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Jazz Renaissance

I first started listening to jazz in my early college years in the mid-late 70's and have been an avid fan since, taking it to an addictive level from the mid 80's on. I've had the pleasure of seeing the popularity of this art form slowly (re)gain momentum thru the 80's, seemingly take off in the early 90's, and reach an apparent zenith as of late. I've seen the record bins increase in size and variety. Being a frequent traveler to hear live jazz, for the better part of 20 years,I've seen the number and variety of live performances increase significantly from Manhattan to Portland (Or), the crowds swell at the shows and "walkin" opportunities, which used to be an always viable option, become virtually non-existent. And not the least, the variegated and copious jazz commentaries on the web, such as A'gon( sdcampbells erudite threads come to mind). These are all good things. But even more interesting, I see the crowds becoming increasingly younger( contrary to my live classical music experience) and younger. Refreshing, to say the least. I've been wondering as of late, what to attribute this to. The increased availability of software, Wynton's popularity and promotion beginning in the 80's, the proliferation of young talent,? etc. 15-20 years ago this seemed like a closet passion, now I see the record bins being ransacked by, and shows from Marcus Printup to Jimmy Heath populated by more and more who are younger and younger. I'm puzzled in a good way.
mes
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
Thank you for the kind words guys! Hope that helps explain the phenomenon that a lot of you have been seeing as of late.
Tim
mes OP
393 posts
 
Whoa, Tim, you're listening to Coltrane instead of Milli Vanilli?!?! Most excellent :) It's great to see the younger generation getting into jazz and supporting it. The last few shows I've been to have been populated with hords of "youngsters" which is refreshing and gives one hope that support for jazz will be carried on for some time to come.
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
Now I am not old enough to remember this but there was a period in time(maybe even before many of you) that jazz was the "Milli Vanhilli" music that older folks loathed. Simply because a lot of younger people are following jazz now, I don't think its going to make a HUGE come back-which is a shame. But the sad truth is a lot of people enjoy listening to Ms. Britney(in fact I have one of her CD's) and I feel that the shallow, dull, lifeless, emotionless music will rule, and in fact by the time I am the age of most of you guys I will be the odd "old school" audiophile, who still listens to that boring jazz, 'after all the timbre that N'Sync can reproduce has never been matched in history'. I think it is going to be tough for me to get old and to listen to that type of non-sense coming out of alleged audiophiles, but nothing is going to change that. I feel that most classical is too boring to tolerate, and I am sure a lot of you think I am the anti-christ with a comment like that, but it is an unappreciated genre to most folks my age. Come on there must be some other younger members out here to voice there opinions, Buckingham, Marakanetz?? where are you guys??
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
Tireguy,
I apologise as this is slightly off the original topic.
But when you question what else are you going to listen to in modern terms here is a list......
The Strokes,The White Stripes,Radiohead,Jeff Buckley,Ryan Adams,Coldplay,Travis there's lot's of decent new stuff about and related very closely to Jazz in my opinion is music in the Electronica genre.
Also in a Jazz/Electronica/Rock crossover try Standards by Tortoise from last year...
tireguy
1,964 posts
 
Ben_Campell-Of course it was a generalization, perhaps a gross over statement, but you can't turn the radio on or VH1, MTV etc and much if any of what you are talking about. As some of you know I am a large Techno fan-so of course I listen to some new-"pop" music, though I don't consider much of the mass market techno to be good. For that matter I admitted to having purchased a Britney CD(she looked sooo cute!) so of course I have been dupped by advertising and over saturation of MTV, radio...etc. An interesting twist is XM radio which offers a lot more then radio or television does or ever has. To say NO good music is being produced is incorrect but how about very little and those who do produce good(to me and most of you people any way) tunes go unappreciated, the only possible exception on your list would be radiohead-but I believe most that listen to Radiohead don't know why they do, "its just different, man" So what ever floats your boat or sinks it :), there is something out there for everyone, maybe some people like critically listening to Britney, but it isn't for me. Though I am simply one younger person trying to represent all of us, which is a bad idea seeing as I find I am not by any means of the word a "typical" kid of today. It would be interesting if some more younger members would voice there opinion as well so it wouldn't be just me :) I could be wrong with my statements but this is how I see things. What about Bob Dylan's release last year, if someone was to call that bad, I think they have issues-the list could go on but that was the first to come to mind. Hope that sort of answers your query-I realise there are a lot of things I am not able to explain, but I'll do my best to defend my tasteless generation
Tim
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