
Why Americans Don’t Like Jazz (2003) - simonebrunozzi
https://dyske.com/paper/778
======
maceurt
> If the song has any musical substance, it can be played on a piano alone

The level of ignorance and pretentiousness in this sentence is mind boggling.
The human voice is the ultimate instrument, not the piano. Hell, we have not
even had the piano for that long. Words can not be expressed on a piano. That
is what makes singing and rapping unique, you are able to tell a story
combined with music. Strange Fruit would not have the same meaning or
significance without the words attached to it, neither would many songs.

Also, Miles Davis himself loved and embraced rap. He literally made a jazz/rap
album.

Jazz is a dying genre in the united states, because American audiences are
tired of hearing it, and there have not been any groundbreaking new jazz
artists in the last 30 years.

Rap is one of the most interesting and innovative genres of music now, and
literally incorporates and uses so much jazz. To Pimp a Butterfly is a great
example of a rap album that is heavily influenced by jazz. It was also a
wildly popular album and one of the most critically acclaimed rap albums ever.

~~~
jiberwarrior
> and there have not been any groundbreaking new jazz artists in the last 30
> years.

I strongly disagree with this statement, the music is out there if you were to
look.

Jazz has moved past the standard 'swing and ballad' forms that were popular
throughout the late 20th century, and most listeners can't shake the roots of
the genre from what defines the modern equivalent; It would be akin to die-
hard old school rap fans denying that rap in it's current state should even be
considered rap.

>That is what makes singing and rapping unique, you are able to tell a story
combined with music.

What makes jazz (particularly the instrumental kind) unique is being able to
invoke emotions and tell a story without being bound to some language barrier,
an abstraction that transcends spoken word, that speaks to the pattern
matching automata of the language part of our brains, regardless of race,
language, or background.

~~~
throwaway8879
> Jazz has moved past the standard 'swing and ballad' forms that were popular
> throughout the late 20th century

I mean, that's not really saying much. Jazz moved past the standard stuff with
Ornette Coleman, Coltrane etc in the late 50s and early 60s. Miles Davis'
Bitches Brew led to the whole jazz fusion thing a bit later.

I somewhat agree with the GP about no groundbreaking new jazz artists. There
are many great musicians great at their instruments today, for sure. But I
just don't hear anything radically new happening. Although I do admit that it
may be due to my own biases.

~~~
jiberwarrior
If you don't look for the radically new, you won't find it, when competing
with a larger volume of tracks being released that aren't radically new.

Here is just one example out of the hundreds:
[https://stevelehman.bandcamp.com/track/bamba](https://stevelehman.bandcamp.com/track/bamba)

Stylistic change isn't meant to be groundbreaking anyway, I believe it is from
the gradual stretching of boundaries over time that leads styles to be
unrecognizable from their origins that inspires new styles to be developed.

~~~
throwaway8879
Thanks for sharing. I'm familiar with his records with Vijay Iyer. They're
amazing!

------
randcraw
It may be that the reason Americans don't like jazz is that we take it for
granted because we invented it. It's uninteresting because we've heard various
forms of it our entire lives — from nightclub fare to swing to dixieland to
jazz's roots in gospel and spirituals and blues and bluegrass. Ho hum, we've
heard it all before.

Another reason may be that few of us play an instrument. Those who do can't
help but appreciate the skill required to play even a simple line of jazz,
much less in an ensemble or when inventing the line extemporaneously.

Frankly I'm in awe of the raw musicality of people like Armstrong or Coltrane
or Fitzgerald, even though their music generally doesn't entertain me, at
least, nowhere near as much as it impresses me technically and artistically.
And I _do_ play an instrument (or used to).

All the same may be said of classical music too, which I believe is also dying
in America. However I tend to like classical more than jazz, for some
reason(s) I also can't explain.

That said, I do love to hear non-jazz artists adopt elements of jazz into
their music, like Sting's use of jazz's instruments, layering, and weird time
signatures. Maybe there's a future for jazz as the spice that adds flavor to
other genres of music.

~~~
matt_j
If people are bored because "all jazz sounds the same" / "heard it all before"
how is that the popular sounds of today are all regurgitated EDM / rock-lite /
rap-lite / "nothing-music" that literally all sounds the same and most of it
awful? :P

There's been a long downturn in appreciation for good music IMO. My parents
generation (boomers) are more musical than my generation and I think it's
getting worse. More of them play instruments. More of them (can) sing. The
music they like isn't necessarily highbrow, but it has more musical complexity
than most of the stuff on the radio these days. Even simple stuff, like
harmony, or a unique rhythm.

A lot of popular music today is atonal trash written for the meme generation.
Autotune, weak synthesized sounds, highly compressed for punch to the
detriment of everything else, same old rhythms, no harmony, barely a melody,
etc. I have nothing against dance music, or hip-hop, in fact I have a deep
love for music in both of those genres, but there's a thick layer of terrible
that rises to the top of the pop charts and you have to dig through it to find
music of any worth.

I'm no musical elitist, but I do take the time to listen outside my comfort
zone and it has broadened my horizons enough that I'm not satisfied listening
to whatever tripe some top20 station decides they'll make popular this week.
I'd rather listen to Muddy Waters for the 1000th time. :)

~~~
blaser-waffle
"Millennials are killing music with their beats and their memes"

> but there's a thick layer of terrible that rises to the top of the pop
> charts and you have to dig through it to find music of any worth.

This is a trite argument that's been true since the 1950s. Pop is designed to
be as lowest-common-denominator as possible, because radio stations need to
make money.

------
woodandsteel
I think the author makes some good points, especially about how the public has
become so much more visually oriented.

I would just add that for jazz, one of the reason it lost popularity is it
became so avant guard after World War II with the rise of bebop, and left the
public behind.

------
strictusername
This is a fucking joke, right? Jazz dominated American music for ages and is
as influential as the Blues. It's like making a post today titled "Why
Americans Don't Like Doowop."

We get it, you need to feel important for knowing something cultural.

Also: "To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able to appreciate
abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of effort." Lol, okay. I
listen to Skrillex. Therefore I am cultured.

~~~
happytoexplain
This response is so aggressive, it makes me wonder if there is more to your
opinion of the author than what you've initially shared. I can't find
specifics in the writing to warrant the "we get it, you need to feel
important" attack.

~~~
o10449366
Because it's a lazy and boring article. It takes what could have been an
interesting topic and returns to the beaten to death theme of how "Gangster
rap music is ruining this generation. Things were so much better back in my
day". It's honestly condescending and the entire thing implies that most
people nowadays are simply incapable of appreciating higher forms of art
because they lack the education, which is an incredibly simplistic answer to a
nuanced issue.

~~~
strictusername
Well said, thank you.

------
mnm1
This could explain the relatively less popularity of electronic music in
America vs. much of the rest of the world but I'm not sure that's even the
case anymore. So maybe Americans don't like jazz cause they like electronic
and other types of non lyrical music like most of the rest of the world. Sure
probably not as much as lyrical music but a lot of that is due to marketing
and exposure. That's likely the main explanation actually. The marketing and
exposure provided by popular culture in America is frankly terrible. Mostly
garbage whether it's music, arts, film, etc. I think that's the real reason
for the phenomenon the article describes.

~~~
arvinsim
> This could explain the relatively less popularity of electronic music in
> America vs. much of the rest of the world

Interesting. I was under the impression that EDM is big in USA.

~~~
mnm1
I'd say it's big nowadays but still small compared to other styles like rap
and compared to the rest of the world. That's despite the US being the
birthplace of many of the main genres like house and techno. You don't hear it
on the radio and most people here are still not familiar with it but then
festivals pull on crowds of tens or even hundreds of thousands. In much of
Europe and the rest of the world on the other hand, it's ubiquitous.

------
j7ake
> If the song has any musical substance, it can be played on a piano alone

That's obviously not true. Piano can only play discrete notes. By contrast,
many instruments (e.g., voice) can slide between notes and also play quarter
tones.

~~~
Buldak
Without agreeing with the author's, your point about being limited to
"discrete notes" strikes me as a non-sequitur. As if music had more
"substance" the more notes it contained?

~~~
om2
There are musical phrases where a smooth glissando is essential to how it
sounds. And honestly sometimes the timbre of the specific instrument too. The
piano rendition may not get across the feeling the original music creates.

------
jibla
Btw recently stumbled upon this article: "Streaming services are seeing a jazz
renaissance amongst younger fans" [https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-
arts-44813683](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44813683)
Surprising but encouraging ;)

------
cousin_it
For better or worse, today people are often more interested in the story - the
myth that a work of art tells about itself and its creator - than in the
substance of the art itself.

~~~
hrktb
In comparison to when ? I’d be more optimistic about people’s interest in
music.

I grant you the days where affluent people bought partitions and sang in their
home at the piano could be seen as focused more purely on music.

But from there, the second a know name is associated with the song there is a
part of imaginary that is stuck to the piece. Then album covers with art, tv
performances, music clips, famous actors going into singing. It’s all the same
mechanism to my eyes, just optimized to put a halo around the music wider than
just a famous name.

It’s always been there in a form or another, and it doesn’t prevent people to
get hooked on random songs they heard somewhere or got recommended without any
exposure to the press campaign.

------
comodo
About the tangential point about the paintings of Mark Rothko compared with
those of Monet, I think people would be more open to enjoy that kind of art if
the creation of those works didn't carry any prestige.

I think what people find distaceful is when the creation of those works is
supposed to carry the same prestige as the creation of a universally
aesthetically pleasing work, in the case of the aesthetically pleasing work
the bulk of the effort is on the side the artist, while with non-
representional work the bulk of the effort is on the side of the viewer
changing his perception and opening up rather than on the side of the artist
who may just drip some paint on a canvas, or hang an empty canvas.

~~~
omnimus
Why it should be universal? As artist you don't have to be approachable.

It's the same with reataurants. When you get to the top top tiers the food is
not always pleasant. It is interesting, it is experience and you have to be
very open and educated to enjoy it.

Yes art has become much more about interesting ideas, concepts and contexts.
You need to be art educated to enjoy it and big part of it is also failed
bullshit. Around Rothko times art world started to move this way because they
just needed to go further and deeper. They needed new direction. It is really
hard to come up with new original ideas all the time (so hard in fact that
current art world is in crisis and nobody knows where to go next).

Few other points: \- Rothko is just much darker artist. The emotional response
people have to his work is not happy compared to Monet. Maybe thats why people
don't like him so much. \- Rothko has still became one of the most popular
artists. Try some artists 30 years after Rothko to see thehuge difference. \-
Calling abstract painters "just drip some paint on canvas" is like saying
about programmers "just typing something on a screen".

------
coldtea
Because they lack sophistication?

> _The current market share of jazz in America is mere 3 percent. That
> includes all the great ones like John Coltrane and the terrible ones like
> Kenny G (OK, this is just my own opinion)._

Well, in a populist culture without an aesthetic hierarchy, where you can't
rank Kenny G as terrible and Coltrane as great without having to explain
yourself, what place there is for jazz or anything more demanding than
triteness for that matter...

~~~
darkpuma
> _" Well, in a populist culture without an aesthetic hierarchy"_

Closing your eyes doesn't make things disappear. Otherwise, I'd be a wizard.

~~~
coldtea
Closing your mind, however, does, for all intents and purposes.

~~~
darkpuma
Au contraire, it exists despite your refusal to see it.

------
cryptica
Like the author, I also never pay attention to lyrics but unlike him I hate
most jazz.

I don't like it because of several reasons. Firstly, the saxophone doesn't
translate well to electronic mediums; it reminds me too much of the buzzing
sound of a fly. It gives me a whiny, nagging feeling... puts me in the mood
for swatting a fly.

Secondly, I associate it with the concept "superficial" \- Probably because of
the way it is used in movies.

~~~
DrScump

      the saxophone doesn't translate well to electronic mediums
    

Perhaps a broader exposure to various saxophones and their players would help.
For example, Grover Washington Jr. (e.g. Winelight) contrasted with the
soprano sax of Jay Beckenstein (e.g. Spyro-Gyra's first 3 albums).

------
darkpuma
"Jazz" encompasses such a huge variety of styles and sounds, it's almost
meaningless to say you categorically like or dislike it.

When people say they hate jazz, it's probably because they had the misfortune
of listening to jazz they disliked before listening to jazz they liked.

------
Buge
Off topic, but I found it interesting that there was a parody of "My Way" by
Frank Sinatra about Ebay. Weird Al made a parody of "I Want It That Way" by
the Backstreet Boys titled "Ebay".

------
ageitgey
There are so many reasons that jazz is unpopular. It goes far beyond a single
reason like "Americans prefer visual art". As a big fan of jazz and lots of
other styles of music, here a few of those reasons I've seen in action:

1\. Jazz has a long tradition of taking "standards" (popular songs largely
from the 1930s-1950s era) and reinterpreting them with ever more complex
harmonic arrangements. This has been going on for generations and we are
several iterations down the rabbit hole of re-interpreting the same songs into
ever more avant-garde versions. This makes it incredibly hard to get into jazz
as a new listener because you wouldn't be familiar with those original songs
or care about how they've been re-worked.

2\. Jazz musicians and fans tend to be very protective of their art and
compete with each other to show off the depth of their knowledge. They can
really put off anyone trying to get into jazz on their own. Musical neckbeards
abound.

3\. Jazz originally became popular by taking the most popular songs of the day
and re-working them to sound daring and original by using more complex
harmonies (think Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things'). But many jazz musicians are
still playing the same 70-year-old songs that modern audiences don't care
about. It has no relevance to a modern audience.

4\. 80 years ago, Jazz was _cool_ because it was mashing up pop music in new
ways and it sounded threatening to old people. It was _risky_ \- the rap of
its day. Now it is the least cool thing that could possibly exist and the
audiences are nearly only old people.

5\. Jazz is all about seeing how far you can push harmonic complexity. It's a
breath of fresh air for people who are bored with hearing basic major and
minor chord harmony over and over. But a lot of what's popular right now with
kids (i.e. soundcloud rappers) is very simplistic harmonically. There's a lot
of atonal-mumble-rapping over beats (which is what sounds _dangerous_ and
_cool_ in 2019). What jazz is bringing to the table just isn't what young
audiences are looking for right now.

6\. So much music that people hear that is labeled as "jazz" is truly terrible
muzak. That puts off possibly interested people from even trying out jazz.

7\. Even the word "jazz" sounds dorky in 2019. Think "jazz hands."

8\. Mainstream jazz since 1975 or so has produced some of the most navel-
gazing, unlistenable theory-music imaginable. The greatest timeless jazz
music, like tracks by Miles Davis and Coltrane have 70-80 million plays on
Spotify. But no one outside of Jazz fanboys want to listen to whatever Pat
Metheny is playing on his 42-string guitar-harp. It just sounds dorky.

All that being said, I think there is tons of great jazz and jazz-adjacent
music being made now. It just isn't always branded as "jazz". Here are some
things to check out - plenty of young people killing it in the jazz scene:

Julian Lage (former child prodigy / jazz guitar virtuoso) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ggv-5s4bs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ggv-5s4bs)

Jacob Collier (former child prodigy / everything virtuoso) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlFD298wTOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlFD298wTOM)
or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPLCk-
FTVvw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPLCk-FTVvw)

Vulfpeck (funk / just having fun) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4G0nbpLySI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4G0nbpLySI)

Jon Baptiste (maybe you know him from the Cobert Late Show) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3qTwHRECmM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3qTwHRECmM)

Punch Brothers (more folk, but here playing with Jon Baptiste) -
[https://youtu.be/alW_ZSMw7sM?t=70](https://youtu.be/alW_ZSMw7sM?t=70)

Cory Henry (Keyboard virtuoso) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8j7XJxew7s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8j7XJxew7s)

There are tons of others and lots of overlap with hip hop - check out people
like Thundercat.

------
throwaway3627
1\. Playola

2\. Most people don't have good taste

3\. A bewildering abundance of platforms, delivery methods, genres and
performers

As nonprofit stations go, KCSM 91.1 FM ain't bad.

