Why Americans Don’t Like Jazz (2003) | Hacker News Reader

Why Americans Don’t Like Jazz (2003)

dyske.com

> If the song has any musical substance, it can be played on a piano alone

The level of ignorance and pretentiousness in this sentence is mind boggling. The human voice is the ultimate instrument, not the piano. Hell, we have not even had the piano for that long. Words can not be expressed on a piano. That is what makes singing and rapping unique, you are able to tell a story combined with music. Strange Fruit would not have the same meaning or significance without the words attached to it, neither would many songs.

Also, Miles Davis himself loved and embraced rap. He literally made a jazz/rap album.

Jazz is a dying genre in the united states, because American audiences are tired of hearing it, and there have not been any groundbreaking new jazz artists in the last 30 years.

Rap is one of the most interesting and innovative genres of music now, and literally incorporates and uses so much jazz. To Pimp a Butterfly is a great example of a rap album that is heavily influenced by jazz. It was also a wildly popular album and one of the most critically acclaimed rap albums ever.

> and there have not been any groundbreaking new jazz artists in the last 30 years.

I strongly disagree with this statement, the music is out there if you were to look.

Jazz has moved past the standard 'swing and ballad' forms that were popular throughout the late 20th century, and most listeners can't shake the roots of the genre from what defines the modern equivalent; It would be akin to die-hard old school rap fans denying that rap in it's current state should even be considered rap.

>That is what makes singing and rapping unique, you are able to tell a story combined with music.

What makes jazz (particularly the instrumental kind) unique is being able to invoke emotions and tell a story without being bound to some language barrier, an abstraction that transcends spoken word, that speaks to the pattern matching automata of the language part of our brains, regardless of race, language, or background.

> Jazz has moved past the standard 'swing and ballad' forms that were popular throughout the late 20th century

I mean, that's not really saying much. Jazz moved past the standard stuff with Ornette Coleman, Coltrane etc in the late 50s and early 60s. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew led to the whole jazz fusion thing a bit later.

I somewhat agree with the GP about no groundbreaking new jazz artists. There are many great musicians great at their instruments today, for sure. But I just don't hear anything radically new happening. Although I do admit that it may be due to my own biases.

If you don't look for the radically new, you won't find it, when competing with a larger volume of tracks being released that aren't radically new.

Here is just one example out of the hundreds: https://stevelehman.bandcamp.com/track/bamba

Stylistic change isn't meant to be groundbreaking anyway, I believe it is from the gradual stretching of boundaries over time that leads styles to be unrecognizable from their origins that inspires new styles to be developed.

Thanks for sharing. I'm familiar with his records with Vijay Iyer. They're amazing!

Isn’t the ability to invoke emotions without being bound to a language something that all instrumental musics have?

You are right, I over-specialized my definition I suppose, but I still stand by my point of this differentiation between instrumental music and lyrical music.

With Instrumental music, the challenge becomes conveying ideas over a non-verbal medium, a challenge which is non-existent in music with heavy lyrical emphasis.

>The human voice is the ultimate instrument.

I strongly disagree. A voice is so limited in every single way. There is so much more that can be done with a proper musical instrument, especially those capable of multiple simultaneous notes. The piano is a good example.

Traditional (not electric) piano have very inflexible tuning options. Human voice, violin, trombone, ... much better in this regard.

Even if you not thinking about "exotic"(at least for westerners) scales, but simple&clear western accords like just intonation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation#Singing_and_sc...

edit - music recommendation:

https://ziaspace.bandcamp.com/album/drum-n-space

You can always have multiple people singing if you don't count that as cheating. If limits are the deciding factor of an instrument's ultimateness, then I raise that a computer with quality sound hardware + hard drives full of real world audio samples + programmable oscilators is the ultimate instrument.

Now that I played my role as captain obvious, fuck it, piano is really the best! (No sarcasm)

> Strange Fruit

For the uninitiated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ughAVo2ZAag

This is a song whose musical substance is conveyed through the lyrics. This is a perfect example of a song that cannot be played on the piano alone.

You turn the author's argument around and then make a statement even more pretentious and wrong. Neither piano nor voice nor even orchestra are ‘ultimate instruments,’ for the simple reason that timbre- and rhythm-oriented music exist.

Saying that any particular instruments or styles are the measures of ‘musical substance’ is equal to asking that there be less of different music—which is the ultimate arrogance that you can apply to music.

The human voice is the original musical instrument, and humans have evolved to specifically listen to the human voice. I love the piano, but I don't think it is a stretch to say that for humans, the human voice is the ultimate instrument.

I don't mean to sound pretentious, but if you just look at the popularity of different instruments, voice is the runaway favorite. The majority of the world listens to mostly voice as the primary instrument.

To call it the ultimate instrument is not a stretch at all since it is the oldest and most popular instrument in human history.

A piano rendition of a song previously only sung can still be recognized as that same song. However if you sing a song previously only heard on piano, recognizing that song might not be so easy.

Although now that I think about it, the only instrument that can really compete with throat singing is the Jew's harp. So in that limited respect I think you might be right.

This album?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egauj-7RnJc

(with 120 upvotes 384 downvotes at time of posting).

I'm not sure about critical acclaim, but it seems many youtube watchers at least don't like it.

No, this album by Kendrick Lamar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9fN-8NjrvI&list=PLu4sMtaJ7f...

Billboard, Rolling Stone, and Pitchfork's No. 1 of 2015. Grammy nominated for Album of 2015, Grammy won for Rap Album of 2015.

It features jazz musicians such as Lalah Hathaway, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Terrace Martin.

Robert Glasper deserves a mention in his own right: he's released albums spanning jazz, R&B, and hip hop and often crossing between genres.

Hey that album is actually good!

> Words can not be expressed on a piano.

True, but Herb Alpert comes very close to making a trumpet talk! Maurice Andre has a better tone, but Alpert's beats everyone in expressiveness.

> there have not been any groundbreaking new jazz artists in the last 30 years.

Speaking of ignorance...

> [rap] literally incorporates and uses so much jazz.

It incorporates a lot of jazz via sampling, but otherwise unless we're talking about freestyling then it's missing the central component of jazz.

> It incorporates a lot of jazz via sampling, but otherwise unless we're talking about freestyling then it's missing the central component of jazz.

No it doesn't. Rap uses a lot of the same vocal licks that jazz uses, and uses a lot of the same rhythmic ideas too.

Also, rap's focus on the improvisational aspect of their work is very much related to jazz. So many of the best rap songs in the world were partly improvised on the spot. You even have rappers like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne who don't write down their lyrics, they just go into the booth and rap.

esperanza spalding? jacob collier?

> there have not been any groundbreaking new jazz artists in the last 30 years

Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse had a beautiful voice and really smart backup producers and musicians that refreshed and rehashed old styles of music as new. Beautiful and enjoyable, but not groundbreaking.

As I really enjoy her take on jazz, a genre I'm not really a big fan of, it's groundbreaking as far as I'm concerned :-)

I wouldn't agree she had a beautiful voice, either (Julie Andrews has an incredible voice). It was the way she used it that was new and great. She wrote her own music, I don't think she was a tool of the music producers. I haven't heard anything like her take before or since.

> The human voice is the ultimate instrument

Thanks to biology, not everyone can sing.

Barring physical disability, musical instruments are accessible to a much wider audience. Not to mention that there are a wealth of instruments to choose from.

> Thanks to biology, not everyone can sing.

According to this, nearly everybody can, with training. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/everyone-...

I used to be a singer when I was younger, and I was good. But then I gave it up and without the continuous practice, my ability to carry a tune tunefully has severely diminished - my biology remains the same (well, add a few years), but my level of skill has dropped off, and hence so has my singing.

Tone isn't the only issue. Some people simply lack range.

Tonic and dynamic range can both be improved with an exercise regime, just like any other physical activity.

It may be that the reason Americans don't like jazz is that we take it for granted because we invented it. It's uninteresting because we've heard various forms of it our entire lives — from nightclub fare to swing to dixieland to jazz's roots in gospel and spirituals and blues and bluegrass. Ho hum, we've heard it all before.

Another reason may be that few of us play an instrument. Those who do can't help but appreciate the skill required to play even a simple line of jazz, much less in an ensemble or when inventing the line extemporaneously.

Frankly I'm in awe of the raw musicality of people like Armstrong or Coltrane or Fitzgerald, even though their music generally doesn't entertain me, at least, nowhere near as much as it impresses me technically and artistically. And I do play an instrument (or used to).

All the same may be said of classical music too, which I believe is also dying in America. However I tend to like classical more than jazz, for some reason(s) I also can't explain.

That said, I do love to hear non-jazz artists adopt elements of jazz into their music, like Sting's use of jazz's instruments, layering, and weird time signatures. Maybe there's a future for jazz as the spice that adds flavor to other genres of music.

If people are bored because "all jazz sounds the same" / "heard it all before" how is that the popular sounds of today are all regurgitated EDM / rock-lite / rap-lite / "nothing-music" that literally all sounds the same and most of it awful? :P

There's been a long downturn in appreciation for good music IMO. My parents generation (boomers) are more musical than my generation and I think it's getting worse. More of them play instruments. More of them (can) sing. The music they like isn't necessarily highbrow, but it has more musical complexity than most of the stuff on the radio these days. Even simple stuff, like harmony, or a unique rhythm.

A lot of popular music today is atonal trash written for the meme generation. Autotune, weak synthesized sounds, highly compressed for punch to the detriment of everything else, same old rhythms, no harmony, barely a melody, etc. I have nothing against dance music, or hip-hop, in fact I have a deep love for music in both of those genres, but there's a thick layer of terrible that rises to the top of the pop charts and you have to dig through it to find music of any worth.

I'm no musical elitist, but I do take the time to listen outside my comfort zone and it has broadened my horizons enough that I'm not satisfied listening to whatever tripe some top20 station decides they'll make popular this week. I'd rather listen to Muddy Waters for the 1000th time. :)

"Millennials are killing music with their beats and their memes"

> but there's a thick layer of terrible that rises to the top of the pop charts and you have to dig through it to find music of any worth.

This is a trite argument that's been true since the 1950s. Pop is designed to be as lowest-common-denominator as possible, because radio stations need to make money.

I think the author makes some good points, especially about how the public has become so much more visually oriented.

I would just add that for jazz, one of the reason it lost popularity is it became so avant guard after World War II with the rise of bebop, and left the public behind.

This is a fucking joke, right? Jazz dominated American music for ages and is as influential as the Blues. It's like making a post today titled "Why Americans Don't Like Doowop."

We get it, you need to feel important for knowing something cultural.

Also: "To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able to appreciate abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of effort." Lol, okay. I listen to Skrillex. Therefore I am cultured.

This response is so aggressive, it makes me wonder if there is more to your opinion of the author than what you've initially shared. I can't find specifics in the writing to warrant the "we get it, you need to feel important" attack.

>Visual dominancy isn’t the only problem. The bigger problem is the dominance of our thought. Most Americans do not know what to do with abstraction in general. To be able to fully appreciate abstraction, you must be able to turn off your thought, or at least be able to put your thought into the background. This is not as easy as it might seem. In modern art museums, most people’s minds are dominated by thoughts like: “Even I could do this.” Or, “Why is this in a museum?” Or, “This looks like my bed sheet.” Etc.. They are unable to let the abstraction affect their emotions directly; their experience must be filtered through interpretations. In a way, this is a defense mechanism. It is a way to deal with fears like, “If I admit that I don’t understand this, I’ll look unsophisticated.” This type of fear fills their minds with noise, and they become unable to see, hear, or taste.

This paragraph in particular is oozing with holier-than-thou artistic elitism. These debates always end up being somewhat pointless, though. Art is always in the eye of the beholder and all that. Personally, I think the author's take is just wrong, not necessarily stupid - and I actually think the last point in this paragraph about how you have to pretend to like "modern" art in order to look sophisticated is really a pretty decent insight that's worth exploring more. We don't get any of that in the essay.

Obligatory: I played classical piano up until the 12th grade and moonlighted as the tenor sax in a jazz band in highschool. You can find me playing some Chopin when I'm in a bad mood, and blasting away on my Tenor when I want to annoy my neighbors.

Because it's a lazy and boring article. It takes what could have been an interesting topic and returns to the beaten to death theme of how "Gangster rap music is ruining this generation. Things were so much better back in my day". It's honestly condescending and the entire thing implies that most people nowadays are simply incapable of appreciating higher forms of art because they lack the education, which is an incredibly simplistic answer to a nuanced issue.

Well said, thank you.

This could explain the relatively less popularity of electronic music in America vs. much of the rest of the world but I'm not sure that's even the case anymore. So maybe Americans don't like jazz cause they like electronic and other types of non lyrical music like most of the rest of the world. Sure probably not as much as lyrical music but a lot of that is due to marketing and exposure. That's likely the main explanation actually. The marketing and exposure provided by popular culture in America is frankly terrible. Mostly garbage whether it's music, arts, film, etc. I think that's the real reason for the phenomenon the article describes.

> This could explain the relatively less popularity of electronic music in America vs. much of the rest of the world

Interesting. I was under the impression that EDM is big in USA.

I'd say it's big nowadays but still small compared to other styles like rap and compared to the rest of the world. That's despite the US being the birthplace of many of the main genres like house and techno. You don't hear it on the radio and most people here are still not familiar with it but then festivals pull on crowds of tens or even hundreds of thousands. In much of Europe and the rest of the world on the other hand, it's ubiquitous.

> If the song has any musical substance, it can be played on a piano alone

That's obviously not true. Piano can only play discrete notes. By contrast, many instruments (e.g., voice) can slide between notes and also play quarter tones.

So we can modify the original statement to include instruments that can play slide and play quarter notes, like a cello.

That said, I don't see how your comment adds anything to the point the author was trying to make.

It is also a very Western-centric view, limited to western scales and tunings.

maybe the author thinks that songs possessed of this musical substance thing must only use discrete notes.

Without agreeing with the author's, your point about being limited to "discrete notes" strikes me as a non-sequitur. As if music had more "substance" the more notes it contained?

There are musical phrases where a smooth glissando is essential to how it sounds. And honestly sometimes the timbre of the specific instrument too. The piano rendition may not get across the feeling the original music creates.

Btw recently stumbled upon this article: "Streaming services are seeing a jazz renaissance amongst younger fans" https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44813683 Surprising but encouraging ;)

For better or worse, today people are often more interested in the story - the myth that a work of art tells about itself and its creator - than in the substance of the art itself.

In comparison to when ? I’d be more optimistic about people’s interest in music.

I grant you the days where affluent people bought partitions and sang in their home at the piano could be seen as focused more purely on music.

But from there, the second a know name is associated with the song there is a part of imaginary that is stuck to the piece. Then album covers with art, tv performances, music clips, famous actors going into singing. It’s all the same mechanism to my eyes, just optimized to put a halo around the music wider than just a famous name.

It’s always been there in a form or another, and it doesn’t prevent people to get hooked on random songs they heard somewhere or got recommended without any exposure to the press campaign.

About the tangential point about the paintings of Mark Rothko compared with those of Monet, I think people would be more open to enjoy that kind of art if the creation of those works didn't carry any prestige.

I think what people find distaceful is when the creation of those works is supposed to carry the same prestige as the creation of a universally aesthetically pleasing work, in the case of the aesthetically pleasing work the bulk of the effort is on the side the artist, while with non-representional work the bulk of the effort is on the side of the viewer changing his perception and opening up rather than on the side of the artist who may just drip some paint on a canvas, or hang an empty canvas.

Why it should be universal? As artist you don't have to be approachable.

It's the same with reataurants. When you get to the top top tiers the food is not always pleasant. It is interesting, it is experience and you have to be very open and educated to enjoy it.

Yes art has become much more about interesting ideas, concepts and contexts. You need to be art educated to enjoy it and big part of it is also failed bullshit. Around Rothko times art world started to move this way because they just needed to go further and deeper. They needed new direction. It is really hard to come up with new original ideas all the time (so hard in fact that current art world is in crisis and nobody knows where to go next).

Few other points: - Rothko is just much darker artist. The emotional response people have to his work is not happy compared to Monet. Maybe thats why people don't like him so much. - Rothko has still became one of the most popular artists. Try some artists 30 years after Rothko to see thehuge difference. - Calling abstract painters "just drip some paint on canvas" is like saying about programmers "just typing something on a screen".

Because they lack sophistication?

>The current market share of jazz in America is mere 3 percent. That includes all the great ones like John Coltrane and the terrible ones like Kenny G (OK, this is just my own opinion).

Well, in a populist culture without an aesthetic hierarchy, where you can't rank Kenny G as terrible and Coltrane as great without having to explain yourself, what place there is for jazz or anything more demanding than triteness for that matter...

Modern music has no memory, therefore there's no nostalgia. I look at it not as a problem of elitism, ranking or "good ol days" of genres, which would be comparing apples and oranges, but a matter of having good taste applies equally to every genre. Sentimentality is one thing, religious "purity" of certain artists, songs or genres is meaningless fetishization.

> "Well, in a populist culture without an aesthetic hierarchy"

Closing your eyes doesn't make things disappear. Otherwise, I'd be a wizard.

Closing your mind, however, does, for all intents and purposes.

Au contraire, it exists despite your refusal to see it.

Like the author, I also never pay attention to lyrics but unlike him I hate most jazz.

I don't like it because of several reasons. Firstly, the saxophone doesn't translate well to electronic mediums; it reminds me too much of the buzzing sound of a fly. It gives me a whiny, nagging feeling... puts me in the mood for swatting a fly.

Secondly, I associate it with the concept "superficial" - Probably because of the way it is used in movies.

  the saxophone doesn't translate well to electronic mediums

Perhaps a broader exposure to various saxophones and their players would help. For example, Grover Washington Jr. (e.g. Winelight) contrasted with the soprano sax of Jay Beckenstein (e.g. Spyro-Gyra's first 3 albums).

I tend to agree that I don't like the harsher saxophone sound, but there are some great usages of the sax without that. Paul Desmond (played with Dave Brubeck) is a great example of this in my opinion.

"Jazz" encompasses such a huge variety of styles and sounds, it's almost meaningless to say you categorically like or dislike it.

When people say they hate jazz, it's probably because they had the misfortune of listening to jazz they disliked before listening to jazz they liked.

Off topic, but I found it interesting that there was a parody of "My Way" by Frank Sinatra about Ebay. Weird Al made a parody of "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys titled "Ebay".

There are so many reasons that jazz is unpopular. It goes far beyond a single reason like "Americans prefer visual art". As a big fan of jazz and lots of other styles of music, here a few of those reasons I've seen in action:

1. Jazz has a long tradition of taking "standards" (popular songs largely from the 1930s-1950s era) and reinterpreting them with ever more complex harmonic arrangements. This has been going on for generations and we are several iterations down the rabbit hole of re-interpreting the same songs into ever more avant-garde versions. This makes it incredibly hard to get into jazz as a new listener because you wouldn't be familiar with those original songs or care about how they've been re-worked.

2. Jazz musicians and fans tend to be very protective of their art and compete with each other to show off the depth of their knowledge. They can really put off anyone trying to get into jazz on their own. Musical neckbeards abound.

3. Jazz originally became popular by taking the most popular songs of the day and re-working them to sound daring and original by using more complex harmonies (think Coltrane's 'My Favorite Things'). But many jazz musicians are still playing the same 70-year-old songs that modern audiences don't care about. It has no relevance to a modern audience.

4. 80 years ago, Jazz was cool because it was mashing up pop music in new ways and it sounded threatening to old people. It was risky - the rap of its day. Now it is the least cool thing that could possibly exist and the audiences are nearly only old people.

5. Jazz is all about seeing how far you can push harmonic complexity. It's a breath of fresh air for people who are bored with hearing basic major and minor chord harmony over and over. But a lot of what's popular right now with kids (i.e. soundcloud rappers) is very simplistic harmonically. There's a lot of atonal-mumble-rapping over beats (which is what sounds dangerous and cool in 2019). What jazz is bringing to the table just isn't what young audiences are looking for right now.

6. So much music that people hear that is labeled as "jazz" is truly terrible muzak. That puts off possibly interested people from even trying out jazz.

7. Even the word "jazz" sounds dorky in 2019. Think "jazz hands."

8. Mainstream jazz since 1975 or so has produced some of the most navel-gazing, unlistenable theory-music imaginable. The greatest timeless jazz music, like tracks by Miles Davis and Coltrane have 70-80 million plays on Spotify. But no one outside of Jazz fanboys want to listen to whatever Pat Metheny is playing on his 42-string guitar-harp. It just sounds dorky.

All that being said, I think there is tons of great jazz and jazz-adjacent music being made now. It just isn't always branded as "jazz". Here are some things to check out - plenty of young people killing it in the jazz scene:

Julian Lage (former child prodigy / jazz guitar virtuoso) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ggv-5s4bs

Jacob Collier (former child prodigy / everything virtuoso) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlFD298wTOM or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPLCk-FTVvw

Vulfpeck (funk / just having fun) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4G0nbpLySI

Jon Baptiste (maybe you know him from the Cobert Late Show) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3qTwHRECmM

Punch Brothers (more folk, but here playing with Jon Baptiste) - https://youtu.be/alW_ZSMw7sM?t=70

Cory Henry (Keyboard virtuoso) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8j7XJxew7s

There are tons of others and lots of overlap with hip hop - check out people like Thundercat.

1. Playola

2. Most people don't have good taste

3. A bewildering abundance of platforms, delivery methods, genres and performers

As nonprofit stations go, KCSM 91.1 FM ain't bad.

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