What are some ideas for making jazz more popular?
The trumpet player Nicholas Peyton wrote a blog post recently: On Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the future of the art form. If jazz is ever going to be popular again, it needs to regain its cool. Jazz was popular when it was intimately connected to popular culture. In the early-middle part of the twentieth century, jazz was popular culture. The last significant jazz work to really communicate with pop music was "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN5ltss0NMA "Rockit" was informed by hip-hop and electronica, but it also gave something back -- a generation of hip-hop turntablists all point to it as a central inspiration. Jazz since then has mostly tried to ignore pop culture entirely, or comment on it condescendingly. Most jazz being produced now isn't popular because it isn't that good. It's plenty complex and intellectual, but complexity isn't coextensive with quality. People don't listen to music to be dazzled by technique unless they're in music school. It's a rare contemporary jazz musician who can write a melody you'd want to hear more than once, and listening to people run difficult changes is about as interesting as watching them play video games. In order for jazz to be popular, it needs to humble itself before the major improvisational art form of this generation: hip-hop. Jazz snobs that belittle hip-hop's simplicity are missing the point. What hip-hop loses in harmony and melody, it more than makes up for in sonic innovation, wordplay, social realism and a sense of fun. Remember when jazz was fun? Remember when you could dance to it? Remember when it spoke to the emotional reality that most people live in? Or any emotional reality? That's what jazz needs. Here are two suggested directions for the future: Verve Remixed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QrrfIzCxeQ
This series produced some excellent electronic music in its own right, brought a bunch of classic recordings to a whole new set of years, and opened a lot of jazz fans' ears to contemporary music. Quite an achievement! I wish every jazz label would fling the vaults open to remixers, and not just the pros. I remix jazz tunes anyway, but it would be nice to have the labels' blessing, rather than having to watch my back for lawsuits. https://soundcloud.com/ethanhein/sets/jazz-remixes/
Reggie Watts
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fUSOPEP0A0]
Even though he's supposedly a comedian, Reggie Watts comes closer to the real spirit of jazz than any contemporary jazz musician I can think of. His songs are completely improvised, but rather than sounding like free-jazz mush, they're tightly structured, catchy and funny. Instead of trying to sound like it's still 1959, I wish more jazz musicians could live in the present culture like Reggie does.