My friend, the brilliant Ethan Hein, has a new blog post that asks whether jazz can be a (more) popular genre again, and if so, how. Here is his great article, and below is my response.

Ooooooookaaaay. Whew. Where to start?

As usual, fascinating. A lot to think about. This is sort of an unstructured rant — hopefully it makes some kind of sense.

As a jazz musician, and someone who loves jazz profoundly as an art form, I occasionally lapse into despair over the state of the genre. There are good reasons for this despair, to be sure. But my melancholy moods are, really, only occasional. Because the rest of the time I’m too busy listening to exciting music, and trying to make some of my own.

It is certainly true that as jazz evolved over the 20th Century it became more abstract, broadly speaking more technical, less impressionistic and less concerned with melody and song form — the elements that tend to make music immediately palatable, danceable and amenable to mass commercial appeal. In doing so, jazz became a truly deep art music — music whose scope and ambition rivals classical music and literature and fine art; music that is theoretically capable of discoursing on anything in the spectrum of human experience. (My definition of what separates Art Music from Pop Music.)

There is no doubt that this evolution also alienated a large part of the audience that made jazz commercially viable in the first half of the century, a trajectory that classical music went through a little more slowly between the second half of the 19th Century through to today.

Now, part of the premise of these kinds of conversations is that to some degree, things could “go back” to the way they were. I find that highly questionable. The popularity of jazz didn’t decline in a vacuum. At the same time that jazz was changing, rock and motown and any number of other forms were becoming wildly popular. Even if jazz had frozen itself in the Glenn Miller era, would it have been able to compete with the British Invasion? I doubt it.

But I think there’s a larger point — the one that is most at odds with your essay. You seem to be proffering two solutions to jazz’s marginalization. That jazz needs to be more “in the moment” which I read as: needing to connect on a human level with people’s emotions and with the concerns of the present moment— we’ll call that “cultural relevance.” And that it needs to be artistically simpler — less technical.

In terms of cultural relevance, I agree with you completely. Jesse claims that jazz split in two in the ’70s. I’d say maybe in three, and put the “start” date in the ’60s. I think the taxonomy is something like: nostalgia-soaked, reflexively-anachronistic Wynton-style capital-J jazz; fusion & smooth “jazz,” and Free Jazz. And each of these branches is problematic in its own way. But to be sure, none are “culturally relevant.”

But lets look back for a second. In the ’60s, you had very topical, artistically unimpeachable jazz that dealt with, for example, civil rights — the Freedom Now! suite, lots of Mingus. And it was hardly a mass-market breakthrough, even in the black community. Not because there was anything wrong the music — it’s just that cultural tastes had switched genres. In order for Fable of Faubus to compete with Sly Stone, Mingus would have to had played electric bass over a funk beat and hired a singer…. Squeezed himself into leather pants… And then it wouldn’t be jazz, would it?

My point here is simply that I think the train left the station a long time ago on the jazz form being “where its at” with The Kids. Nothing we do that is still recognizably jazz in any way is going to be Pop-popular because Kreayshawn exists to fill that hole. Why the fuck do you need Wycliffe Gordon when you have Nicki Minaj? You just don’t.

And I mean, you talk about learning from hip-hop, but which hip-hop? It’s funny that you cite Rockit. Partly cuz I don’t particularly think of it as jazz in any way. But mostly because it’s SO DATED! Many hip-hop aficionados already think the form is dead because of people like Kanye and Ms. Minaj. The Kids have barely heard of Tribe and De La Soul and Black Star. And even by then, I don’t think a lot of teenagers were bumping Funky Four Plus One on their Discmen. Their tastes having already moved on from the hit artists of 8 years ago, I don’t think your target demographic is gonna be fooled when I sneak Funky Drummer under Blue Monk and rush to the stores. Tastes change, and when they do, there is rarely any going back. (You think ragtime and vaudeville are due for a Reggie Watts makeover any time soon?)

Now what about jazz’s off-putting technicality? In some ways, this is where the rubber meets the road. And I agree completely that this is a large part of what marginalizes jazz. And you know what? Good. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Forget the last three hundred years of western music? There’s an old, yellowed cartoon stuck to my fridge from the waning days of the 2000 presidential race. In it, Al Gore’s aides are trying to get him wasted in preparation for his debate with George W. Bush. But Gore tells them that unfortunately he “still feels smart” and race to get a bong. Whatever Al Gore’s loss to Bush tells us about the sad state of America, would you rather the Democrats found someone just as chickenshit dumb and ran them?

I don’t want to get in a race to the bottom with Lady Gaga. Because, a) I’ll lose. And b) along the way I’ll lose everything that made me believe in jazz in the first place. The ability of music to be as complex and challenging as literature. To ask a lot of its audience and give back as much and more. To be ambitious enough to address the full breadth of human experience.

Somebody has to do it.

Right?

Isn’t that what it means to be an artist working with limited financial reward? That you get to talk about things that the commercial marketplace just isn’t interested in? And don’t we need that in a big, big way as a culture? To BE a culture? It’s the same argument for why we need basic science research, not just corporate R&D departments. Yeah, it’s good to have iPhones (triple-platinum albums) but don’t we also need Large Hadron Colliders and Hubbles. Because they tell us what it means to live in the universe and be human. Because, while a Hubble photo of a distant galaxy has no commercial value whatsoever, it gives little kids shivers down their spines and makes them excited to live somewhere vast and mysterious instead of small and reasonably-priced. Which is exactly the feeling I get when I listen to Coltrane Live at Birdland.

I mean, speaking not just as a drummer but as someone who deeply loves swing — that’s the first thing to go. All the examples that you have up there involve a drum machine or something playing a straight beat. And due (mad) respect, so do all of your remixes. Well, sorry but I fucking love swing. And I love the one art form — the one that invented drumming, btw — where the drummer is an equal artist because that’s my goddamn instrument, lol. So the very first thing that would have to happen in your new paradigm is that I retire. Paul Motian is turning in his freshly-dug grave.

And hey, I love Reggie Watts too. But he’s a comedian singing funny novelty songs. Maybe if I started doing a “Capital Steps” routine I could be huge with 55-and-over NPR junkie crowd. But, I mean come on! We’re talking about the art form that gave you Round Midnight and West End Blues and Black, Brown & Beige and A Love Supreme. So sit down at the table with Monk and Trane and Duke and Louis and explain what it is they don’t get that Reggie Watts can show them. And look, I know you’re talking about today’s artists, not the giant of yesteryear. But it’s not as if The Kids are listening to Duke or Monk either, right? It’s not about the quality, it’s about the zeitgeist. And of course the filter of time. I mean, there were plenty of lesser contemporaries of those people I just cited who time has forgotten. We may be awash in irrelevant, mediocre jazz right now, but maybe in 50 years this will be remembered as the age of Ambrose Akinmusire and John Hollenbeck and everything else will be glossed over. I dunno.

There’s a lot of bad jazz out there. There’s a lot of showing off and running lines. Or on the other end of the spectrum, a lot of navel-gazing unlistenable free-jazz. But there is also extraordinarily beautiful music that operates at a very human scale being made. And in these cases the technical is simply a part of what makes this music special. I mean, do you want to go back in time and edit the trumpet cadenza out of “West End Blues?” I’d hope not, right? It just comes back to there being good art and bad art. Look at classical music. Work that is intentionally alienating like Berg or Xanakis has less relevance and less commercial viability over time. But no one complains that Chopin is too technical. Or that Bach’s counterpoint is too dense. Because the technical ability is so interwoven with making beautiful, resonant music.

Now look, I actually totally agree that when you say, “What hip-hop loses in harmony and melody, it more than makes up for in sonic innovation, wordplay, social realism and a sense of fun. Remember when jazz was fun? Remember when you could dance to it? Remember when it spoke to the emotional reality that most people live in? Or any emotional reality? That’s what jazz needs.”

I think these things are lacking in all of the bad jazz out there, and are present in one form or another in all of the good stuff. But we’re talking about instrumental music. It will never be popular the way hip-hop is cuz there’s no words to hand you your fun and relevance on a silver platter. And unless our culture does a 180, I don’t see folks dancing to swing music anytime soon.

I guess this indicates that there may simply be a (negative) feedback loop here as well. In other words, as long as jazz declines in popularity, the harder it becomes for it to feel relevant because elements like swing and the blues become more and more associated with nostalgia and the past. So that even if I composed a jazz opera about the life of Drake, it would still feel anachronistic. I dunno. But I’m not ready to chuck swing and the blues under the bus.

This is a whole other topic, but I think that there’s a race issue here too. Part of what I think happened with hip-hop is that it started, like jazz, as a “folk art” form. But then as it matured into the ’90s it started to become, like jazz, a serious art form that was intellectually demanding and challenging. But then, where jazz more or less kinda-sorta rejected mainstream appeal and became a more and more complex art form, hip-hop went corporate. It “sold out.” Hence “hip-hop is dead.” And there’s a big artistic implication from that. But also a racial one. Because there was always a tension in hip-hop between the genre as a dialog between black people — a safe (ish) space with a lot of room to maneuver and experiment and occupy different identities. And hip-hop as a form of entertainment for white people. In which you tend to want either very assimilated black people, or (frankly more often) blacks-as-cartoons. Blacks playing to type, cast as hilariously savage, thuggish stereotypes in white America’s racial imaginings. Think ODB or 50 Cent or Snoop or Odd Future. Or Lil Kim. Etc.

Jazz has always occupied a complicated racial space in terms of its place in the black community, and in dialog with white folk. But one thing it stopped doing a long time ago was serving-up cartoon black people. So again, I just don’t see us competing there.

I think that for better or for worse jazz’s future will be tied to the attention span and artistic, racial and cultural curiosity of the American people. (I know, I know — kill myself now, right?) Much like classical music, it will have to survive in the margins, for people who want something bigger from music than whatever is on the iTunes splash page. That’s just all there is to it. For jazz to have any hope of sustaining long-term potential it will HAVE to work very hard at connecting emotionally and culturally with its audience, just as you suggest. It will have to speak to “the emotional reality that most people live in,” not a retro fantasy or to an audience of black-turtle-necked grad students.

But in order to have integrity, it can’t go chasing the nakedly commercial any more than any other music can. Unless you’re just chasing one-hit wonder status, you have to work from a more personal place. And accept that what you make just might not appeal to the masses. I have no idea whether I’ll ever be able to make a living making my music. But I’d rather aim for the first thirty years of Miles Davis’s career than the last twenty. Don’t you think?

Further reading:

http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/on-why-jazz-isnt-cool-anymore/

The incredible Ethan Hein just made this mashup of “Man on Wire” and a track by Audio Two. It’s so cool to hear my music re-imagined this way. Ethan truly has an amazing mind. Enjoy!

This should be great!

Nova Bar and Garden Lounge
886 Pacific St btw Washington & Underhill
Brooklyn, NY

Stacy Dillard- Saxophones
Diallo House- Upright Bass
Ismail Lawal- Drums
Special Guest Artists….

2 Sets
10pm & 11:30pm
$5 music charge

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=296725313677030

http://www.halgalper.com/

http://www.smallsjazzclub.com/

The quartet plays again! At the famous, lately infamous University of the Streets! Thrill to our swirling swing as our death-defying band takes its life into its hands. Will we survive the jive? Come see us live.

This should be a great show — it’s a nice space with a great piano — if you’ve been meaning to come see us but missed the last couple of shows, this is the one to show up for. Hope to see you there!

Leo Ferguson Quartet
Thursday, October 13
8:00 pm
$10

The University of the Streets
130 East 7th Street
New York, New York 10009

Click here for advance tickets: https://secure.gigmaven.com/events/7037/orders/new

RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107401492702766

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My incredible pianist, Alexis Marcelo, sometimes cheats on me with Mike Pride’s band, From Bacteria to Boys. (Actually, he played with Mike first, so I guess technically I’m the home-wrecking hussy in this ill-considered formulation.)

Regardless, Mike just received a well-deserved, glowing write-up in the Times by Nate Chinen.

Check it out. Check them out. It’s great, beautiful, unique music. Plus we drummer/composers gotta stick together.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/arts/music/mike-prides-from-bacteria-to-boys-at-cake-shop-review.html?_r=2&ref=music

We’re off and running now. Stay tuned. And thanks again.

Come out and take the measure of my slammin’ new quartet featuring Emma Alabaster, Alexis Marcelo and Mark Nikirk.

Fresh from recording my recent album of idiosyncratic, highly personal large ensemble jazz, the band explores more challenging compositions in an intimate, small-group setting with our unique blend of deeply connected virtuosity and smokin’-hot swing.

Especially if you can’t make our debut at iBeam on 8/5: Not. To. Be. Missed!

Leo Ferguson with Emma Alabaster, Alexis Marcelo & Mark Nikirk
Wednesday, August 10
8pm
$7

The Local 269
269 East Houston Street NY, NY 10002

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Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=229620490406480

Jazz has a long history of inter-generational influence — my own father was a jazz saxophonist. Maybe it’s in the genes. My amazing bass player performs with her father, Eric Alabaster, tomorrow at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. I’ll be there! Come check it out.

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198597960186876

ERIC ALABASTER’S LOCO LOVE BAND

“Eclectic music to spark your imagination ” Jimmy Heath

Performing original compositions by Eric and band members.

Duane Eubanks- trumpet
Anjana Roy- sitar
Khabu Doug Young- guitar
Elena Camerin- vocals
Emma Alabaster- upright bass
Sean Sonderegger- sax and flute
Eric Alabaster- drums and tabla

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Baruch Performing Arts Center
55 Lexington Avenue
(Enter E 25th btw Lex & 3rd)
iatitheater.org
(212)505-6757