Commentary
Is 'jazz' a label that no longer works?
by David Cazares, Minnesota Public Radio
David Cazares is an editor for MPR News.
I've long thought of jazz as a musical gift from African-Americans to the world.
But "jazz" is a word that many modern listeners feel no connection to. Especially young blacks, who think jazz is played out. So I'm not at all surprised that there's a movement to toss the label into history.
But is it possible that the word has done the music harm?
The debate's been going on for decades. It picked up steam in November when the New Orleans trumpeter Nicholas Payton wrote a blog essay called "Why Jazz Isn't Cool Anymore."
Payton says the word "jazz" is a marketing ploy with racist origins that was forced on musicians. He prefers the term "Black American Music," or BAM for short.
His argument isn't only about the word. To him, people who play jazz are living in the past - and 1950s cool is no longer hip. He says "playing jazz is like using the rear-view mirror to drive your car on the freeway."
Payton objects so strongly to the term "jazz" that he has taken to calling it the J-word. He says jazz "is an oppressive colonialist slave term," and he wants no part of it.
The word is said to have emerged in the late 19th century in the brothels of New Orleans. It likely helped attract white audiences to music halls where they could hear an intense and emotional music without having to enter the world from which it sprang.
Of course, white musicians - from George Gershwin to Bill Evans and beyond -- contributed to the development of jazz. Anyone who masters the music can play it. But a number of influential musicians agree that the word should be shelved.
Among them is saxophonist Gary Bartz, who equates "jazz" with the N-word. He says it conjures images of musicians who are broke and on drugs.
Ian Carey, a trumpet player from San Francisco, says he and other white musicians must recognize that jazz arose from a community whose master musicians suffered "vicious racial animosity."
All true. But is it really a good idea to use the umbrella term BAM?
The editor in me disdains most acronyms. But I also have a fondness for what jazz has come to mean.
For many aficionados of a certain age, the word denotes sophistication and intellectual rigor. The late pianist Billy Taylor was fond of calling jazz "America's classical music." It's easy to see how that might sound pretentious or aloof.
If the solution to reconnecting people to a national treasure were as simple as changing its name, I might cast my vote today.
The problem with Payton's substitute is that there are many kinds of black American music. Marvin Gaye. James Brown. Stevie Wonder. A Tribe Called Quest. B.B. King. Mahalia Jackson.
Yes, they all spring from the same root. But shouldn't there be a name for blues-based, improvisational music with rhythm and swing that doesn't apply to other forms? That is the question.
Whatever you call our great music, it is an American phenomenon, and the musicians who play it should have a say in its name.
And if the conversation leads more people to listen to rich improvisational music, that can only be good.
Comments (10)
In Professor George Lewis' book, A Power Stronger Than Itself", the term "Great Black Music" is defined by the Art Ensemble of Chicago in a more expansive way. If one reads this book from page 449 to 451, Great Black Music includes many genres over many generations in all the continents.
Whatever it's called, as a musician, I wish more of the public would appreciate the music theory knowledge and vigorous application needed to play jazz and its offshoots. If they did, their admiration of it would be much higher. Those of us who play jazz, at whatever level of complexity we are able, certainly think of it as "America's classical music" and find it an ever-challenging, ever-evolving, ever delightful genre. I hope the controversy merely serves to re-frame the public's understanding of jazz from an incorrect one of an anomalous genre arising from desperation and drug use, to a more accurate on of an amazing musical system that is infinitely wonderful and entertaining in all its themes and variations.
If one language and its message has had the worth of stretching beyond race and unite spirits on common scales more than any other, it is Jazz. One without the other seems like a rather dull painting of division and discord of a vibrating choir celebrating unity, alliance and a progressive history.
If one language and its message has had the worth of stretching beyond race and unite spirits on common scales more than any other, it is Jazz. One without the other seems like a rather dull painting of division and discord of a vibrating choir celebrating unity, alliance and a progressive history.
People of all colors play the music now. We all know where it came from. The cool thing about jazz is that it's always changing. And it is changing, even if people like to say that those who play it are living in the past. It can't help but evolve. Everything does. Everyone brings something of themselves to the music. Doesn't matter if their blue with green breath. But we don't need to try and stop its progression by rooting where it came from into it's name. In my opinion, this is just an attempt to ignore the contributions that people from other backgrounds have made to the music. For example, have you heard some of these kids in Japan on Youtube? Man, they can flat out play. It's jazz, man. If you want to change something about it, be innovative with your playing. Leave the name alone.
People of all colors play the music now. We all know where it came from. The cool thing about jazz is that it's always changing. And it is changing, even if people like to say that those who play it are living in the past. It can't help but evolve. Everything does. Everyone brings something of themselves to the music. Doesn't matter if their blue with green breath. But we don't need to try and stop its progression by rooting where it came from into it's name. In my opinion, this is just an attempt to ignore the contributions that people from other backgrounds have made to the music. For example, have you heard some of these kids in Japan on Youtube? Man, they can flat out play. It's jazz, man. If you want to change something about it, be innovative with your playing. Leave the name alone.
The problem of classifying music is the same as classifying people. The lines are ultimately subjective to the point of being meaningless. Determining what a "black" person or a "white" person is is even more difficult that determining what is jazz is. For those in denial, I challenge you to define what a "black" or "white" person is. That is to say what characteristics do "black" people have that no other people have but all "black" people have? You can substitute any other so called "race" and you have the same problem. Most people can't stop with creating these differences, they go on to create meanings for their imagined differences. I think we call that profiling. For my part, only racists divide people by race and only music snobs and culture bigots need to divide music into genres. As a composer, I look forward to the day when people and music can escape cultural imprisonment.
The problem of classifying music is the same as classifying people. The lines are ultimately subjective to the point of being meaningless. Determining what a "black" person or a "white" person is is even more difficult that determining what is jazz is. For those in denial, I challenge you to define what a "black" or "white" person is. That is to say what characteristics do "black" people have that no other people have but all "black" people have? You can substitute any other so called "race" and you have the same problem. Most people can't stop with creating these differences, they go on to create meanings for their imagined differences. I think we call that profiling. For my part, only racists divide people by race and only music snobs and culture bigots need to divide music into genres. As a composer, I look forward to the day when people and music can escape cultural imprisonment.
The problem of classifying music is the same as classifying people. The lines are ultimately subjective to the point of being meaningless. Determining what a "black" person or a "white" person is is even more difficult that determining what is jazz is. For those in denial, I challenge you to define what a "black" or "white" person is. That is to say what characteristics do "black" people have that no other people have but all "black" people have? You can substitute any other so called "race" and you have the same problem. Most people can't stop with creating these differences, they go on to create meanings for their imagined differences. I think we call that profiling. For my part, only racists divide people by race and only music snobs and culture bigots need to divide music into genres. As a composer, I look forward to the day when people and music can escape cultural imprisonment.
The problem of classifying music is the same as classifying people. The lines are ultimately subjective to the point of being meaningless. Determining what a "black" person or a "white" person is is even more difficult that determining what is jazz is. For those in denial, I challenge you to define what a "black" or "white" person is. That is to say what characteristics do "black" people have that no other people have but all "black" people have? You can substitute any other so called "race" and you have the same problem. Most people can't stop with creating these differences, they go on to create meanings for their imagined differences. I think we call that profiling. For my part, only racists divide people by race and only music snobs and culture bigots need to divide music into genres. As a composer, I look forward to the day when people and music can escape cultural imprisonment.
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