Club owners are out for the bottom line. This is true. However, you’ve got to realize where the larger bottom line is. Here’s my hypothetical:
You’ve got a club owner who owns a jazz club in a jazz town. By that I mean he’s got an audience, he knows the musicians, and he’s successful (I might be talking about the 1930’s - 60’s here, but whatever).
Now, this club owner is looking for a way to make more money. He says to himself, “Hey, I can stop hiring these huge big bands and just hire someone to play records. I’ll save a bunch of money!” He does this and guess what? His audience suddenly vanishes! Why? Because his audience was interested in live music and he took it away. He can’t compete with the other DJ-based clubs in the area because they have a huge head start on him (they know the best DJs, how to promote, etc…), so he’s lost.
If you can’t already tell, this story above (the one you seem to be promoting as fact) is a fiction. No smart club owner would do such a thing. While owners may not care about musicians, they sure as hell care about their customers (the audience).
Instead, here’s how I see it happening:
Club owner has a jazz club, which is successful. As the years go by, jazz as a genre becomes less and less relevant to today’s young people (the core live music-going audience). The owner sees his audience gradually growing older and smaller, until he is left with a core group of fans.
Now, and only now, he decides to make the move to more popular music. Granted, he is still at a huge disadvantage, because many other clubs have a huge headstart, but at this point, what does he have to lose? He has a failing club and (as you point out) expensive musicians he pays to play for a handful of people.
That, right there, is a smart business decision. You and I may not agree with it, but hey, that’s where the business comes in. However, no rational business owner would sell out his audience to save money on the musicians. That just isn’t where the bulk of the costs or profits can be made (most club owners make their money on drinks, not tickets). Club owners close their clubs or change their style because the audience is already declining. You are confusing cause and effect.
However, the end result is the same: less jazz clubs. So really, we should be talking about how to reverse that trend. Instead of crying over the loss of music venues, the terrible tastes of the American consumer, and the sleazy club owners, jazz musicians who care about jazz music should be thinking about how to make jazz profitable again. In my mind, the way to do that is to make it popular again. And the way to do that is to innovate.
Wynton Marsalis is great, and he’s done a lot, and he’s become very popular, but he is a nostolgia act at heart. Jazz needs an innovator that can capture the American ear with something new. I’ve got no idea who that should be or what it would sound like. All I know is it has been a long time since jazz has been on the top of the pop charts. If you want to see more venues and more money flowing to musicians (which I assume you do), your goal should be to put it back there, or increase the audience in some other way. You can’t force people to listen to music you think is worthwhile, and you can’t force club owners to support unprofitable business practices. Jazz was profitable at one point and it can be again.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
That last post (unless I see a reply that pees me off) is also my last take on the subject. J-Ro I have nothing against you personally and I wish you the best of luck. May you find what you’re looking for!
Mike F
I fell in love with jazz years ago, listening to Bitches Brew on my Mom’s record player. After I understood the music and matured a little, I went in search of Miles’ modern counterpart. Needless to say, I found little of interest. While I love Coltrane, his influence seems to have created a mindset of subpar music WRITING.
Trane was one of the best soloists around, but without a theory background, most of his compositions sound like he’s picking out random chords, then soloing like crazy. While he had a mind that could create wonderful melodys and beautiful music out of this; in most musicians hands the formula turns to crap.
I hear a lot of artists play extrodinarily over crazy chords, moving fast, boppin with the best. Without the compositional skills of a Miles Davis, this sounds, at best, like wanking. The players are out there, but the only new composer who has really captured my attention is Avishai Cohen- in particular, his work “Colors.”