When did Jazz become Art Music in the ears of the listeners? Heres a general explanation, by no means complete and maybe even wrong, but it is my opinion. When first played, Jass was dance music, played at parties, dance halls, and night clubs. It was not yet defined as art, but rather defined as music for drunks and licentious women. There were few people who thought it legitimate music and few who thought it inspirational. The general public did not become aware of it until Paul Whiteman staged a concert of jazz and American Songbook music. His band played Livery Stable Blues as a joke to show how crude the music was, but to his surprise, the public completely misunderstood the joke and actually adored it. Whiteman subsequently popularized jazz, while really barely touching it, He hired musos like Bix and Tram to take 8 or 16 bar improv jazz solos in the middle of arranged numbers. Jazz? Not quite IMHO. Meanwhile Armstrong and others were playing for black audiences most in black clubs and a few black & tan clubs. These were dance oriented clubs. Then about 1928/9 Armstrong who was still barely known in white circles, except for musicians, branched out and got bookings in clubs with white audiences. His popularity exploded among the mass audience and with radio, the jazz business was booming. Swing slowed the Dixieland business and took over the dance halls by the mid 1930s. Big Bands were the rage with Goodman anad Shaw leading the pack. However, both of them noticed that sometimes the dancers just stood and listened, especially to the soloist leaders. Then WW 2 came on the scene. And in places like New York City, a 20% cabaret tax was leavied on venues with dance floors. That pissed off the club owners who figured out that they could put tables on the dance floors, ban dancing, save that tax money and make more profit as listening joints. At the same time black musicians were becoming more vocal about how they felt white musicians were stealing their stuff, holding them back by segregating the unions and not hiring black musos for the best paying jobs. They were right, of course. And virtuoso black musicians like Monk, Bird, Dizzy et al were experimenting with a new jazz music eventually called be-bop. In the early days, few whites heard the music that way. And blacks were very vocal in defending how difficult the new music was, and how artistic they were, and how they were sick and tired about being labled as musicians who played by ear because black people had natural rhythm. :-) They saw themselves as Artists, playing Art Music, for listeners who were hip. I remember the NYC scene well, in the late 1940s, through the 1950s. Here I was at the 5 Spot watching Monk play. Fellow audience members were modern artists like Jackson Pollock, musicians like Leonard Bernstein, profesors from Juilliard etc. All in awe of this new artistic music. The Dixielanders were aware of this and they too began to see themselves as Artists. For sure, no one could dance at the clubs because there were no dance floors. And they too were tired of being looked down upon as social misfits by the police, and polite society. And sure enough, Trad Jazz would become Art music. Those of us who played it were Artists. And over the next 40 years or so we forgot our roots, played for ourselves instead of the audiences and soon there we hardly any jazz gigs at all. Especially after Armstrong and Condon died. Except at jazz societies which kept the music alive for a time for the artistic audience. Wynton changed that somewhat with Ken Burns back around the turn of this century. There was renewed interest in OKOM, and my band gigs exploded as I promoted using Ken Burns Jazz as a lever to get gigs. Those of us who figured out how to make this music appeal to the kids by getting them involved again prospered. We quit taking ourselves seriously as Artists and remembered that even Louis Armstrong had advance men to promote his concerts. We promoted and we got good paying jazz gigs in places where other folks said it couldnt be done. And like Kenny Davern, we told our audiences to drink, be merry and dont worry about making noise because we can play louder than you can talk. It worked for Barbone Street and others like St Gabriels and Tom Wiggins. Are we artists? Sure, but so what. I still remember what Roy Eldridge told me about 60 years ago. Steve, take the music seriously, but never yourself. He was right.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 22:35:25 +0000
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