I recommend yall follow Greg Tate on FB. This is his latest, a response to some clickbait article on whether jazz can be culturally relevant in the future: I hate threads like this. I hate the 60s baggage stuck on the stupid question. like asking what can the Great Pyramid or the Parthenon or Picasso do to become culturally relevant again.Naive question far as how patronage subsidized High Culture operates too--here and in Europe, Latin America and Japan. Also hate the equally dumbass conclusion that jaxzneeds superstars to survive Also hate dude quoting dwindling CD sales like The Cats themselves have ever made any real money off all those records. GTFOH. But i fall for the bait every time because the OCD side of the brain is stuck on stupid when it comes to a Crisis-In-Jazz forums. First knee-jerk response is an emphatic NO no no muhfuhs Jazz will never be culturally relevant again--stop kidding yourselves. Right now Im listening to a 27 minute Cecil Tayor track w Thurman Barker and William Parker. Out of 4192 FB fiends only bout 25 of yall would ride or die with me Out There and We too cool for school Like That. So then how about jazz is Culturally Relevant because MY Black ass is culturally relevant, how about dem apples? Or the posteriors of various ride-hard-for-jazz Harlem neighbors like Fab Five Freddy, Marcus Samuelsson, Marc Cary, Vijay Iyer, Rodney Kendrick,Cassandra Wilson, Jason Moran? Thats already more real cultural relevance than Miley Cyrus got in Harlem and take a memo--Black people are still the arbiters of CR regardless of numbers. But eff it--lets talk numbers and quality of life matters re jazz too. The personal net worth of Wyntons culturally irrelevant gluteus is an estimated 15 million dollars. Famadou Don Moye told me every cat in The Art Ensemble of Chicago owns their own house and put all their kids through college, playing This Music. More real talk--theres 120 universities in this country with 4 year jazz studies majors -- that aint no act of cultural philanthropy Jazz doesnt need to be Mo Populat to survive or even be profitable for somebodies. All the prestige clubs in Manhattan pay market-rate downtown rent --that aint out of charity either, HFN. ( Can the jazz business stop being rife with thieves and gangsters would be a more economically relevant question). On the one hand jazz is almost impossible to kill because compared to anything else of timeless cultural value its so cheap to make and maintain.( Its not cheap to go out and support it live in the Apple--catching one set at Dizzys cost you and your squeeze bout $130 bucks if yall dining and drinking a taste). But sustaining the sound of jazz, the thing itself, in the world, dont take but two smoking MFs playing pawn shop instruments on the corner. But on the other hand. thanks to Youtube nearly every major and minor recorded jazz album I own is as double-clackable as the breadown on Beyonces latest weave job or the most viral cat video known to humanity. On the third hand, of the current elite crop of cats under 60 who ONLY play jazz for a living, I dont know anybody whos suffering. Hell, on the contrary, many of these cats are married with children; some even own they own property. Meaning theyre middle class working stiffs who happen to play jazz to cover the same too-damn-high bills and taxes as everybody else. One measure of the health of any Deadly Serious art form has to be Are a fair lot of your best people living comfortably just doing the damn thing and/or teaching it? NOT are your best people as rich and blinged-out famous as Gucci Mane? But I digress. Bottom line is like Charlie dont surf, jazz dont twerk.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 16:50:11 +0000
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