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Nicholas Payton - On Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore Before those of you that will take the time to read this assume that the writer is just some random Jazz-Hater, he isn't. Nicholas Payton started putting in his "10,000 hours" on trumpet at the age of 4 in his home town of New Orleans. He left college to spend two years on the road with one of the greatest Jazz drummers ever, Elvin Jones, followed by stints with other known Jazz players. The point being is that he's not some knucklehead shootin' his mouth off. He's got a very solid background in Jazz as a respected player. ...The Charleston Hop The following is from NICHOLAS PAYTON INTO THE BLOG On Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore.... Jazz died in 1959. There maybe cool individuals who say they play Jazz, but ain’t shit cool about Jazz as a whole. Jazz died when cool stopped being hip. Jazz was a limited idea to begin with. Jazz is a label that was forced upon the musicians. The musicians should’ve never accepted that idea. Jazz ain’t shit. Jazz is incestuous. Jazz separated itself from American popular music. Big mistake. The music never recovered. Ornette tried to save Jazz from itself by taking the music back to its New Orleanian roots, but his efforts were too esoteric. Jazz died in 1959, that’s why Ornette tried to “Free Jazz” in 1960. Jazz is only cool if you don’t actually play it for a living. Jazz musicians have accepted the idea that it’s OK to be poor. John Coltrane is a bad cat, but Jazz stopped being cool in 1959. The very fact that so many people are holding on to this idea of what Jazz is supposed to be is exactly what makes it not cool. People are holding on to an idea that died long ago. Jazz, like the Buddha, is dead. Let it go, people, let it go. Paul Whiteman was the King of Jazz and someday all kings must fall. Jazz ain’t cool, it’s cold, like necrophilia. Stop fucking the dead and embrace the living. Jazz worries way too much about itself for it to be cool. Jazz died in 1959. The number one Jazz record is Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue. Dave Brubeck’s Time Out was released in 1959. 1959 was the coolest year in Jazz. Jazz is haunted by its own hungry ghosts. Let it die. You can be martyrs for an idea that died over a half a century if y’all want. Jazz has proven itself to be limited, and therefore, not cool. Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt from looking back. Jazz is dead. Miles ahead. Some may say that I’m no longer the same dude who recorded the album with Doc Cheatham. Correct: I’m not the same dude I was 14 years ago. Isn’t that the point? Our whole purpose on this planet is to evolve. The Golden Age of Jazz is gone. Let it go. Too many necrophiliacs in Jazz. You’re making my case for me. Some people may say we are defined by our limitations. I don’t believe in limitations, but yes, if you believe you are limited that will define you. Definitions are retrospective. And if you find yourself getting mad, it’s probably because you know Jazz is dead. Why get upset if what I’m saying doesn’t ring true? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t play Jazz. I play Postmodern New Orleans music. Louis Armstrong and Danny Barker play Traditional New Orleans Music. Ellis Marsalis and James Black play Modern New Orleans music. Kidd Jordan and Clyde Kerr play Avant-garde New Orleans music. Donald Harrison plays Neoclassical New Orleans music. I play Postmodern New Orleans music. I am a part of a lineage. I am a part of a blood line. My ancestors didn’t play Jazz, they played Traditional, Modern and Avant-garde New Orleans Music. I don’t play Jazz. I don’t let others define who I am. I am a Postmodern New Orleans musician. I create music for the heart and the head, for the beauty and the booty. The man who lets others define him is a dead man. With all due respect to the masters, they were victims of a colonialist mentality. Blacks have been conditioned for centuries to be grateful for whatever crumbs thrown to them. As a postmodern musician, it’s my duty to do better than my predecessors. To question, reexamine and redefine what it is that we do. They accepted it because they had to. Because my ancestors opened the door for me, I don’t have to accept it. Louis bowed and scraped so Miles could turn his back. It’s called evolution. It’s the colonialist mentality that glorifies being treated like a slave. There is nothing romantic about poor, scuffling Jazz musicians. Fuck that idea. It’s not cool. Jazz is a lie. America is a lie. Playing Jazz is like running on a treadmill: you may break a sweat, but ultimately you ain’t going nowhere. Some people may say we are limited. I say, we are as limited as we think. I am not limited. Jazz is a marketing ploy that serves an elite few. The elite make all the money while they tell the true artists it’s cool to be broke. Occupy Jazz! I am not speaking of so-called Jazz’s improvisational aspects. Improvisation by its very nature can never be passé, but mindsets are invariably deadly. Not knowing is the most you can ever know. It’s only when you don’t know that “everything” is possible. Jazz has nothing to do with music or being cool. It’s a marketing idea. A glaring example of what’s wrong with Jazz is how people fight over it. People are too afraid to let go of a name that is killing the spirit of the music. Life is bigger than music, unless you love and/or play Jazz. The art, or lack thereof, is just a reflection. Miles Davis personified cool and he hated Jazz. What is Jazz anyway? Life isn’t linear, it’s concentric. When you’re truly creating you don’t have time to think about what to call it. Who thinks of what they’ll name the baby while they’re fucking? Playing Jazz is like using the rear-view mirror to drive your car on the freeway. If you think Jazz is a style of music, you’ll never begin to understand. It’s ultimately on the musicians. People are fickle and follow the pack. Not enough artists willing to soldier for their shit. People follow trends and brands. So do musicians, sadly. Jazz is a brand. Jazz ain’t music, it’s marketing, and bad marketing at that. It has never been, nor will it ever be, music. Here lies Jazz (1916 – 1959). Too many musicians and not enough artists. I believe music to be more of a medium than a brand. Silence is music, too. You can’t practice art. In order for it to be true, one must live it. Existence is not contingent upon thought. It’s where you choose to put silence that makes sound music. Sound and silence equals music. Sometimes when I’m soloing, I don’t play shit. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought. Silence is what makes music sexy. Silence is cool. - Nicholas Payton http://nicholaspayton.wor...l-anymore/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Music for adventurous listeners tA Tribal Records "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
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Wow... that was deep. I feel him. | |
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Who thinks of what they’ll name the baby while they’re fucking?
too deep.. | |
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Somebody had to keep it real! Hahaha | |
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Could this apply other genre of music as well? | |
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Based on how you interpret it. | |
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Wynton Marsalis probably agrees with this, but for a totally different reason. You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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Wynton's a bore anyway. He helped "kill" it dissing Miles and shit. Fuck him. | |
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Interesting... | |
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steam....
Space for sale... | |
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I agree. | |
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If jazz died in '59, for what reason should I care about his rambling gobbledygook and CDs? | |
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I randomly discovered his new album "Bitches" on Spotify a few weeks ago and he's quite a cackle over on twitter. | |
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Bird felt the same way about categorizing music.
Theoretically, he's right. But, to paraphrase Rama-Kandra in The Matrix Revolutions, jazz is but a word. The importance is the concept associated with or impled by the word.
I spent the better part of a decade delving into the jazz catalogue. I developed my likes and dislikes. As with any new, anxious student, I segregated "jazz" from "not jazz," be it called fusion, smooth jazz, etc. I still feel some so-called jazz does not move or explore like jazz does. But I've come to realize that jazz comes from all corners, in many ways, expected and unexpected.
But what has happened with jazz is not all that different from what has happened with all forms of music. It is expended, co-opted, and fossilized in the name of "preservation." Eventually, it is self-contained. And tastes change with the times, so it becomes part of the same establishment it sought to energize. It happened with so-called classical music, blues, soul, rock, and to a certain degree, hip-hop.
I agree with a lot of what he's said. Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016
Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder | |
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I say yes. Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016
Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder | |
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hey....jazz IS cool. how else is a white guy like me meant to be cool.beret on.cigarette hanging out.clicking my gingers to the cats on the trumpet
i jest.thats a cool piece | |
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1916-1959? So, according to the writer the first jazz song was in 1916. Maybe I am stupid for not knowing this but which song is credited with being the first jazz song? | |
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I get what he's saying.
But I think his argument falls apart when he categorizes himself by a region (which can be home to a number of different styles, as New Orleans is).
Throwing around a postmodern New Orleans label is silly.
If labels are inherently bad, just call yourself a musician or an artist. | |
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TB, you're right . . . I agree with much of what he said but that is a huge self-contradiction. Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016
Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder | |
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That's true... | |
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it would be interesting to see what he feels constitutes a "jazz" festival these days.
where i live in NZ the local jazz festival borders on parody | |
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I agree 110% with this. I played jazz semi-professionally for several years and while I was in college and it seemed like all anyone ever wanted to do was play out of the Real Book. I love Gershwin but how many times can you play "Love Is Here To Stay" before it's enough? Try calling something not in the Real Book and see how many blank looks you get.
Once academia co=opted it, it was over.
But I've been listening to a lot of jazz influenced electronic musicians and groups like Jazzanova, Jaga Jazzist, and the like, and to me there's a really great direction going on there. Jaga is more like a jazz/electronic art band, and Jazzanova uses a lot of jazz samples and combines them with live instrumentation. | |
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His "label" of himself is totally okay because he gave it to himself. That's his point. Self-naming, not the "establishment" doing it for u. | |
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But, he gives it to other people, too. A label is a label. He's still trying to assign a context to someone else. Same thing. | |
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Yes, he's ^ the professor of necrophiliacs. I like Nicholas Payton's post - I totally get what he's saying. Recently I saw that famous b&w photo of many jazz musicians gathered together on the steps - I saw it in the lobby of Enterprise car rental. It didn't have to do with anything else in the room. It's like it's a piece of decoration - here's a landscape photo, here's a geometric design picture, and here's a picture of "jazz." I shook my head at that.
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Yes, he's ^ the professor of necrophiliacs. I like Nicholas Payton's post - I totally get what he's saying. Recently I saw that famous b&w photo of many jazz musicians gathered together on the steps - I saw it in the lobby of Enterprise car rental. It didn't have to do with anything else in the room. It's like it's a piece of decoration - here's a landscape photo, here's a geometric design picture, and here's a picture of "jazz." I shook my head at that.
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but Nicholas is one person, not "the establishment," thus he can't cause the labels he applied to the others to "stick" or brand them accordingly. they could reject them also based on how they see themselves. kind of like "neo soul" artists; some like the label, some don't. self generating or even artist generating is better than industry generating labels | |
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not sure if nicholas was aiming for this ..but thats on my fridge now!
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Im not trying to be snarky but, do you not know the name of "that famous photo" or its well known photog? You seem to be looking down upon someone's lack of knowlege about an item you didn't even address appropritely.
And since when does one have to create a whole design scheme to hang "that famous photo of many jazz musicians"? [Edited 12/5/11 18:26pm] | |
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I think he talks about his hometown because it's such a vibrant music community, but you have a point. Detroit is the birthplace of the Motown R&B/soul sound, but would Iggy Pop, KISS, Madonna, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, and Eminem call themselves Motown artists? I doubt it.
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