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Comment by dan_sim | Hacker News Reader

I'm a musician myself who used to play jazz. The problem with jazz is that is considered by the people who listen to it like "pure art" when it is just a style of music. Jazz (and classical) is elevated higher than other form of music and music teachers will expect a good musician to play jazz.

If jazz lovers would stop thinking at themselves as "higher educated" and jazz would go back to the people who want enjoy a good swinging song (Ella Fitzgerald, Satchmo, ...) maybe then, jazz would be loved again.

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Wynton Marsalis says "When the music stopped being about dancing, people stopped listening." I never completely bought it, but I like the sentiment anyway :-)

I went out to see Roy Haynes/Roy Hargrove the other night, and he basically said the same thing on stage. Looking out into an audience of mainly dead silent white people, he said something to the extent of:

'I remember when I was playing in Spain some years back with Joe Henderson and Chick Corea, and man the audience gave us no love back. But at the end of the concert a couple thousand of them all put up their lighters or candles in the air, and that was how they showed their appreciation. I don't care for that, put those lighters away. Back in the day people would get up and shout when they felt the music. You guys need to give it to us on stage so we can give it back to you, it goes two ways."

I think one of the main reasons "jazz" has fallen off is the price of it and the audience it therefore attracts. $35 for 45 minutes of music and a drink minimum at some crammed club like the Village Vanguard or Blue Note only attracts tourists and people with disposable income.

I remember going to see Jack Dejohnette with Danilo Perez at the Blue Note, and most people I heard talking had no idea who they were -- they were all NYC tourists. The Blue Note is like the Disney Land of Jazz, complete with a gift shop upstairs so you can buy keychains.

It is nice, though, to see young guys like Chris Dave, Marcus Strickland, or Robert Glasper going out on tour with Mos Def or Erykah Badu, and then in turn drawing young people that normally would be listening to only hip-hop back out to their gigs. There is still some hope yet that people won't be priced out of the music and young people will start being introduced to it again.

I hate it when people shout and yell and scream and whistle at concerts :(

I'm there to hear the music, not listen to myself and other people's voices.

I know that probably makes me sound like I'm a bit stuck up, or an old fogie, but honestly, I go to concerts to listen to music. That can't be that wrong.

I think part of this is culture. I grew up in North America, and when I visited the Philippines later in life, and went to watch shows in concert or in clubs, I was shocked at first because the audience would, without fail, applaud or cheer when the singer would sing the first line of the song. On account of my western upbringing (especially with regard to classical music), I was somewhat scandalized, and almost felt upset at my fellow audience members. I soon learned that, in doing so, they did not intend any disrespect, either to the performer or the rest of the audience, but rather were showing their support, appreciation and enjoyment of the musician's offering. A sort of "two-way" concert experience.

I suppose that, if most of the audience wants silence, it's respectful to keep silent during performances. At the same time, if most of the audience isn't concerned about that, I suppose it isn't that big a deal?

When I moved to Seattle after college, one of the things that drove me nuts was how lame audiences were at music shows. A band would play a song and call for audince participation. They'd work hard to get people to clap along, or sing a chorus or something. If they really worked at it, they might get 1/3rd of the audience to join in, but as soon as the band went back to playing, the audience participation would die out.

A friend had a band who ended up with a gold record for their first album and a top 40 single. Most of their local shows were at 21 and over clubs. I asked him how he liked playing all-ages shows. He said the audiences were filled with pogoing teenagers which he found a lot more fun than playing to a bunch of still, stonefaced hipsters.

I agree, it can be annoying to have people near you singing so loud that you can't really hear the band very well, but really, if getting any sense that you aren't alone in the audience is a turn-off, save your money and buy a CD.

I saw the Mos Def/Robert Glasper/Chris Dave get-together in San Francisco twice. You wanna talk about steep tickets, that was it: $70 each. On the other hand, totally worth it...

Yeah, but was it only for 45 minutes of music? That's how it is at the Blue Note or Village Vanguard. When I saw glasper do a night of both the experiment and trio, with maxwell and bilal, it was $25 for about 4 hours of music

Back in the day people would get up and shout when they felt the music. You guys need to give it to us on stage so we can give it back to you, it goes two ways

That's the main problem. Jazzmen are expecting their audience to make the show and only then, they will give them a show back. That should be the other way. Musician are there to make the show, then the audience connect with them and the show becomes a whole.

I don't know, I don't think it is. He and his band were killing it. Tons of energy, you couldn't help but want to get up. They were going to have a good time whether the audience wanted to or not.

But still, the demographic at a place like that is 50+, white, tourists, with disposable income paying a $35 cover ($65 on the weekend). It's $60 for a cheap bottle of wine. Young people just can't afford to be invested in it, so they go drink PBR on the LES and dance to Dam-Funk DJing.

It's a classic death spiral scenario.

It's very true. A lot of the visceral oomph of music like Jazz comes from its early association with dance. "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing." The sensuality of a certain kind of step, a certain kind of movement is transmitted in the beat and the music. Understanding this brings many people flat-out joy. In my opiniion, understanding this makes one more human.

That last part, you just have to experience to truly understand. But believe me, if you are doing it right, it really is something close to transcendent. It really is magic.

Ok I've done Lindy Hop for like 5 years now and I think I sort of understand the meaning behind that statement.

When you dance to music you really, really need to listen to the music and where it goes. I notice that good dancers listen to the music and change what they're doing accordingly. If the music is high energy, they dance with high energy. If there is a break in the music, they hit it a break in the dancing (or they try). One of the most amazing jack & jill competitions that I watched seemed like the couple was interpreting the music.

Try asking a person you know who dances what some of their favorite songs to dance to are and why.

Frankie & Johnny (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqscpuCogRE) for the lyrics -- dancers have an opportunity to re-enact the affair and its deadly conclusion. The strong bass line provides a great rhythm for pulsing.

Splanky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUSijeq4xGU) because there are so many instruments that you can choose "to be".

Cow Cow Boogie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9AfqVIxEzg) because of the way it undulates. The solos that break up the song, but unite it at the same time. The song cries out for changes in height, rhythm, and speed.

True! I tried salsa and hated the music! After I tried lindy hop and loved it! I also like classical music but what I hate at the radio is the tone of the radio guy (boring and try to say stuff I don't understand)... less talk more music! People do like classical music in movies, right?

Dance music is alive and well, it just doesn't sound like jazz anymore. Being a type of music that emphasizes the here and now (that is, the dance floor), why should the music producers use production techniques and instruments of a bygone era?

Also, if we're looking at the big picture of "the story of american music", disco very much comes from the same lineage as jazz.

Please don't tell this to the 150+ people who came out to the (Swing) dance I threw with the Dixieland Express. Nor to the scores of dancers that will be attending the Hot Jazz Jubilee in a few weeks.

The downfall of jazz as a genre for dancing began with an arbitrary dance tax. It continued with the era of "The Twist", which encouraged people to dance by themselves, and continued on into the disco era, which did more of the same. The Swing Revival of the 1990s helped bring brain-share to jazz (albeit of a neo-Swing flavour) again.

Partner dancing to jazz music is alive and doing very well. If you don't believe it, Google up Lindy Hop in your city.

As you point out, people will still dance to danceable jazz (Lindy Hop, etc.; I've danced to Santamaria's version of "Watermelon Man" before I was into jazz).

However, most post-WWII jazz was not composed for danceability, and much of it is not very danceable (Try dancing to "Giant Steps" or "Brilliant Corners").

Read it again: he said music, not jazz. Anyway, (e.g.) square dancing is still fun :-) And I know a few drummers would like to have a word with you about "instruments of a bygone era."

I should clarify that by "instruments of a bygone era", I really mean "acoustic instruments speaking the language of bebop, swing, etc."

While I agree that square dancing and other folk dance traditions can be fun, they can not by any means be considered "contemporary". Their appeal these days is that of nostalgia and fondness for these bygone eras.

As a 19-year-old who plays for contradances (a folk dance tradition from New England) and scottish country dances, it's hard to believe that the diverse crowds of teenagers, kids and adults of all ages are there because of nostalgia. The same is true of swing, lindy and blues dances I've been to: many people do genuinely enjoy these dance forms for themselves. All that's old is not irrelevant. Not everybody wants to flail there arms around in a sweaty club to electronic noise.

There is a real appeal to this music and these dance forms. Perhaps the biggest problem they face is that they're less accessible. Anybody can go to a dance party and dance, but you have to learn to swing dance.

Not only is it still relevant, people still add to the tradition. Brian Finnegan's tunes are some quite good recent ones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt3A_pIknY0

As the comments say the first tune is an older traditional song. The other two are written by him (who is playing the whistle).

Basically, jazz musicians were replaced by DJs.

At some point, house parties didn't invite a piano player. At some point you could just have someone "putting on some records" for people to dance to at a wedding reception or big event. At some point musically-inclined kids started getting turntables instead of a trumpet.

Good times and jazz used to be in the same places, but by now they only see each other on special occasions. Too bad, because jazz was made for good times and it's not the same otherwise.

I think sort of a corollary point to this is that many people associate jazz with the often cacophonous "free/abstract jazz" (or whatever the term du jour is.) The image is often of mentarbatory discord.

I do not like at least modern "free jazz", but fortunately I still have tons of good, slightly groovier stuff available from 1920's onwards, and I think much more people would likewise find enjoyment in the classics. With the various "internet radio" and customised stream software, searching for these usually brings an excellent selection of music: Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane.

That's a great way to put it.

It's not dancing per se, it's the idea of writing with the listener in mind.

When you write only for audiophiles, you write for a small audience.

There's an equilibrium process here. People don't like jazz because it violates their expectations. It violates their expectations because jazz musicians aren't pandering to the tastes of the listening public. Jazz musicians don't pander to the listening public because, since everyone knows that people don't like jazz, no one becomes a jazz musician because they want to become ridiculously rich or famous -- the people who are willing to change their musical style in order to become popular (as versus to satisfy some purely internal intellectual or aesthetic desire) all go to rock, hip-hop or pop.

The flip side of this is that people who listen to especially unpopular subgenres of jazz (particular -bop) seem to enjoy thinking of themselves as "higher educated" or having more sophisticated tastes than others, or just listening to music that isn't* like everything else and isn't driven by short term fads. And jazz musicians seem largely happy to facilitate this, and in turn get to indulge in a creative process that's solely centered around their own creative interests.

Bottom line, jazz won't "go back to the people", because the people don't want it, because the musicians don't want it ... except the ones that do. I think in recent years a whole lot of people have listened to Michael Buble, or Nouvelle Vague.

I don't know, the fusion with hip hop has brought out huge crowds of young people over the past couple years to jazz gigs here in NYC. Chris Dave has an unmistakable J Dilla influence in his music -- this show was packed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6C6higMMMM

You don't necessarily need to go back to swing like Wynton does to get people interested in the music again. We forget that jazz standards were pop tunes back in the day, so it's nice to hear young guys now playing Bjork arrangements or KRS-One tracks.

I'm a fan of jazz and I'm against any definition that doesn't put: Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Billie Holiday, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Nina Simone, Fats Waller, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Christian, and countless others on pretty much the same plane of musical transcendence.

"swinging" and "thinking" aren't so different after all.

So, to summarize in an only very slightly trollish way:

- The problem with jazz is the people who listen to it.

- Music isn't art, or at least it's wrong to appreciate it as such.

- Jazz ought to be revivalist, not innovative.

Suffice to say, I don't think I can agree...

- The problem with jazz is the people who listen to it.

Yes

- Music isn't art, or at least it's wrong to appreciate it as such.

Music is entertainment and emotions.

- Jazz ought to be revivalist, not innovative.

Things like free-jazz is not innovative. It is shitty musicians thinking that if they play "out" enough, they might get to the point that people feel they are geniuses.

Music is meant to be good to the ears.

"Things like free-jazz is not innovative. It is shitty musicians thinking that if they play "out" enough, they might get to the point that people feel they are geniuses."

Coltrane played 'out' a lot, he surly wasn't a shitty musician. Cecil Taylor has more technique on the piano than most anyone. Sam Rivers harmonically is out of this world. Ornette Coleman's sense of time? Hamid Drake on drums? Pharoah Sanders? Don Cherry? Marion Brown? Eric Dolphy? Anthony Braxton?

Just because you don't like how it sounds doesn't mean these are talentless fools -- they've studied their history. They surely think about their art complexly and take it extremely seriously.

> Music is entertainment and emotions.

If that's the case, then I'd say that in WWF vs music, WWF wins every time!

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you think all post-renaissance painting is shit, too.

Visual art is distinctly different from music. It's possible to be entertained and feel emotion for visual art that is not a photorealistic depiction. Music, meanwhile, has certain rules that need to be obeyed in order for people to want to experience it. I'm sorry, John Cage might have some interesting concepts, but it's completely unlistenable. There are just some things that you cannot develop a real taste for.

Think about the culinary arts. It too is an art, but with even more restrictions on what can be done than music. "Experimental Chefs" can't just start dabbling in putting sawdust and latex paint in their dishes and still expect it to be eaten.

That being said, experimental musicians have the right to push the envelope and discover what the boundaries of taste are. Sometimes they'll fail, and sometimes they'll discover something interesting, but experimentation alone doesn't cause it to be good or bad.

Experimental chefs can start fooling around with liquid nitrogen and re-purposed inkjet printers and meet with wild success, however. ;)

A more substantive reply: I question the entire underlying premise you have -- that entertainment or emotion are what makes art, art. Something can be entirely distasteful and still art. (Thought experiment: imagine a sonata so deeply heartbreaking that nobody can bear to listen to it more than once. One can't "develop a taste" for it, can they? But it's almost certainly art by most definitions.)

In any case, I don't think John Cage is having any trouble finding listeners, despite your opinion: http://www.johncage.info/index6.html

Yeah it's definitely not my premise that art = emotion + entertainment, that was the GP. I would, however, divide art into "art that is/can become enjoyable" and "art that cannot be enjoyable (but may be thought provoking etc)". I'm definitely not being fair to John Cage, I am far from well versed in his music and since he's an experimental artist I know his pieces have different levels of accessibility. I would group the 4'33" piece into the "interesting but not enjoyable as music" category.

I listen to John Cage. I don't only listen to John Cage, but it is interesting. I think the problem is that you have to have a basis in music history to be able to appreciate what the hell he is trying to do.

If all you have been exposed to is 3 (four-five-one four-five-one) chord pop rock, no of course you won't appreciate Cage. In music, like cooking, you have to develop a palate for such things.

If all you've had all your life is french fries and ketchup, you probably won't like a lot of food that others will appreciate...

WWF? World Wrestling Federation? haha

I'm a musician, and I completely relate to the author regarding not listening to lyrics, etc. The thing is, I strongly dislike jazz. I can recognize creativity and virtuosity in jazz musicians, but the songwriting and soloing actually seems lazy to me (the opposite of what jazz proponents would probably say).

Please elaborate on (support) your assertion that jazz songwriting and soloing is lazy.

It is not an assertion, it is an opinion.

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