{"id":231,"date":"2009-08-09T11:36:18","date_gmt":"2009-08-09T15:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2009\/08\/mr_teachout_gets_the_word\/"},"modified":"2011-04-28T16:33:41","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T20:33:41","slug":"mr_teachout_gets_the_word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/08\/mr_teachout_gets_the_word.html","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Teachout gets the word: Jazz’s Swing Era popularity past"},"content":{"rendered":"
Biographer of H L. Mencken<\/a> and (coming soon) Louis Armstrong<\/a>, ArtsJournal blogger <\/a>and scribe for the Wall Street Journal Terry Teachou<\/span>t has raised a fuss<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0by pointing to<\/a> the National Endowment for the Arts<\/span>‘\u00c2\u00a0study<\/a> citing declines in jazz audiences from 2002 to 2008 (and indeed from 1982 to 2008). That this data was released in June and been reported on earlier, elsewhere, (like\u00c2\u00a0at Jazz.com<\/a> by editor Ted Gioia<\/span>) without getting much attention suggests either the broad reach and high profile of\u00c2\u00a0<\/span>Murdock<\/span>-owned media<\/a> or it’s August and a writer getting outraged about ho-hum “news” can stir otherwise becalmed straits.\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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But seriously: Mr. Teachout has stumbled into a very old trap, forecasting the death of jazz.<\/div>\n


\nTeachout writes:<\/p>\n

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Jazz musicians who want to keep their own equally beautiful music alive and well have got to start thinking hard about how to pitch it to young listeners–not next month, not next week, but right now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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He blames jazz’s intellectualism, its presumed lack of relevance to pop-saturated audiences, for its position.<\/div>\n
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I wouldn’t want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music. But there’s no sense in pretending that it didn’t happen, or that contemporary jazz is capable of appealing to the same kind of mass audience that thrilled to the big bands of the swing era.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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And he prescribes the very thing most practical, professional jazz musicians of the level worth paying special attention to already do:\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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And it is precisely because jazz is now widely viewed as a high-culture art form that its makers must start to grapple with the same problems of presentation, marketing and audience development as do symphony orchestras, drama companies and art museums–a task that will be made all the more daunting by the fact that jazz is made for the most part by individuals, not established institutions with deep pockets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Yeah, ok — meet Wynton Marsalis<\/span> and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jon Faddis<\/span> and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, SFJazz<\/span>, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild<\/span>, Earshot Jazz<\/span>, the Jazz Institute of Chicago <\/span>\u00c2\u00a0— among the numerous educational and grass roots institutions jazz musicians align with\/partake of to further their individual and collective careers. This endeavor can be dated to have started in its present form in the early ’90s or depending how you want to narrow it, considerably further back. Concurrently, there is a present day generation of Young Lions — not the ’80s or the ’90s bunch but the newcomers right now pitching jazz to young audiences without pandering to low common denominators, Jonathan Batiste<\/span>, Esperanza Spalding<\/span>, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone<\/span>, Corey Wilkes<\/span>, Tyshawn Sorey<\/span>, the Bad Plus<\/span>, Brad Mehldau, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, <\/span>to name a few. Let’s look squarely at NEA evidence cited to demonstrate jazz’s endangerment –\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n

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