Artists

If Not Jazz Education, What Will Rebuild Jazz Audiences?

In a recent Huffington Post submission, pianist and composer Kurt Ellenberger writes about what he calls “the education fallacy”: the premise that an increase in music education will lead to increased audiences. He’s writing here about classical music, but draws a parallel with jazz:

On the education spending issue, it’s common to hear musicians say, “well, we’re not spending enough, that’s why we’re not building classical music audiences — we need to spend more on education.” I return to Jazz Education, where we went from spending very little, to spending hundreds of millions, with nothing to show for it in regards to audience development. Why did the jazz audience decline, not grow, as the spending rapidly increased? Is there any reason to think that more spending would succeed with classical music where it has failed with jazz?

As evidence that jazz education has “failed” to produce new audiences, Ellenberger cites data demonstrating the proliferation of jazz education in colleges, summer camps and high schools. At the same time, he also states that discussions like the Jazz Audiences Initiative are responses to declining jazz audiences.

Ellenberger, I gather, is also on faculty at Grand Valley State University, and from that perch once helped to produce jazz concerts himself. (He plays in the Grand Valley State New Music Ensemble once featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition.) That is, he’s seen the shifts in education spending and audience decline in person. As he is paid to be a jazz educator, it seems unlikely that he’s attacking the entire system that supports him — just its efficacy at seeding jazz audiences.

I find this perspective compelling, but also a bit frustrating. Continue reading

‘It Can’t Be Done’: The Difficulty Of Growing A Jazz Audience

Last week, we published a much-discussed blog post about the connection — or lack thereof — between jazz education and the development of new audiences. It examined a viewpoint by pianist, composer and music professor Kurt Ellenberger, and concluded by challenging Ellenberger to suggest some ways to win new audiences. Here is Ellenberger’s response. –Ed.


Since my Huffington Post article on jazz education and audience development, many (including this very blog) have asked “Well, if education isn’t the answer, what’s the solution? How do we develop and maintain a strong jazz audience?” Continue reading

For Jazz Musicians Looking For Mentors, Things Ain’t What They Used To Be

One of the great things about jazz is that it bridges generations. Because it relies on interactive improvisation and live performance, and thus can’t be completely taught in a classroom or with a book, aspiring younger musicians seek the direct guidance of older, wiser ones. And more experienced musicians have plenty of reasons to take fresh talent under their wings, like gaining new bandmates with fresh skill sets, or helping future torch-bearers to thrive.

Such mentorship has changed a lot in the last half century. Collegiate and even post-graduate jazz education has become a huge engine of talent cultivation. Meanwhile, performing opportunities have greatly diminished. So the previous model of mentorship, where promising musicians learn “on the job” by joining the bands of established musicians, is becoming less common. But as Nate Chinen’s recent New York Times article explains, plenty of “apprentices” are still “availing themselves of counsel” — they’re just taking different paths to it. Continue reading

Why J Dilla May Be Jazz’s Latest Great Innovator

Visionary hip-hop producer J Dilla never found mainstream success during his brief lifetime. But in the seven years since his death, Dilla — who would have turned 39 today — has come to represent a major inflection point on hip-hop’s evolutionary tree. At his peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he suggested syntheses that hadn’t seemed possible. He played fresh games with texture and tone. He recast the sample as a malleable component, rather than the monochromatic backbone it had seemed to be. And he injected a softened, swaggering humanity into the rigid slap of classic hip-hop drumbeats.

His magnum opus, Donuts, was reissued on vinyl last month, and the posthumous Music From the Lost Scrolls Vol. 1 came out on Tuesday — the first in a series of previously unreleased recordings. In Detroit on Saturday, the rapper Talib Kweli, violinist and arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and a handful of other artists will perform at the second annual Dilla Day, a concert celebrating Dilla’s career.

Dilla’s reach stretches way beyond hip-hop: For one, he’s recently cast a long shadow over contemporary jazz. He never belonged to jazz’s inner circle, but since his death in 2006 from a rare blood disease, his legacy has helped pull the genre back into kissing contact with modern popular music. Continue reading

Reflections On A Dozen Years With Abbey Lincoln

Marc Cary came to New York City to find and save his father. Instead, he found artists like Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln — and saved himself.

“I hadn’t seen my dad in 10 years,” Cary says over a recent lunch in downtown Manhattan. “He’s a percussionist, but he was living another lifestyle, and I came to rescue him. He was living at the Port Authority Bus Station.”

Cary was 21; he arrived with only $20 in his pocket. But he was also a talented jazz pianist. On the recommendation of a friend, he soon connected with the late Art Taylor, a venerated jazz drummer. Taylor was assembling a new incarnation of the Wailers, his own seminal jazz group.

“I called him that night, and he told me to come over immediately,” Cary says. At the time, Taylor lived a block away in Harlem. When Cary arrived, Abbey Lincoln was there; she lived next door. “[Lincoln] checked me out, gave me a lot of encouragement and told me that one day we’ll play together.” Continue reading

The Odd Jobs Of Dave King

Among musicians, drummers are the explorers, the tinkerers, the polymaths. They don’t just play one instrument, but dozens at the very least.

With so many jobs to hold down at the same time, drummer Dave King — best known as a member of the trio The Bad Plus — recently spoke to me about his work life. He was on his way from Chicago’s Green Mill to play the Village Vanguard with trio mates Bill Carrothers (piano) and Billy Peterson (bass). NPR Music and WBGO will webcast the group on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET.


Is being a drummer a lot of work?

In the pantheon of instruments? As someone who plays piano and also composes music, I have to say it’s a hard job. It’s one of those instruments that seems infinite. There are always so many more things to work on and so many ways to become more musical.

Then why do I have an image of drummers that’s completely the opposite of that?

Ha! Do you? That’s, of course, both funny and serious. There’s a deep ignorance of drums beyond meathead rock s—. It’s very simple to start playing, but it gets infinitely complicated. So I’ll counter the drum jokes by telling you to ask any serious musician if a band can be good when the drummer isn’t. If your drummer sucks, you suck. Like if your goalie sucks, your hockey team sucks.

As a Minnesotan, you probably know a thing or two about hockey. But what are your points of comparison about how hard it is to be a drummer in terms of the other jobs you’ve had? Continue reading

After 18 Years Of Marriage And Two Children, A Couple Releases Their Debut Albums

The basic story behind drummer Rudy Royston’s first album sounds like that of many sidemen in jazz. He moved to the New York area. His talent got him into bands led by higher-profile artists like Bill Frisell, JD Allen, Ben Allison and Dave Douglas. And when it came time to document his own composing and arranging, he could rely on the network he had tapped into. Douglas issued Royston’s album 303 earlier this month on his own record label, Greenleaf Music.

But consider that Royston is 43, an age when similarly ambitious top-tier jazz musicians have often already waxed several recordings. In fact, he’s not even the first musician in his household to make a record under his own name.

In 2011, pianist Shamie Royston, his wife, recorded a trio date with Ivan Taylor on bass and Rudy on drums. The resulting album Portraits came out in 2012 with little fanfare, though it did catch the ear of the New York Times critic Ben Ratliff, who praised its maturity, calling it “a first album that probably would have been a second or third one 10 years ago.” Continue reading

Jazz As A Liberal Arts Education

For conservatory-trained jazz musicians, it’s a scary job market out there. Saxophonist Dave Liebman, an NEA Jazz Master and veteran statesman, paints a bleak picture:

In the current world of jazz education, the situation vis a vis graduating more and more of the most equipped musicians in history (every year more so) in stark contrast to the scarcity of paid performance and recording opportunities has assumed epic disproportion. To deny this would be like ignoring global warming. Serious educators are and should be concerned.

While some public conversations suggest addressing this crisis with more music business classes, or harsher financial reality checks upon entering school, or more holistic teaching methods — all of which are good ideas — Liebman points out one other thing: Jazz school prepares students to be citizens as well as musicians. In an AllAboutJazz essay, he lists how activities like soloing, learning a standard repertoire and entertaining correspond with other critical life skills. Continue reading

How Norway Funds A Thriving Jazz Scene

Did you hear about the Italian gallery owner who burned his gallery’s paintings last year — with the cooperation of the painters? It was a sort of desperate smoke signal to his government; a means of protesting funding cuts. If there haven’t been similar protests in the U.S. lately, it could be because we’re used to declining arts funding.

In today’s strained environment for arts support, the funding wonderland of Norway can incite jealousy. Yes, Norway is an oil-rich country; it also allots a respectable percentage of its oil wealth to pioneering art, making it a model for exactly what well-spent money for the arts can engender.

Especially in jazz. Public support has helped the country’s improvised-music scene expand from a handful of artists in the late ’60s to a thriving network of recording, performing and educational opportunities today. It’s not perfect, of course; I’ll address some chinks in Norway’s funding armor. But the country’s improvised music flourishes largely on public support.

It’s a cliché to refer to a “Nordic tone” in Norwegian jazz. Many still do, ascribing the geography of fjords and mountains to even the most urban musical productions. But if a single tone underlies Norwegian improvised music, it’s probably the sound of jingling kroner.

A Punkt Attitude Continue reading

Meet The Man Who Assembles The World’s Biggest Jazz Concert

The pianist and composer John Beasley has one of the most formidable tasks of anyone associated with today’s International Jazz Day, the celebration produced by UNESCO and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. He’s music director of the centerpiece concert to be live-streamed from Istanbul tonight (2 p.m. ET in the U.S.). That means Beasley put together the lineups from a star-studded international cast, with a set list meant to charm the world.

His cast is headed by international superstars Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Eddie Palmieri, Robert Glasper, Ramsey Lewis, Esperanza Spalding, Joss Stone, Anat Cohen, Branford Marsalis, Hugh Masekela, Keiko Matsui, Lee Ritenour, Joe Louis Walker, Ruben Blades and Jean-Luc Ponty. They’ll perform with Turkish musicians Husnu Senlendirici, Imer Demirer, Bilal Karaman and many others. They’ll appear throughout 12 distinct musical segments at Hagia Irene, an ancient domed building — the first Christian church built in Constantinople.

Having served as music director for artists ranging from Queen Latifah to Freddie Hubbard — and worked as MD for the first International Jazz Day concert in 2012 — Beasley seems well-prepared for the job. His Louisiana upbringing and prodigious talents have resulted in jazz chops that earned him a Grammy nomination for his 2009 album Positootly! His commercial instincts have landed him work as a soundtrack writer for movies and TV reality shows. An extra dollop of credibility comes from Miles Davis, who hired Beasley for his last touring band. Continue reading