Jazz in the 21st century: Playing outside the box

Come on, you know that was funny.

But, my point is that when I watch those videos, I see people trying to avoid modern reality - trying to portal back to a different time. It looks like escapism, avoidance, or maybe looking for acceptance from their elders. Or, maybe that's just me.

What I wrote is a factual observation, not a value judgement.

So it makes sense whether one believes that "only music that makes money matters" or not.

(And I don't believe that at all)

> Yet, for some reason, they spend their time playing Jazz derivatives and covers or as studio musicians.

Because that's the kind of music they like to play and know best. If they went to music school, jazz and classical are the dominant music styles that are taught. Also, you can make a pretty good living as a studio musician. It's much less risky than trying to sell your own albums as a solo artist.

> Interestingly, they're all playing Jazz - which to me is so puzzling. It's akin to being a master visual artist and being absorbed in re-creating Pollack or Rothko or Kadinsky.

No, it's like a painter creating their own works with Pollack, Rothko, and Kadinsky as key influences.

You think they should do the musical equivalent of a master painter taking a job at an graphic design firm? Plenty of them do, actually, you got to pay the bills somehow. That's what being a studio musician is.

> Jazz had a moment, and it was a beautiful moment. It can be admired and relished as such, and the music can help transport one to that moment in time. But, does Jazz even make any sense in the modern world?

As the article mentions, Jazz is changing with the times, as it always has. The music that Coltrane and Miles played in the '50s and '60s was quite different from what the New Orleans bands of the early 20th century were playing. It's funny you should mention Miles because he lived and played through several eras of jazz (and was the pioneer of several of them). He also expressed an ambivalence towards his earlier work.

> " "So What" or Kind of Blue, they were done in that era, the right hour, the right day, and it happened. It's over [...] What I used to play with Bill Evans, all those different modes, and substitute chords, we had the energy then and we liked it. But I have no feel for it anymore, it's more like warmed-over turkey."

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. So instead of trying to explain it more, here's a jazz track released last year. Tell me if it sounds boring or old-fashioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv3SzjFIa-s

> But, if I went to a music venue today, and the band was playing Jazz, I'd be bored out of my mind.

If I went to a music venue today and they were playing hip hop I would be similarly bored. Turns out different people have different tastes.

As for why you'd go and listen to someone cover a song from Kind of Blue: jazz is mainly improvisational. That means even if they play "So What", it won't be note-for-note the same as the version on that historic record. Hearing the ideas that the musicians create in the moment by listening and responding to their bandmates is the reason I love jazz.

You can make art for the sole purpose of money. Lots of writers and musicians churn out pulp and jingles to keep the pool heated. And some of that stuff is really good art.

I think you're stuck with a particular definition of jazz, the one that's putting the proverbial pillow on it. If you define jazz as that stuff that had its moment in the past with Coltrane and Bird, etc, of course it's going to be boring and old hat. If you listen to Robert Glasper's Black Radio and understand it a contemporary expression of jazz as well as R&B, then it's easy to be amazed at how much jazz has evolved and enthralled with where it's going. Jazz has never been "pure" - it has always reached into different music genres in subtle and unexpected ways. It remains misunderstood for that reason.

Indeed, likewise for classical music too. I'm pretty involved in my local music scene. Everybody I know who makes a decent middle class income from music, teaches. For one thing, there's reasonable demand. For another, it's a way for a performer fill your schedule with work during the hours when they pretty much can't be performing.