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SOME of America’s smartest publications — the ones that often offered robust and serious jazz coverage in decades past — have recently been running articles (satiric, critical or otherwise) dissing one of my favorite art forms. New Yorker, Atlantic, New York Review of Books… What’s behind it?
Music historian and CultureCrash ally Ted Gioia tries to puzzle it out in a new essay in the Daily Beast.
Jazz doesn’t get much coverage in the mainstream media, and hasn’t for many years. But something strange has happened during the last four months. Over a period of just a few weeks, a host of high profile periodicals have published smug, scornful dismissals of the music. Is this just coincidence, or has something changed in the cultural dialogue?
How did jazz go from America’s musical treasure to whipping boy? Let’s go back to the last day in July, when The New Yorker set the tone with the publication of an interview with Sonny Rollins. Here the sax legend offered observations “in his own words” on his life and times. But, as the jazz community soon learned, this wasn’t really an interview with Rollins, now 84 years old, and the
comments attributed to him weren’t his own words, but a satire concocted by a writer who had learned his craft at The Onion.
…Just nine days later, the Washington Post ran a caustic article that began with three memorable sentences: “Jazz is boring. Jazz is overrated. Jazz is washed up.”
Ted goes on from there, sketching the way jazz increasingly gets caricatured as a pretentious, compulsory kind of culture.
I won’t spoil his conclusion. Have some thoughts on this myself and they’ll probably have to wait until after my trip.
Part of me wants to say to the haters: Go listen to a Dinah Washington or Charlie Parker song, or read about what a lot of these musicians — especially the black musicians — went through as they built and sustained their careers. And then tell me jazz is something worth mocking.
I don’t know why people would feel the need to bash Jazz. Maybe it’s too hard for people to relate to and the attention span of our society is shrinking? I hope not, as this would be a sad state of affairs for our culture.
Clark Terry’s commentary about all the mumbling about jazz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJuFDvH8wGs
Scott, I’m not in favor of jazz-bashing particularly. Honestly, though, I think that folks who can’t look at a New Yorker Shouts and Murmurs column that has the word “humor” clearly visible in its URL and figure out that it’s satire deserve all the mockery they get.
What’s the way to turn the tide on the negative jazz coverage? Telling more positive jazz stories, about how the music and its purveyors are not merely up to date but ahead of the trend and aware of ways to turn America positive, using improvisation freely and mastery of rhythm foremost to lift the spirits and unite the populace in restructural, mutually supportive activities that are fun, both funky and smart. How do we get assignments to provide such coverage? By devising ways to tell jazz stories that are sexy, suspenseful, irresistible. Do we need to pick on pop or country music, dumb movies and dumber tv shows to make our points? I hope not. . . Maybe we need to figure out what artistic manifestations the editors of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and the New York Review of Books deem laudable, and relate jazz to the same qualities. Or else get directly to the audience via social media, with a constant but compelling barrage of posts showing that jazz is full of variety, surprising and enriching, across demographics and despite rumors to the contrary.
Interesting post. Thanks.
I’m not sure exactly where to start with this one. For anyone who has read “The Onion” articles, you already know some of it is funny and some may not be your cup of tea. But if this interviewer is from there he may be holding onto his roots and that would show us how much stalk we could put into this article.
However that completely aside, I have always been aware of people having strong views of music genres since I was in high school. I think it’s silly and perhaps a little narrow minded but it is what it is.
Perhaps we are becoming more cynical, arrogant and loud about these opinions. Jazz is a big part of history and if people don’t value and appreciate where we have come from, it will undoubtedly impact our present. Perhaps peoples music palettes need to mature and hopefully Jazz will still be a part of our future.
Repeat your last sentence about a million times.
Jazz bashing – what an inconvienient ruth. It is going on.
All I can say is I am so glad that Louis Armstrong is not alive to have to endure this babyish. impatient, uneducated opinion. RIP all you wonderful musicians.