Jazz is Dead (Warning: long and boring) - Page 2

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To me, music is dead, not just Jazz or Rock. What popular "music" of today sawks, for the most part.

If ure still listening to it, it aint dead

The ol' jazz is dead rant was a lot more compelling 20-25 years ago. It rings false today.

What do you call the gazillion dollar Lincoln Center Jazz hall that just opened?

The summer jazz festivals get huger ever year.

Go into J & R, or a Tower or Virgin or HMV superstore, and there are ACRES of great jazz discs, and even some vinyl.

Yeah, many are reissues, but that shows there's a strong market for the reissues. Compare with the late 70s and early 80s, when much of the Coltrane catalogue was out of print, let alone recordings of the near-greats! And it's not all reissues. There's plenty of new stuff that's both solidly in the tradition and pushes the envelope in new directions. There are plenty of first rate musicians today. Just don't look for them on the major labels.

Jazz marketing may be near dead. And jazz is not very commercial today. But as a music, its vital and has a dedicated following.

Jazz is not really commercial music any more. 'nuff said.

I get the impression that despite your willingness to make proclamations about the state of the music, you're pretty much a n00b to jazz. I'm too busy at work today to ponder a greatest albums list, but here is a quickie list of some artists who have made great or very very good albums after 1970, and you can either do further research yourself or, most likely, there will be more replies. This is my personal opinion about music I own and listen too, not a regurgitation of something I read on the net someplace. I've included a variety of sub-genres and decades.

Monty Alexander
Gerry Allen (both leader and side"man")
Art Ensemble
Billy Bang and Bang-related groups
Leroy Jenkins and related groups
Gene Bertoncini
World Sax Quartet, as group and individuals members' projects (even moreso)
Anthony Braxton
Keith Jarrett (many)
Don Byron
Betty Carter
Ornette Coleman
Anthony Davis
Paul Motian (several)
Sphere
Bill Frisell
Charlie Haden
Branford Marsalis (Trio Jeepy)
Steve Lacy
Abbey Lincoln
Junko Onishi (maybe; jury still out on her)
Old and New Dreams
William Parker (leader or sideman projectes)
Marian McPartland
Wallace Roney
Gonzalo Rubalcabo
Cecil Taylor
Cassandra Wilson
McCoy Tyner
Sarah Vaughan (several Pablo albums)
Sun Ra
David Ware
Archie Shepp
Woody Shaw (multiple)

Dear Wali,

Since your other correspondant has been invited to silence, may I say that he has a point.....

I hope that you have been aware that in your opening post you wrote this:

«The main reason for writing this long and boring post is my frustration with lack of quality contemporary Jazz musicians and the music itself.»

I think that the «profile» of us jazz lovers has been the main reason why you were not consume in flames by now.

You may not like jazz evolution as it turn out, it's your right, but dont forget music is an art form. And as such it's able to take many forms and what you see, as so many jazz historians, in a distant classical era of jazz is not the end of jazz in itself. O.K Monk was brilliant but too bad he didn't fully enjoyed this status when he was alive. Maybe we could give the same chance to Jarrett...

Amicalement

EDIT: Before you said that I didn't reply properly to your question, and having offered Keith Jarrett as an example, here it is: The Koln Concert (1975). BTW who realy knows what place the Brad Mehldau's Live in Tokyo (2004) will have in jazz history.

I just have to chime in here. I live in Norway, and in the last 30 years some very, very interesting music which can be called jazz been created in Scandinavia especially. The 70s brought the record company ECM. This company (or the man behind it Manfred Eicher), has put out some amazing jazz (amongst other things). Some artists from this period is Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Bobo Stenson, Jon Christensen, Arild Andersen and of course Keith Jarrett.

During the 90s both the acoustic and the electric jazz scene grew, especially in Norway. Bugge Wesseltoft used a jazz approach towards electronica, and combined the club music (he used DJs in his recordings and live) with jazz. Very successful to my ears. In the late 90s a band called Supersilent released it's first album. Combining noise, trumpet, voice and keyboards they created frightening and very fascinating music. All the music was and still is purely improvised. The acoustic scene grew aswell, still with a strong attachment to ECM. Artists like Trygve Seim developed the "sound" created by Jan Garbared and changed it into something different. Check out the his last CD Sangam. Also check out the Tord Gustavsen Trio. Another great trio, with great success is the another piano trio; e.s.t. This group is swedish.

The more free-jazz scene grew at the end of the 90s. Lots, lots of duo and trio constellations were created, and made intereseting music. Not "easy" music, though, but imo highly fascinating. Some names/bands: Paal Nilssen-Love, Mats Gustafsson (which recently released an album with Sonic Youth), Ingar Zach, Atomic, The Thing. Especially interesting is the duo record between the norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and the american saxophonist Ken Vandermark.

I don't know how hard it is to get hold of these records in the US, but I would think that the ECM-catalog should be possible to get.

Some links:
www.jazzlandrec.com
www.smalltownsupersound.com
www.runegrammofon.com
www.ecmrecords.com
www.actmusic.com
www.sofamusic.no

Dont worry almost all you indicated is available in North America. The only problem is the price...

Nice Euro contribution...

Amicalement

Your ingratitude is astounding.

Please, then, continue to enlighten us about how Jazz made no contribution to the civil rights movement [sic!] except for Louis Armstrong [???], how Bitches' Brew is "hollow" and Miles [of all people] turned to rock music to make a buck.

Listen, there's nothing wrong with not knowing much about a subject. That's where everyone started at one point. But you really oughtn't pose and you certainly oughtn't lob baseless insults at those who are better informed.

Yeah, I feel real simple and foolish.

I think my favorite ECM artist after Jarrett is Eberhard Weber, but I didn't put him on the list since I wasn't sure it qualified as jazz and I wanted to avoid the "what is jazz" debate.

edit: Make that third. Kashkashian is my favorite ECM artist after Jarrett, but clearly not jazz.

Not for nothing, ECMs usually sound fantastic.

I agree that modern mainstream jazz is dead... but JAZZ is by no means dead... it's just not recognizable to the majority of people who consider themselves jazz fans.

mainstream jazz has become a shadow of itself, pathetically and forever trying to repeat the tricks of the old masters.

but JAZZ, by definition, must be innovative, experimental and risky. all great jazz has been thus... and there is still great JAZZ being made today:

John Zorn - for 25 years or more, he's been making daring music (and noise) with a social context (jewish, not african-american). he deserves a place among the great jazz composers, and he continues to break boundaries and explore new musical possibilities with Masada and his other ensembles.

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble - a remarkable, fluid and adventurous jazz combo that fuses monk, coleman and african music, led by kahil el'zabar out of chicago.

Lounge Lizards - john lurie's fantastic band, astounding players making unique music that has more energy and humor than anything you'll hear on modern mainstream jazz playlists.

Marc Ribot - fantastic guitarist, jumps (and destroys) genres with ease. has helped zorn, elvis costello and tom waits achieve brilliance, not to mention his own amazing cuban music with los cubanos postizos.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - they were probably most influential in the 70s... but continue to experiment and make beautiful music.

I won't pretend to be an expert on jazz, but the way I tend to think of it is like this: jazz was not the same in 1945 as it was in 1920 and it was different still in 1960, right? After all there are only so many ways to skin a cat and if an art form doesn't evolve and change, it dies. For example, Medeski, Martin and Wood added crazy synthesizer sounds and has a really captivating free jazz feel. Another band I've been turned on to is the Cinematic Orchestra, which uses DJs and keyboards and really experiments. I think it's only natural for the music to change and evolve. It's only a shame when the music evolves into something worse than when it began (like, dare I say, rock from 1960 to present?).