The past few days have produced an absolute deluge of prose about the state which jazz is currently in.
1) For a very quick fun read – warning it may raise your temperature – try this from Tabatha Southey of the Toronto Globe and Mail who is fed up of people telling her she is obliged to like jazz.
Summary: “I do not like it at a fest. I do not like it as a test. I do not like jazz, boys. Deal with it.”
Comment: It’ll happen. When you least expect it.
2) For something longer and a LOT more meaty about the state of funding…. try the correspondence between Nate Chinen and Ronan Guilfoyle on Chinen’s the gig blog
1) For a very quick fun read – warning it may raise your temperature – try this from Tabatha Southey of the Toronto Globe and Mail who is fed up of people telling her she is obliged to like jazz.
Summary: “I do not like it at a fest. I do not like it as a test. I do not like jazz, boys. Deal with it.”
Comment: It’ll happen. When you least expect it.
2) For something longer and a LOT more meaty about the state of funding…. try the correspondence between Nate Chinen and Ronan Guilfoyle on Chinen’s the gig blog
3) Then there’s Terry Teachout wrote a “Can Jazz Be Saved?” article in the Wall Street Journal.
4) Peter Hum , a really knowledgeable journalist for the Ottawa Citizen wrote an entertaining piece about reavhing younger audiences.
5) Jason Parker, a professional trumpet player from Seattle responded to (3) and (4), under the heading Jazz: A Museum Piece or a Living, Breathing Artform? It’s Up to Us!
My three-fold response:
1) Most of us have the very good fortune to be equipped with both ears and the capacity to smile. But no instruction manual to tell us what to do when we forget how to use either or both.
2) I shall go on writing with energy, enthusiasm, some knowledge – and, I hope with as few factual and typographical errors as possible- about the unique , life-affirming experience which listening to this music played and sung live can bring, and encourage others to use LondonJazz as a platform to do the same.
3) There are particular reasons why ALL statistics about music audiences which I have ever seen should be handled with a very long bargepole. I would like someone to try to convince me of the opposite.
Categories: miscellaneous
Thanks for referencing my blog in the deluge! I agree with all three of your responses and will only add that I think it's great that all of these discussions are going on. I can only help to further the cause of this great music we all love so deeply.
Keep up the great work!
Peter Hum's blog from Ottawa has a good dissection of the issues in his post “Wasted on the Young III”
http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/jazzblog/archive/2009/08/10/wasted-on-the-young-iii.aspx