Is Jazz Dead?: Or Has It Moved to a New Address

287 Pages·2014·1.183 MB·English

by  Nicholson, Stuart

Is
Jazz
Dead?
This page intentionally left blank
Is
Jazz
Dead?
(Or has it moved
to a new address)
STUART NICHOLSON
RO Routledge
UTLEDG Taylor & Francis Group
E New York London
All citations are from the author's personal interviews and/or email conversations, unless otherwise noted.
Published in 2005 by Published in Great Britain by
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square
New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4RN
© 2005 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-96708-2 (Hardcover) 0-415-97583-2 (Softcover)
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-96708-2 (Hardcover) 978-0-415-97583-4 (Softcover)
Library of Congress Card Number 2005024395
No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nicholson, Stuart.
Is jazz dead? : (or has it moved to a new address) / by Stuart Nicholson.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-415-96708-2 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-415-97583-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Jazz--History and criticism. I. Title.
ML3506.N5 2005
781.65'09'051--dc22 2005024395
T&F informa Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
Taylor & Francis Group and the Routledge Web site at
is the Academic Division of T&F Informa plc. http://www.routledge-ny.com
To Dr. Elizabeth Peterson
This page intentionally left blank
C
ONTENTS
Introduction ix
1 Where Do We Go
from Here? The Jazz Mainstream
1990 to 2005 1
2 Between Image and Artistry:
The Wynton Marsalis
Phenomenon 23
3 Prophets Looking Backward:
Jazz at Lincoln Center 53
4 Déjà Vu Time All Over Again:
Jazz Singers and Nu-Crooners 77
5 Teachers Teaching Teachers:
Jazz Education 99
6 Altered Realities and Fresh
Possibilities: Future Jazz 129
7 Out of Sight and
Out of Mind: Jazz in
the Global Village 163
8 Celebrating the Glocal:
The Nordic Tone in Jazz 195
9 A Question of Survival:
Marketplace or Subsidy 223
Reference Bibliography 243
index 251
VII
This page intentionally left blank
I
NTRODUCTION
The globalization of jazz is not just another engaging story, another
sign of the music’s growing acceptance. To my mind it is the main
story, the overwhelming trend, the key evolutionary thread taking us to
the music’s future.
Ted Gioia, musician and author of The History of Jazz
and West Coast Jazz
Jazz in the new millennium is in a very different world than that which
was so lovingly re-created in the Ken Burns television retrospective Jazz.
The reason is simple: It is competing for the leisure dollar in a highly
competitive marketplace. Pop music, promoted with ruthless efficiency
by the major corporations, dominates the cultural spaces. Jazz’s voice is
struggling to be heard.
So what’s new? Hasn’t jazz always jostled with consumer and popular
culture for the public’s attention throughout its history? Of course it has,
but the early millennium years presented a very different music market-
place than that of the 1980s or even the 1990s. A once chaotic music
industry, with an ever-changing array of music labels with names like
Chess, Motown, Island, and Creation that were once as anarchic as the
music itself, has hardened into an immovable oligarchy of EMI, Time-
Warner, Universal, and Sony/BMG. As the number of “majors” shrank
to these four players, the number of international superstars was also
downsized, enabling the corporations to focus their efforts on promoting
a smaller number of people more effectively. Their success can be measured
IX