Another is the notorious Atlantic article, "The End of Jazz," which is both a review of the book and a larger essay -- intelligently argued, albeit not entirely convincing, I don't think -- about how the disconnection between jazz and the songbook has left them both dead.
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The third, perhaps, is my own progress (if you heard me play, you'd know that this is probably the wrong word) as an amateur jazz guitarist, learning various numbers such as "All the Things You Are," "Autumn Leaves," "Chitlins Con Carne," "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," "Blue Bossa," and so on. I've been struck by how inventive, ingenious and musically bottomless these great songs, whether by Jerome Kern or Charles Mingus, remain. How far can you stretch 'em before they break?
And how does the shrinking of the jazz audience connect to my ideas about the crisis of the creative class?
For my latest piece for Salon, I've looked at some of the issues, and crossed them with a look back at jazz over the last year or so. My understanding of some of this mix of good and bad was bolstered by another very fine new book, Marc Myers' social history Why Jazz Happened.
I spoke to Myers, Sonny Rollins, jazz scribe Gary Giddins, head of Nonesuch Records Bob Hurwitz, and others. The question of how jazz can thrive in the future is important to me and I hope I've taken a step into understanding it.
Happy holidays to my readers from The Misread City.
3 comments:
Good article. Mehldau has been somewhat successful in adapting newer tunes. Hard to think of many other examples. Most recent popular music is pretty threadbare melodically.
Good article, but one quibble:
Time Out was the album, not a single. Perhaps you're referring to "Take Five" as the single.
Excellent piece, Scott.
As a working jazz pianist rooted in older traditions, from stride piano on, I have long been lamented jazz's fixation- literally, a fixation -with standards. I love standards. But they weren't standards when the people who made them so played them. They were pop songs. They were part of the new musical fabric.
Today, however, the only fabric of which standards are a part is the frayed Linus security-blanket of antique comfort through historical repetition.
To my mind, this applies not only to the repertoire jazzers choose, but to musical forms and harmonies as well. Change is overdue.
I've advocated a re-engagement by jazz with its pop roots. One sees shoots of such engagement in some of the jam bands' work, but little of it in the prevailing jazz soundscape.
On my 'Blue Modules' recording, my 8th (to be released in January), I try to put into practice the principles I've been espousing. Whether I succeed is for others to judge. But I am gratified to have just learned that my guitarist colleague on 'Blue Modules', Donna Grantis, will not be able to join me for my CD release shows, as she has just been hired to be part of Prince's band. If that isn't pop, I don't know what is.
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