The End of Jazz As We Know It?
Have you seen the latest controversy? Musician Nicholas Payton is leading a movement to get rid of the word “jazz.” His argument is that the term “jazz” is racist and that deeply embedded societal oppression of black Americans necessitates a reclassification of the music. Check out this article: A Controversial Proposal Would Redefine Jazz. At one point in his blog or in a tweet Payton states: “The j-word is dead. It died in 1959. Those who celebrate it are worshipping a zombie.” Not exactly sure why Payton chose 1959. That was the year of Kind of Blue. Coltrane hadn’t even recorded any of his masterpieces on Impulse. Think of all the Blue Note records we all love and enjoy post-1959. Anyway. Payton advocates that the music we know of as “jazz” be reclassified as Black American Music. He uses the acronym BAM. Does this mean I have to change my site to BAM Collector? And sell my Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Tal Farlow records? Something about that doesn’t seem quite right. I’m sure this audience will have some opinions on the topic, no?
…Payton may be leading a movement alright, right over the proverbial cliff ! It is one that speaks more of his own ignorance on the subject, and the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and misguided ideologies. All of which will surely alienate him from the rest of his contemporaries and fans alike if he continues to pursue this line of inquiry.
It’s sad that even in this day and age, there exists a mindset that has yet to evolve beyond past injustices, and seeks to bring attention to itself by trying to stake claim to something that cannot possibly be justified. Similar in fact to the way those out there who for whatever reason attempt to deny and discredit undeniable aspects of history like the holocaust, or the moon landing.
In an interview, Wynton Marsalis said “Jazz music is not race music. Everybody plays jazz music. Everybody has always played it. But when people teach the history of Jazz, they always talk about white bands and black bands. Musicians don’t learn that way. See, this is the big lie in the way that it’s taught. Benny Goodman was going to learn the clarinet from whomever he could. Elvin Jones studied with a guy who played in the Detroit Symphony. Miles Davis went to Juilliard and studied with William Vachiano… Louis Armstrong’s style is influenced by the style of cornet virtuosos like Bohumir Kryl and Herbert L. Clark. Bunny Berigan is influenced by Louis Armstrong. Bix Beiderbecke is influenced by Louis Armstrong. Lester Young is influenced by Frankie Trumbauer. That’s how music is. You hear something you like, and you want to play like that.”
Marsalis also wrote in his 2008 book Moving To Higher Ground statements such as:
“Our strange obsession with race has devoured most of this history. Instead of focusing on the great coming-together that jazz represents, the obsession has always been “Who owns this music? That obsession is still alive and well in America, still wasting everybody’s time, still undercutting the spirit of jazz.
Another obsession born of racism is the endless search for the answer to an essentially pointless question: Who does this music belong to? To try to answer it, you have to engage in the futility of deciding which color of person plays it best. Well, if Louis Armstrong was the best and he was dark-skinned, then jazz must be the province of the dark-skinned Negro. But who is the next dark-skinned person who plays as well as Louis Armstrong? And are there some light-skinned musicians and some white ones — bix Beiderbecke, for example — who are better than the next dark-skinned trumpet player in line? Who is the dark-skinned soprano saxophone who plays better than the light-skinned Creole Sidney Bechet? Nobody. What percentage of black blood do you have to have to qualify? What about Django Reinhardt? He’s a gypsy from Belgium.
What makes a person an authentic jazz musician? Does he or she have to be black and descended from slaves? If that’s the case, what about all the black jazz musicians who couldn’t play as well as white musicians like Jack Teagarden and Buddy Rich? They weren’t black enough?
Jimmy McPartland, Pee Wee Russell, Dave Tough, Gene Krupa, Bud Freeman, Art Hodes, Woody Herman, Gil Evans, Dave Brubeck, Zoot Sims— all serious white musicians — tried to reconcile the reality of this country with what they learned about this country’s potential through the music, which was misnamed “race music,’””black music,” “Afro-American music and “black classical music” because of the old confusion about physiology and culture.”
To call it anything else but “Jazz” would be a great injustice to all those who laid it’s foundations, and everything they had to overcome to create it and share it with the world.
“It is America’s music – born out of a million American negotiations: between having and not having; between happy and sad, country and city; between black and white and men and women; between the Old Africa and the Old Europe – which could only happen in and entirely New World. It is an improvisational art, making itself up as it goes along – just like the country that gave it birth”
– Excerpt from ‘Jazz – A History of America’s Music” by Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns.
Payton’s time might be better spent focusing on his contributions to music, and less about what it should be called.
Oh well, like Louis Armstrong always said… “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.”
great writing, Don-lucky!
Amen Brother Don-Lucky!
Well, Don-Lucky, the Marsalis quotes you give us here today say it all. And I totally agree.
Is Payton bored? He seems to have a lot of time on his hands for a successful pro! He needs to sit down and talk his race hang up out with someone who can help him.
Appreciate and know the history, embrace the new and push to keep it fresh and creative. In 2012 this
topic is a non starter and a waste of energy and time.
Jazz ain’t dead, it just smells funny”
Having had a glance at Payton’s blog I can only say how deeply confused and confusing his argument seems to be. Jazz is dead — let it go, he says. And then focuses obsessively and repetitively on an argument that Charles Mingus would surely have recognised (he who rejected the very term jazz and ‘banned’ it from his record sleeves’.
But for some thirty or forty years now jazz has been as likely to be made by a Turk or an Arab or an Israeli or a Swede or a Briton or a Finn or a whatever as it has a Black American.
What is Payton’s argument exactly? That jazz *the music* is dead or no longer recognisable as jazz? Or that the term ‘jazz’ carries inherent racist overtones?
If his argument is indeed either of the above (as opposed to provocation and self-promotion — some new schtick because a guy needs his schtick if he is to get noticed) — then I reject them.
What the hell does ‘Post Modern New Orleans musician’ mean, anyway?
There may well be a relevant discussion to be had about the roots and future of jazz — but not framed in the absurd anti-intellectual identity politics that Payton is trying to resurrect.
Now none of what I have said here should be taken as meaning that racism is dead. Racism in many European countries is, after all, on the rise. Many of the new victims of racism aren’t defined by skin colour.
Racism does change and reinvent itself — we are faced with a multiplicity of racisms… There *is* a necessary anti-racist struggle to be conducted. But — and don’t take my word for it: ask anyone who has been on the receiving end of racism — it does not revolve around some petty self-publicist’s notion of jazz.
Ideally, we should not be fanning the flames of this guy’s inferno of irrelevance…
Amen to all your comments – I agree that giving up the word “jazz” is absurd. And I recall Miles Davis saying decades ago that he didn’t care if a musician was green or any other color as long as he could play.
I have read Nick’s blog and articles about this topic. There is a large misunderstanding about what he is saying, because he is not saying it well. He puts up straw men left and right, and when someone disagrees he says I didn’t mean that. Well I can see why everyone is confused. Alun Severn said it better above, “absurd anti-intellectual identity politics”, than I can but I just don’t think this is the proper way to argue IF you want to accomplish something.
Nick is not saying that whites(or non-blacks) haven’t or can’t make a contribution. He has sited many of his favorite white musicians over and over. He is saying that Jazz is an art form that originated among black people. I’ve rarely heard this disputed, whites and people from all over the world have made substantial contributions but it was originally a black form of expression. Beyond this, he says that to label the music as Jazz is offensive.
I really don’t have much to say about that. Clearly I’m okay with the term Jazz. If he and others want to stop using the term, then by all means. If it’s demonstrated in a MUCH CLEARER way that to me that it is an offensive term then I will consider it. So far it hasn’t been demonstrated.
I love the music of Nicholas Payton. I have seen him play in many times(with plenty of white people). I don’t agree(or haven’t been convinced) that the term Jazz is offensive. I’m still waiting for a good argument. I’ll still buy his cds as long as he keeps making good music though.
What colour is a artist? Is Picasso White or Black? How would you know? Why would you care? Payton is so last century. We have moved on past grievance-mongering, victimhood, and peddling arrant race-nonsense like this. If the term Jazz was abolished, or had never existed, another word would take its place. Would that need abolishing too?
The ability to put words on a piece of paper does not of itself constite “writing”, at least not writing worth reading. Music is colour-blind, Payton, get over it.
LC, music may be color blind but the musicians who play it still deal with racism regularly. It’s not a problem like it was in the 50s-60s but its still a big problem. I don’t understand what changing the label from Jazz would do about it, but saying that art is post racial is not accurate. America is not post racial, therefore the true art that comes from it is not post racial. I’m not an expert on other countries.
I don’t think changing the label from Jazz to anything else will help, but one thing Nick is doing is drawing attention to the problem. The problem is that it is mostly negative attention. The problem of race in art(in america at least) does deserve a conversation though.
Perhaps it is an American issue, it is hard to tell from a distance. If anything it strikes me a lot of American “white” musicians had to deal with acceptance issues as jazz performers.
The term “racism” is bandied around a bit too readily. There are tensions between social class and culture everywhere in the world, not uniquely US black and white. That is not the same as racial suprematism and genocide, which is the real evil and proper description of “racism”.
I like to think jazz is somewhere racism has no place. That is society’s problem.
When I say racism, I mean discrimination due to one’s ethnicity. Unfortunately it is still a big issue hear. When I say it is in Jazz, is because it is in the musician. A simple example is when a certain group is consistently denied things that others have easy access too. Were I live, if you are poor there is a different quality of education based on race. If you are wealthy this is not necessarily true as the wealthy will tend to put there children in private schools no matter what the color. Knowing these things has an effect on the person who grows up and becomes a musician. There art is(or at least can be) a reflection of society’s problems. Art about racial discrimination in the US is common, from literature, painting and music. It clearly is relevant to the people creating it. If Jazz didn’t reflect racism it really would be out of touch with reality(in the US atleast).
I don’t think the white Jazz musicians had as many problems in society as the black jazz musicians historically. Simply because in the heights of Jazz, America was still segregated. I’ve never read a biography of a black jazz musician where racism wasn’t discussed. This is why so many went to France and Europe, they were nicer to them(and had more work).
Thankfully we don’t have problems with Genocide and racial killing happens but isn’t an extreme problem.
Yea maybe you guys should actually read the piece before you go badgering what the dudes saying.Its complex and its not a short read but you might learn something.
http://nicholaspayton.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/on-why-jazz-isnt-cool-anymore/
ANY jazz musician who claims, as Payton does, “There is no living soul who can walk on a bandstand anywhere in the world and play more horn than me,” not only deserves to be heckled by his “audience”, he also deserves a good head-cutting on the bandstand. Here is an idea, Nick..channel your creativity through the horn and leave the controversial writings to the hip-hop idiots!