On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore . . . .

Jazz died in 1959.

There maybe cool individuals who say they play Jazz, but ain’t shit cool about Jazz as a whole.

Jazz died when cool stopped being hip.

Jazz was a limited idea to begin with.

Jazz is a label that was forced upon the musicians.

The musicians should’ve never accepted that idea.

Jazz ain’t shit.

Jazz is incestuous.

Jazz separated itself from American popular music.

Big mistake.

The music never recovered.

Ornette tried to save Jazz from itself by taking the music back to its New Orleanian roots, but his efforts were too esoteric.

Jazz died in 1959, that’s why Ornette tried to “Free Jazz” in 1960.

Jazz is only cool if you don’t actually play it for a living.

Jazz musicians have accepted the idea that it’s OK to be poor.

John Coltrane is a bad cat, but Jazz stopped being cool in 1959.

The very fact that so many people are holding on to this idea of what Jazz is supposed to be is exactly what makes it not cool.

People are holding on to an idea that died long ago.

Jazz, like the Buddha, is dead.

Let it go, people, let it go.

Paul Whiteman was the King of Jazz and someday all kings must fall.

Jazz ain’t cool, it’s cold, like necrophilia.

Stop fucking the dead and embrace the living.

Jazz worries way too much about itself for it to be cool.

Jazz died in 1959.

The number one Jazz record is Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue.

Dave Brubeck’s Time Out was released in 1959.

1959 was the coolest year in Jazz.

Jazz is haunted by its own hungry ghosts.

Let it die.

You can be martyrs for an idea that died over a half a century if y’all want.

Jazz has proven itself to be limited, and therefore, not cool.

Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt from looking back.

Jazz is dead.

Miles ahead.

Some may say that I’m no longer the same dude who recorded the album with Doc Cheatham.

Correct: I’m not the same dude I was 14 years ago.

Isn’t that the point?

Our whole purpose on this planet is to evolve.

The Golden Age of Jazz is gone.

Let it go.

Too many necrophiliacs in Jazz.

You’re making my case for me.

Some people may say we are defined by our limitations.

I don’t believe in limitations, but yes, if you believe you are limited that will define you.

Definitions are retrospective.

And if you find yourself getting mad, it’s probably because you know Jazz is dead.

Why get upset if what I’m saying doesn’t ring true?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t play Jazz.

I play Postmodern New Orleans music.

Louis Armstrong and Danny Barker play Traditional New Orleans Music.

Ellis Marsalis and James Black play Modern New Orleans music.

Kidd Jordan and Clyde Kerr play Avant-garde New Orleans music.

Donald Harrison plays Neoclassical New Orleans music.

I play Postmodern New Orleans music.

I am a part of a lineage.

I am a part of a blood line.

My ancestors didn’t play Jazz, they played Traditional, Modern and Avant-garde New Orleans Music.

I don’t play Jazz.

I don’t let others define who I am.

I am a Postmodern New Orleans musician.

I create music for the heart and the head, for the beauty and the booty.

The man who lets others define him is a dead man.

With all due respect to the masters, they were victims of a colonialist mentality.

Blacks have been conditioned for centuries to be grateful for whatever crumbs thrown to them.

As a postmodern musician, it’s my duty to do better than my predecessors.

To question, reexamine and redefine what it is that we do.

They accepted it because they had to.

Because my ancestors opened the door for me, I don’t have to accept it.

Louis bowed and scraped so Miles could turn his back.

It’s called evolution.

It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave.

There is nothing romantic about poor, scuffling Jazz musicians.

Fuck that idea.

It’s not cool.

Jazz is a lie.

America is a lie.

Playing Jazz is like running on a treadmill: you may break a sweat, but ultimately you ain’t going nowhere.

Some people may say we are limited.

I say, we are as limited as we think.

I am not limited.

Jazz is a marketing ploy that serves an elite few.

The elite make all the money while they tell the true artists it’s cool to be broke.

Occupy Jazz!

I am not speaking of so-called Jazz’s improvisational aspects.

Improvisation by its very nature can never be passé, but mindsets are invariably deadly.

Not knowing is the most you can ever know.

It’s only when you don’t know that “everything” is possible.

Jazz has nothing to do with music or being cool.

It’s a marketing idea.

A glaring example of what’s wrong with Jazz is how people fight over it.

People are too afraid to let go of a name that is killing the spirit of the music.

Life is bigger than music, unless you love and/or play Jazz.

The art, or lack thereof, is just a reflection.

Miles Davis personified cool and he hated Jazz.

What is Jazz anyway?

Life isn’t linear, it’s concentric.

When you’re truly creating you don’t have time to think about what to call it.

Who thinks of what they’ll name the baby while they’re fucking?

Playing Jazz is like using the rear-view mirror to drive your car on the freeway.

If you think Jazz is a style of music, you’ll never begin to understand.

It’s ultimately on the musicians.

People are fickle and follow the pack.

Not enough artists willing to soldier for their shit.

People follow trends and brands.

So do musicians, sadly.

Jazz is a brand.

Jazz ain’t music, it’s marketing, and bad marketing at that.

It has never been, nor will it ever be, music.

Here lies Jazz (1916 – 1959).

Too many musicians and not enough artists.

I believe music to be more of a medium than a brand.

Silence is music, too.

You can’t practice art.

In order for it to be true, one must live it.

Existence is not contingent upon thought.

It’s where you choose to put silence that makes sound music.

Sound and silence equals music.

Sometimes when I’m soloing, I don’t play shit.

I just move blocks of silence around.

The notes are an afterthought.

Silence is what makes music sexy.

Silence is cool.

- Nicholas Payton


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

Bom, a meu ver, esse é um assunto muito interessante, por mais que esse cara não tenha sido o primeiro a falar da morte do Jazz o seu texto toca em diversos pontos que eu não havia pensado antes, e acho que daria uma boa discussão no foro. So, let's start it.

Faz sentido. A produção jazzistica depois de 59 teve que se reinventar mesmo para concorrer com as vendas fonograficas com a chegada cada vez mais forte do rock. Enfim, cada um com sua teoria. Lennon achava que o rock morreu com a queda do avião que matou Buddy Holly, já li não sei onde um musico que disse que o rock só valeu a pena de 1964 a 1984. Enfim, cada com sua teoria e tal. Sendo realista, marcas, rotulos, gêneros que colocam em musica só servem para ordenar os discos num catalogo porque se tudo fosse vendido como musica, não faria a menor diferença. Sempre saberiamos o que é lixo e o que é bom pela critica.

Nah. Jazz não tem que ser cool, mas sim uma weapon of mass destrvction.

Em tempo: desde quando a VERDADEIRA reinvenção do jazz (Ornette Coleman, Coltrane fase 1965-67, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Peter Brotzmann, etc., etc. rivalizou em vendas com o rock?!

Jazz pra mim sempre foi e sempre será a arte da improvisação, seja idiomática, não-idiomática, experimental, etc. A questão é que o Jazz como gênero 'puro' já não existe fazem umas boas décadas, só os sub-gêneros garantiram a sua sobrevivência, e obviamente o mesmo ocorreu com outras formas musicais. O que acontece nesse texto é que o Nicholas tem uma visão muito saudosista da coisa, e o fato de que ele criticou Ornette só reforça isso. Entre Jelly Roll Morton e Albert Ayler se passam não só décadas, mas revoluções, guerras, mudanças pelo globo. O Jazz é a forma de música mais abstrata que já pode ser vendida em massa, e ele foi popular enquanto o público soube reconhecer o seu valor, enquanto a indústria musical tinha um foco maior em arte do que $uce$$o (que me lembra deste vídeo do Zappa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GowCEiZkU70 ). E com a ascensão do Rock (e obviamente da música Pop, vide Bítols) nos anos 60 o Jazz perdeu o seu fôlego popular e passou a ser um estilo musical mais 'elitizado' (e o Nicholas ainda lamenta a separação do Jazz da música popular, mas dada a sua natureza improvisacional isso era algo inevitável).

Faço minhas as palavras de Thurston Moore:

"To freely improvise a solo within a structural context may have begun with a young Louis Armstrong in the early '20s. As a boy he grew up in New Orleans hearing and seeing musicians both black and white cultivating a celebratory and spiritual vibe.

They were flowers in the dustbin.

Slaveships stole the horns and drums. The captured African would not be allowed to communicate as they had.

Upon THE FREEDOM ACT the freed slave sought and fought for the EXPRESSION oppressed.

And THE FREEDOM PRINCIPLE developed.

Jelly Roll Morton, like Louis Armstrong, began to record compositions of PURE BLACK AWARENESS. Both these men had been witnesses, early in the century, to BUDDY BOLDEN - a man who supposedly blew the cornet so masterfully (and so loud!) that his legend was rampant. He supposedly recorded upon a cylinder (pre-vinyl format) and it has yet to be found!!

Ideas of improvisation, live and on recordings, became increasingly more sophisticated and political throughout the '40s, '50s and '60s. From Lester Youngs' twisting reedy tones to Charlie Parker's spurious key changes and (along with Miles Davis, Max Roach, et al) hyper-fast note-fly.

John Coltrane was the man. With the introduction of the long-playing record, people like Trane could experiment and extend their playing for posterity.

The vinyl communicated around the world. Trane's SOUND was BEAUTIFUL and COMPLEX and inspired all who received it. Trane himself was duly inspired by some of the most far-out musicians of the then burgeoning jazz avant-garde. Chief among them was Sun Ra & his Arkestra.

Factions of experimentation abounded throughout the '50s and '60s. Trane, Ra, Ornette Coleman and his white plastic alto playing notes and tones at once beautiful and harsh. Thelonius Monk, Lennie Tristano, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy composing and playing music inspired by whole worlds of experience (blues, eastern and western classical, religion, etc.)

Music like no one had yet imagined would emanate from the wild hearts of those such as Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor.

These are all names of artists commonly associated with the avant-garde jazz underground of the 20th century. They all recorded fairly prolifically throughout their lifetimes (and some, like Cecil Taylor, continue). But there were so many more musicians performing and recording so-called "new" music at the time. It happened mostly in the late '60s/early '70s with the concept of artist-run collectives coming into fruition.

To play jazz totally FREE and ORGANIC was a gesture whose time had come in the '60s. It was SOCIAL and POLITICAL for reasons involving relationship, race, fury, rage, peace, war, love and FREEDOM."

E hoje em dia o Jazz continua mais vivo do que nunca, mas dentro de um contexto completamente diferente daquele que muitos dizem ser Cool/Hip/Groovy e tudo mais.

E desde quando jazz tem que ser CU, ora porra1?!/1

Coroné escreveu:

E desde quando jazz tem que ser CU, ora porra1?!/1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jGYMJW1sfE

Isso é jazz?

"Jazz é você pegar uma porra duma escala de C, tocar em cima do Db#5 com 'swing' e dizer alguma coisa e blablablaa"