Anyone for some jazz?
Jim Carroll
We’re now going to talk about jazz. It’s probably at this stage that a lot of you turn the page or click on some other link. For many, jazz is a heritage sound, a music which gave the world greats like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, but has very little to say in 2011.
There are a handful of exceptions to this rule. You get the odd flurry of interest when someone like the late, great Esbjorn Svensson comes to the fore and sells out big rooms and you have the annual sneer when a jazz album gets a berth in the Mercury Music Prize shortlist. The rest of the time, though, jazz gets relegated to the sidelines and footnotes.
But, in these margins, jazz is thriving because a lack of attention doesn’t equate to a lack of innovation. Every year, just as is the case with indie, rock and pop, you have a new brigade of players coming to the fore who’ve learned their trade and are ready for action. Like their peers in other genres, it’s also all about playing live because, well, there are very few labels willing to take a punt on young new jazz guns.
And, just as SXSW, Eurosonic and the Great Escape provide opportunities to run the rule over new acts, an event like 12 Points! is a chance to re-up with new European jazz.
It’s happening at Dublin’s Project from May 4 to 7 and you’ve a dozen new acts to check out. From the elegant tones of Swiss pianist Colin Vallon to the compelling rush of Copenhagen/London trio Phronesis, here’s proof that there’s plenty of new, exciting, thrilling life in jazz yet. Just listen without prejudice.
Yeah, serious jazz really is a hard sell in Dublin, JJ Smyths, capacity 80, rarely selling out. Too bad they’ve left it so late flogging this, I’m already going to other gigs 3 of the nights. I’ll go along to 1 can make, no clue about any of these names, I’m sure it’ll be good stuff.
Wouldn’t be mad into me jazz, in fact i’d probably question someone that told me they were into “jazz”. But i was in Montreal when the jazz festival was on last year and they had loadsa free open air gigs and some of it was unbelievably good. I may go to this and just not tell anybody.
Saw Ibrahim Electric at this 3/4 years ago and have been following them ever since. Was a great gig and even better the one they did headlining the world stage tent the following year at electric picnic.
Martin – talking about late – got an email this morning about the Bray Jazz Festival which happens NEXT WEEKEND!! Line-up at http://brayjazz.com/brayjazz/Main/Home.htm and I’m sure many who are going already know about it but, boy, they’re cutting it fine getting the info to the likes of me.
Stampy – go and tell everyone!
Sandford – that’s the beauty of 12 Points – like SXSW and Eurosonic, you come across an act and you’re wowed by them and become a fan.
Only heard about Bray via Francesco Turrisis Tarab involvement when I found O’Death was clashing with his Whelans date. It seems to me most of the people involved with organizing these niche items seem to perversely enjoy this lack of letting the great unwashed know about these culturally enriching events i.e. wallowing in their eliteness. Then they wonder why theirs it’s so hard to get funding.
Firstly I would like to say that it is good just to see an article on jazz in the magazine! However it doesn’t quite address the marginalisation of jazz in any detail. I also disagree that there are only “a handfull” of jazz artists that have something to say in 2011. While the jazz scene here is quite small, we have to remember that jazz is a global music and within the global jazz community there are so many young and exciting jazz groups who have plenty to say! 12 Points! is a great example of this and the bands that play this festival are really just the tip of the iceberg.
Stampy’s post typifies the problem that Irish jazz musicians are facing in trying to get audiences to gigs. Why should you be ashamed to go to a jazz gig? And why should someone be questioned for listening to jazz? The music should be as acceptable to be attended or be listened to as with all other music genres!
Chris – agree that the 12 Points acts are only “the tip of the iceberg” but you have to start somewhere! As for “a handful” – this applies to acts who and events which cross over and who move the conservation about jazz into the mainstream. You will surely agree with me that not every jazz act will warrant – or even wish to warrant – mainstream attention.
As for Stampy’s point (and apologies in advance to him for speaking for him), he may well be refering to what happens in EVERY genre when you start checking it out at first – you get purists who don’t often welcome newcomers if they dont speak the lingo and weren’t there when Louis Stewart or someone first plucked a guitar in anger. Sometimes, it’s the jazz fans themselves – the ones who went week after week to JJ Smyths or wherever – who turn off the newcomers. Also, to quote Martin’s comment, there is often a sense among non-jazz fans of a scene which is “wallowing in their eliteness”. I’m sure you will wholeheartedly and vehemently disagree with this, but them’s the breaks and the opinions.
Jazz really has to up its game. As with everything else in the music business right now – from record shops to acts – it’s all about change and changing to adopt to new circumstances and how to attract new audiences. It’s high time for the jazz community, here and elsewhere, to be more innovative in how the promote themselves and it’s events like 12 Points which are going to do this. Certainly, innovation would be more welcome and positive than moaning and complaining about “the marginalisation of jazz”.
Well, speak of the devil, this looks like a good idea http://journalofmusic.com/blog/2011/04/22/prime-collective/
Hi Jim – long time no see!
While I think it’s true to say that jazz musicians, like every other musician in the fast changing contemporary music business, have to learn how to get their message out there and make themselves heard above the din of all the other musical genres competing for the same limited media space, I think it’s also very simplistic to attribute jazz’s media difficulties to a combination of a perception of elitism on the part of audiences and a lack of innovation on the part of the musicians.
Jazz’s biggest problem these days is not a problem of innovation or creativity, the problem is making people aware of what’s going on. The music and musicians have been caught in the crosshairs of the huge change that’s taking place in the media, in the change from Old Media of print, recording and broadcasting, to the New Media of online presence and social media etc. Jazz has always been under the radar (or has been for the past 50 years at least) and with the changes in the media it has virtually vanished from the mainstream media.
Whatever small media foothold it may have had has disappeared or is disappearing. With cutbacks in budgets in print and broadcast media, the first things to be shed are the ‘optional extras’ and jazz – always a Cinderella of the arts, with neither the popularity of pop and rock music nor the institutional Establishment cachet of classical music, has been first in line for the chop. This has been true everywhere but in Ireland it’s been particularly bad because the music has always been poorly served in the mainstream media anyway.
A comparison between the coverage of classical music and jazz in the Irish Times shows the situation clearly (both are minority musics and therefore make a better comparison model than doing the same exercise with mainstream popular music). Classical music is given live reviews, record reviews, editorial space, interviews, listings and has at least three regular critics etc. Jazz is given two record reviews a week (which is two more reviews than those given in any other daily newspaper), the listings – and that’s it.
If we turn to Lyric FM – the main Irish broadcasting station for ‘minority’ musics – we can see that jazz is allotted one dedicated progamme a week, the dismal ‘Jazz Alley’ (the name tells you everything you need to know about Lyric FM’s view of jazz) which is virtually an Irish-jazz-free-zone, concentrating as it does on recordings by Americans.
So jazz – and Irish jazz especially – is virtually invisible in Irish mainstream media. And despite all the hoo-ha about the new media and how democratic it is and all of that, the reality is that the mainstream media still carries a huge amount of weight in alerting the public to what’s going on. I would venture to say that your posting on ‘12 Points!’ in the Ticket will have a vastly greater effect on public awareness of the festival than hundreds of here today gone tomorrow Facebook status updates!
And it is only positive editorial coverage on the very high level of creativity and variety in the Irish contemporary jazz scene that will change the attitudes of people who might have an ‘elitist’ knee-jerk reaction to the word jazz. Actually I don’t believe that the majority of the irish musical public think that jazz is elitist – I don’t think they have any opinion one way or the other because they’ve never heard it, read about it or been told anything about it by the sources they go to find out ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ – to coin a terrible phrase. Irish jazz is so far under the media and public radar that it doesn’t generate any opinions, good or bad – because most people don’t know it exists.
And while it’s incumbent on jazz musicians to find ways to get media attention and get the word out there, I also think it would be good if the mainstream media, and Arts Editors, and serious music journalists had at least enough curiosity to raise their heads above the latest press release/Mercury Prize/Grammy nominees/Electric Picnic/Slane line-up diet, and give a fair shake to some of the most creative musicians out there – musicians who work as hard as anybody at their craft, who believe in what they do and suffer financially for their beliefs.
Blaming the lack of media exposure for Irish jazz solely on the musicians’ lack of ‘innovation’ just doesn’t stand up to even the most cursory examination – a cursory examination the music almost never gets in the media.
Irish jazz deserves a better deal from the Irish music media – it’s not going to get it, but it would be nice!
I have to agree with Jim’s comment about the perceptions of jazz among non-jazz fans and the general public; as someone with an interest (and a musical degree) in jazz, I’ve lost count of how many disparaging remarks I’ve heard over the years. I think this stems in part from a general unfamiliarity with the music, especially in a live setting, where it’s most powerful. Furthermore, jazz gigs are plagued by promotion which is either non-existent (like the Bray Jazz Festival), or given to overwrought, academic-sounding descriptions of music. The scene in Ireland has to make people interested. Hopefully the new PRIME Collective will help. I don’t know if anyone’s posted a direct link, but here it is anyway just in case.
http://www.primecollectivedublin.com
I agree with everyone, to some extent, here. Ronan’s point is pretty accurate in my opinion. Much of the Irish public just have no idea that Irish jazz exists. And many people that know that jazz exists at all have been grossly misinformed as to what it is. It is also common that people hear one type of jazz (Frank Sinatra for example) and think that this is all that jazz is. They have no idea of the vastness of the spectrum of jazz, and that they might really like some of the music within that spectrum (if Sinatra doesn’t do it for them).
One show a week dedicated to jazz (with little attention on Irish jazz) is pretty bleak. I was driving through Northern Ireland last year after a gig and put on the radio only to hear a great show about Dexter Gordon. It was an in-depth discussion on Gordon’s best known solos on various albums during the 60′s with the associated excerpts being played, intermingled with his life story. I just thought to myself that this show would interest even a non-jazz enthusiast. It was so well put together. Why aren’t there more shows like this? I am aware that classical music receives this kind of attention but jazz doesn’t even come close. These kinds of shows could really help people to understand what jazz is all about.
So, what IS getting the medias attention if not jazz? It’s pretty shocking actually. I have to ask the question, why is pop music becoming so unsophisticated?? What’s going on?? Even some of the language used can be so primitive. I can see a similar trend in the film industry (not that I know much about cinematography). Why is this?? What is motivating this regression?? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Jazz purist, I am a music lover and I play and listen to many genres of music regularly. But if you look at pop music from the past, even ten years ago, it was more sophisticated than a lot of the stuff out today. The simpler the better it seems. Everything has to be CATCHY! This has a lot to do with why jazz is not in the mainstream.
Thanks to the formation of the Prime Collective, jazz is already vigorously upping its game in Dublin.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why the Irish jazz scene doesn’t get much coverage in the media and it seems to me that jazz musicians living in Ireland need to accept responsibility for failing to grab the attention of the media. I don’t think it’s the case that the media is not interested in jazz. I think instead it’s worth asking why should the media be interested in Irish jazz? If we really believe that the jazz scene in Dublin is vibrant and innovative and worthy of national media coverage, then it’s high time we caught up with the rest of the music world regarding marketing and self-promotion.
I am sick to death of seeing sorry excuses for publicity shots and shoddy posters for jazz gigs. When it comes to print media, for example, we need to provide the editors and journalists with an attractive visual representation of our music. I think there’s no question but that there are creative and innovative musical activities happening in Dublin but the problem is how jazz musicians are presenting or not presenting themselves to the media. A badly-taken, unprofessional-looking, cropped photo won’t attract the masses to your gig believe it or not.
This extends to the bandstand too. There was a time when there was an unspoken rule that the bandleader and musicians on stage should look sharper than anyone else in the room. Charlie Parker and Miles knew how to dress and I am also sick of paying a tenner in to some gig I’ve been looking forward to, only to find the bandleader in a dodgy white t-shirt and runners. Make an effort please! If we really want to re-invigorate the attitude of the public towards jazz in Ireland and to attract new audiences, now’s the time to embrace all the potential ways of appealing to an audience. Jazz musicians take their music seriously. I think it’s high time that we put as much consideration into a marketing strategy in order to get the music to a far-reaching audience.
Secondly, low audience numbers is a common complaint among jazz musicians but it’s too easy to blame the lack of media coverage for this. In order to attract a wider jazz audience, we need to start by strengthening the jazz community from within. There are more students studying jazz at Newpark Music Centre than ever before and in addition, a greater number of BAJP graduates than ever, so it seems there should be no problems in filling venues. If the music is as great and as innovative as we are claiming it is, why is the local jazz community not coming out to support local projects?
If we look at the new PRIME Collective website for example (www.primecollectivedublin.com), we are told “the collective is made up of over 50 musicians based in Dublin who all share a common goal: to get jazz back in the media and to get the audience back into venues”. If over fifty musicians in Dublin genuinely share these concerns, why are there only sixteen artists/projects listed on the website? If every single jazz musician/group in Ireland was to submit a good quality picture and a well-written blurb, the media would take the PRIME collective more seriously. Again we need solidarity from within before we can expect the media to latch on.
Lastly, I’ve got to ask what are The Arts Council/ Improvised Music Company/ Music Network doing for contemporary jazz musicians based in Ireland (apart from the PRIME collective 4-band showcase for the Bray Jazz Festival, the 12 Points! Festival which features one Irish jazz ensemble and Music Network’s Jazz Ensemble Award which benefits one Irish jazz group every three years!)? Yes, the IMC have been bringing New York-based acts like Chris Potter’s Underground, Jen Shyu and Mark Helias’ Open Loose to Dublin (and we are thankful to them for doing so), but what are they doing for contemporary jazz ensembles based in Ireland?
Since Pendulum at JJ Smyth’s passed away last October, there is no designated performance venue in Dublin where jazz musicians can play without having to fork out to hire the venue (apart from The International Bar, thanks Alex!). This could have detrimental effects on the creative/improvised music scene in Ireland. I would like to see Improvised Music Company and/or Music Network and/or The Arts Council prioritise this matter with urgency so that jazz musicians and composers living in Ireland are provided with a suitable place where they can showcase creative and innovative projects. If this doesn’t happen, I don’t see why creative musicians will want to continue living here.
i know quite a few jazz heads here in waterford and have to say, they’re incredibly relaxed and open about their music, far from these elitist stereotypes many seem happy to dismiss them out of hand as..
mr ronan guilfoyle is absolutely correct when he says.. “it would be good if the mainstream media, and Arts Editors, and serious music journalists had at least enough curiosity to raise their heads above the latest press release/Mercury Prize/Grammy nominees/Electric Picnic/Slane line-up diet, and give a fair shake to some of the most creative musicians out there”.. i.m.o. most (not all, but most!) music journalists, writers and djs in the country are only concerned with their own narrow tastes and few are willing to bother leaping beyond that and exploring the potential riches of the outer fringes.
most are pretty musically conservative, particularly the bloggers who i think are more concerned with the image of themselves they’re projecting than the music they’re supposedly reviewing. the writings of many about music are still trapped into that idea of consuming music to help form your personal identity, music you wear to show who you are as opposed to taking a tune for what it is (i think the best possible example of this is the idiot who does the shuffle reviews for pop singles for the ticket, sarcastic, smarmy and oh so cooool; a virulent style of writing that should be exorcised.. and yes i have a sense of humour, no i don’t need to loosen up..).
beyond jazz there’s a huge subculture of experimental composers and sound artists in this country as well, and unfortunatey their opportunity for national coverage probably begins and ends with bernard clarke’s nova on lyric, now only one hour a week (good ol’ john kelly turns his eye to them every now and them as well). i’m not saying the fringe stuff should be given airtime on ray d’arcy’s breakfast show, merely stating the fact that the journos who seem to think their minds are open are a bit more blinkered than they’d like to think. and, for the record jim, you’re clearly one of the more open-minded out there. keep up the good work squire.
Thanks for the all comments and reactions, folks. A lot of people have hit a lot of nails on the head – when Barry says he agrees with everyone, I’m with him, while Edel, in particular, has written a comment which I’ve been mulling over in my head for the last few days. A few years ago, I participated in a workshop with Cormac Larkin (then writing about jazz for the Sunday Tribune) and PR Christine Monk for jazz musicians about how to deal with the media. I remember very clearly some of the musicians openly sneering at the idea of having to go out and cultivate coverage from the media – there was a strong sense of entitlement, that they deserved this coverage, that national newspapers HAD to cover them. I really dont know where they were coming from. I’ve certainly never received an email from them since. Or maybe they hired someone to do this for them.
Ronan – howya! Long time no see either. Are you still involved in the Newpark Music Centre jazz course? If so, do you offer a media module as part of this? A module where jazz musicians can find out about how the media works, how you need to get info to journalists weeks (not days!) before events, how to sell stories, how to find angles, how to promote yourself as a musician? If not, you really should.
On a general note – jazz musicians are in the same game as the rock and pop musicians – everyone is after coverage and NO-ONE IS NATURALLY ENTITLED TO THIS!!! You have to work for this, regardless of whether you’re the new Eddie Cochran, the new Alice Coltrane or the new Brush Shiels. Sure, there are many of my media peers (as halandor points out above – again, a thought which was in mind over the weekend) who will not cover you due to disinterest or laziness or ignorance but there are many who will. It’s a case of finding these people who are interested in finding new music and writing about new music and getting onto them. Certainly, this post seems to have stirred some people because I’ve had a few emails over the weekend about upcoming jazz stuff and I’ll plug these in a big ol’ randomiser post tomorrow.
But it may also be worth pointing out – and this is not going to go down well but what the hell – that the reason people may not be interested in jazz (just as they may not be interested in electronic music or hip-hop or trad or Balkan tangos) is that they just might not like it. It comes down to taste – and for many people, the jazz they like is the big band, Dixieland stuff so beloved for years of bookers from the Cork Drinking & jazz Festival. We are producing some brilliant players here but sadly, the audience is not huge.
Yes, we do have a music business module in 4th year of the degree at Newpark, which deals with website stuff, social networking, producing an EPK etc.
And I agree that nobody is entitled to coverage – what I do think jazz musicians are entitled to is a level playing field as far as the music media is concerned. For example you are an expert on popular music and are given editorial space to write about it. The classical critics in the Irish Times are given editorial space for the subject which they are experts on. The Irish Times has a knowledgeable jazz critic in Ray Comiskey, but in recent years he has been given absolutely no editorial space whatsoever. Jazz like other musics, has a history, an ethos and a wide variety of practitioners, and like other musics it needs writers who know the subject, writing about it. While I know you’ve always been fair minded and interested in a wide range of things, the reality is that your focus, as far as jazz is concerned, is principally elsewhere. So in order to get your attention for example, jazz will have to distract you from the area of music that you’re more familiar and comfortable with. With the best will in the world, you’re never going to give more than an occasional mention to the genre – why should you?
So in the current situation in the Irish Times (and it’s even worse elsewhere), the dice is already loaded against jazz, in the same way that the dice would be loaded against Indie Rock getting a hearing from a jazz critic. Jazz shouldn’t have to try to get the attention of a pop or rock critic any more than a rock band should try and get the attention of a jazz critic. Giving jazz a fair shake in the Irish Times would mean giving its jazz critic the same kind of editorial space given to classical music at least. That’s what I think we should be agitating for – a dedicated person writing about the music.
To be honest, there is disagreement in the jazz world about that view – there are some who think we SHOULD be competing for the Indie Rock type audiences and tailoring the music and presentation accordingly, but that’s not a view I go along with – I think if jazz has a hope of surviving it has to play up its uniqueness.
As for the idea that it could be that there will always people who just don’t like jazz – of course! I’ve known for a long time that I’m involved in a minority music, and jazz always will be a minority taste. If I’d not been aware of that I’d have given it up years ago!
the replies on this thread sort of sum my thoughts on jazz. Why write a concise sentence when there’s room for five paragraphs of waffle.
(only joking jazz fans)
I have to say I agree with Jim Carroll; the sense of entitlement in musicians (not exclusive to jazz) is shocking. It appears to me that many of the comments above are distracted by the easy ‘blame game’. Of course we can hold others accountable for the lacklustre jazz scene in Ireland, but to what end? To wait for more media attention, a flood of jazz fans and a new venue is a ridiculous notion.
A few home-grown jazz promotion organisations have popped up recently which show promise of doing something about the current state of jazz in Ireland. The PRIME Collective ( http://www.primecollectivedublin.com ) is at it’s initial stages and appears specifically to blame the media for the lack of interest in jazz in Ireland. The Collective has an admirable (but immeasurable) mission statement and it remains unclear how it plans to achieve its goals. Livenote Productions ( http://www.livenote.ie/news.cfm ) at the very least, has taken responsibility for the lack of jazz venues by creating a new one at The International Bar.
As Edel Meade suggests, the manner in which bands present themselves on the market is a huge factor that should not be ignored and is relatively simple to improve. Even Jim Carroll’s suggestion that people may simply not like jazz, is not a death sentence for the jazz scene and should not be interpreted that way. Musicians need to do what anyone in business does and adapt to the market.
Certainly, it is through pro-activity and personal responsibility amongst musicians alone that the jazz scene has any chance of being ‘re-invigorated’ here in Ireland.
great comments and discussion here! my two cents:
I’m a young jazz musician and to me this means simply, I play music that uses improvisation. A massive problem as I see it, is the perception in this country of jazz as something that is stuck in a box, or worse, like Latin – dead and only practiced by strange people in old dark rooms! If the music does not change with the times then it is doomed to stay like this. Look at Trad in the 60′s and how it was revived for a second time, or current people now like Caomhin O’Raghallaigh.
Yet there are jazz equivalents: Simon Jermyn, Francesco Turrisi, Sean Og, Justin Carroll & others – these younger guys are making great innovative music, which could be better championed. Has this music been played, for instance, on the JK ensemble? Obviously taste comes into it, but these people are making music that most musicians would consider jazz, and that audiences might not immediately think “oh that’s jazz”, when they hear it. Isn’t this the key to gaining an audience if it is not there to begin with? Unfortunately two of these people have left the country to pursue their music.
Ronan maintains that it is the fault of the media – but I think the music and the attitude of the musicians is the first thing to examine: posters here who are not jazz musicians seem to think that we are elitist? This in my opinion, is terrible, and if it that attitude is to be reversed then we cannot keep insisting that others must change. One theory of mine is that the Celtic Tiger set us back a few years in development – jazz groups (many Newpark students included) were getting paid ridiculous sums to play functions etc, so that there grew an attitude of “well, I have to get paid for what I’m doing, otherwise what’s the point?”. I have encountered this attitude, and if we are to think of ourselves as equally deserving as rock or indie audiences then we need to discard attitudes and toil like they do – there are a lot of middle-of-the-road bands in this country that have so much passion and dedication for what they do, and they work hard and attend each others’ shows and open mic-type nights. The aforementioned and newly formed Prime collective is looking to remedy this by setting up a regular venue – watch this space!
My issue with Ronan is (and let me preface this by acknowledging how much good he has done in the interests of jazz in Ireland) that in my opinion, Newpark (the only place I know of to study jazz in ROI) is going to keep perpetuating this poor self-image of us as a group if the structure of the course is not more geared towards innovation and what is going on right now – though I accept that the jazz degree there is in it’s infancy, and is always improving. My real worry is though, that Ronan seems happy for jazz to be in it’s box – not sure if this is what was meant by the final paragraph in the last post, but if so, it’s a concern that this is the message from the person with seemingly the most influence over young jazz minds in this country.
Cannot agree more that pro-activity and personal responsibility is vital, thumbs up to Alex Mathias for working his backside off for the last year in creating the only regular jazz venue in Dublin.
Shameless piece of self-promo, but I have a piece in the Irish Times tomorrow looking at how difficult it is to get young audiences interested in jazz that touches on some of the points here (and might go some way towards redressing the anti-jazz bias lots of you say exists in the media).
It seems to me that the Irish jazz scene is brimming over with extremely talented, enthusiastic musicians itching to get out there and play, but that they feel that the world is conspiring against them. They’re labelled as elitist before they even get a chance to pick up their instruments and the media refuses to create enough marketing space for them to build a respectable following.
There’s a few things that are causing this. Although it has something to do with the media, I think a lot of it comes from the players’ side and how they promote themselves. The way that jazz musicians present themselves needs to be reconsidered. I hate to attach the notion of ‘branding’ to anything as important to me as jazz music, but maybe that’s how it should be viewed. Most products and services are sold as brands and, like it or not, the interest that the public and the media have in our ‘product’ is a result of the marketing material that they come in contact with.
Barry asked why pop music is becoming so unsophisticated. My two cents on that one (and of course, this doesn’t count for all pop music but definitely a fair chunk of it) is that music that exists in popular culture is guided by investors who want to make a sizeable return on their investment. To achieve this, the content of the music is geared by the dynamics of the market segment that it’s planned to be sold to. I know that comparing any type of genuinely-creative music to this type of ‘music’ is pointless at best. But the marketing model itself does have plenty to teach jazz musicians and all people involved in creative music, so long as the marketing and promotion of the music doesn’t impact on the music itself.
As musicians, we don’t need to change how we make the music, just how we market it and how the media and the public come in contact with it. There seem to be a few organisations working on this, like the record label Diatribe and the Prime collective, but there’s still massive scope for improvement in how the public perceives jazz music. After all, the perception the public have at the moment is, effectively, a result of negative marketing and a lack of any opportunity for them to hear it without actively seeking it out.
We need to look at all of the parts of the marketing channel and see what all the people involved are looking for. As musicians, we want to find more avenues to have our music heard and to do this we need a wider audience. With a large audience, venue proprietors will follow pretty quickly. The media wants high quality content that it can publish and show to it’s reader and listeners. The listening public, at the end of the day, are looking for something interesting to go to for a night out. Let’s show them that jazz is more than Frank Sinatra, more than Dixieland, more than a night of wallowing in our own eliteness and more than berets and beatnick poetry. Musicians are incredibly passionate about what they do and it’s a passion that they want to share with an audience. This is something that’s clearly lacking in a lot of popular culture and it’s a selling point that can really get an audience excited. Our job is to help the audience get as excited about the music as we are and to share that passion with them. If the media gets a sense that its audience wants to find out about jazz then they’ll definitely open up more marketing space for that.
As a recent graduate of Newpark, I have to express my concern in Patrick’s comment, as it implies to me that the opinion is that Newpark students cannot be innovative or contemporary. I like to think that my music has indie or rock influence as many of peers, but this has never been an issue. If it is natural to the music, it has never been discouraged. I have to say that in my four years of study, I have never felt that my music was being compromised creatively. I found that I was given the compositional and musical tools necessary to form my own ideas.
I have to agree with Dennis in that I don’t think that the music is the problem, but how the media and public percieve it.
Great to see the issues with Irish jazz being debated in such depth! I would just like to add a few things:
Jazzabelle- As a member of the PRIME collective I feel I need to address a few of your points. No we simply are not going to wait for a sudden flood of attention, we are fully aware that in order to gain attention you have to earn and work for it. The mission statement is not immeasurable. We plan to achieve these aims step by step, the final goal will be getting a dedicated jazz venue and one that isn’t necessarily a bar. Yes it’s going to be difficult, but we are trying to break from the typical Irish mentality of if – it’s difficult to achieve why even bother. Yes Alex and Livenote are doing good things but there has been jazz in the International bar long before Alex took over. I’m not in anyway demeaning what Alex is doing, I just wanted to clear up that the International is not a “new jazz venue” – I know I’m paraphrasing here.
I also wanted to address some of Patrick’s issues with Newpark’s BAJP program. Before I do so I would like to say that I am doing this not because Ronan is my dad, I am doing this because I have studied there for 4 years and what you are saying about Newpark is factually wrong.
If Newpark is the revisionist jazz institution you make it out to be, how come the 4 musicians you mention as being some of the most innovative and creative jazz musicians in Ireland happen to have all passed through Newpark’s doors? Simon Jermyn, Justin Carroll and Sean Og are all Newpark graduates who also taught in the school afterwards and Francesco Turissi is currently a teacher on the course. If they thought that Newpark was actively trying to undermine people’s creativity do you think they would teach there? If we look at the artist roster for the Bottlenote collective – who have a very forward thinking outlook on contemporary jazz- you might notice that 8 out of the 9 people on the roster are associated with Newpark in someway. Some are graduates and some are teachers. Of the 7 gigs you have coming up next month, 6 of the musicians you will be playing with are either graduates and teachers of Newpark or have spent time in there. If you truly believed that Newpark is trying to produce a small army of jazz purists, surely the musicians playing with you would not be suitable for your gigs and therefore you wouldn’t have asked them to do it in the first place.
As someone who has been through all 4 years of Newpark’s B.A degree, I was never once discouraged to find my own voice and pursue the style of jazz I was interested in making. In the 4th year of the program there is a contemporary jazz module as well as a free jazz module and an ensemble where you are free to bring in any music you want, this ensemble is present in 3 of the 4 years of the course. I highly doubt you would find this in a school that was trying to “keep jazz in its box”.
Lets keep the discussion going!
Jazz it seems, is increasingly concealed and rarely present on a popular stage (Saturday nights, electric picnic etc..). Instead it is seen by many venue owners as a way to pull a few more pints on a quiet Tuesday night. Why is there so few opportunities to play on a weekend, to a full house?! This is the best publicity!
As Dennis pointed out there seems to be a “chicken or the egg” situation here: the chicken(media) doesn’t report until the egg(audience) shows up, the egg doesn’t show up until the chicken tells it what’s going on, and the farmer(barman) says “lets try it on a Tuuesday night”…
Chris, it is apparent I need to elaborate further on why the PRIME Collective’s objectives are immeasurable. Firstly, as far as all the aims in your manifesto are concerned, it is unclear as to what constitutes an achieved objective. For example, if the aim of the PRIME Collective is to re-introduce the presence if Irish jazz in the media, when does the Collective know this has been achieved? Does Irish jazz need an allotted slot in each newspaper/radio station on a weekly basis, or is this blog alone a sufficient re-introduction into the media? Does all media attention regarding jazz need to be positive? This logic applies to the entire manifesto. What, in the eyes of the Collective, constitutes a recognised jazz venue? Is this a venue open 7 nights a week and where is it based? How many people need to walk through the doors before it is deemed as ‘recognised’? Put simply, if there are over 50 members in the PRIME Collective it seems obvious to me that each of the members needs to have a clear idea of what the goals are and what each step in achieving them involves. My criticisms are only to encourage you to have a ‘collective’ approach to the issues you have outlined exist in the current Irish jazz scene so that you are more likely to achieve a positive outcome. Fifty jazz musicians interpreting the manifesto in their own way does not resemble a Collective in any shape or form, nor is it likely to be a success.
Chris
Thanks for addressing these issues. I don’t want to write another essay, but I do want to point out some things
“what you are saying about Newpark is factually wrong.” – I’m just giving my opinion as an outsider who mingles with many Newpark people, there are no facts here.
“If you truly believed that Newpark is trying to produce a small army of jazz purists, surely the musicians playing with you would not be suitable for your gigs and therefore you wouldn’t have asked them to do it in the first place.” – This is not what I believe!
Maybe I was not clear about my criticisms or perhaps you are misinterpreting them in some way. My criticisms do not imply that I dislike Newpark students or think that they are not good musicians, I mean I’m playing with them! I believe that ‘purists’ and whatever the opposite of that is, can learn side by side, my issue is that ‘hard’ stuff is given precedent over ‘easier’ stuff which may be more effective – and ultimately we should be encouraging music first and technicalities second.
What I mean is that so many Newpark students carry this attitude of ‘well I can’t make music before I can do this other hard thing’, wittingly or otherwise. Where does this come from? I believe that this attitude can get misinterpreted by the public as elitist. If people want to play very intricate music, like yourself and your father for instance, that should also be encouraged, but I fear that this particular approach carries an unbalanced amount of importance today.
I genuinely don’t think that Newpark means to stifle people, and it clearly has not had that effect on you and Bonnie, which is so great. I was thinking of many others who have not been so fortunate. One thing I have been thinking about is; why do people drop out of the school? If someone comes to the school having auditioned their way in and paying all that money also, why are they allowed drop out? I don’t accept this mentality pervasive in jazz schools ‘oh, so-and-so couldn’t hack it’ – there could be more creative and flexible approaches to examining so as not to alienate people.
These people are part of the next generation (and may turn out to be journalists, promoters, at the very least enthusiasts) and their love of music should never be beaten out of them in the name of learning the tradition. Jazz school has to learn to be flexible – in Scandinavia they have gotten rid of exams in many places! Maybe this is a wider Irish education matter, but that doesn’t mean that art schools, which Newpark should aspire to be, cannot lead the way.
Like Jazzabelle, I too aspire that criticism make things better, or maybe clearer, and nothing I’m saying is meant to be taken personally!
Patrick,
I wouldn’t have said that it’s the BAJP course or the way it’s examined that’s to blame for students dropping out. Over here, kids and teenagers aren’t exposed to jazz like in other countries. If you’re a teenager in somewhere like the Netherlands or Norway and you want to try out jazz, there are plenty of school bands where you can cut your teeth. It’s not the same in Ireland. You know yourself that trying to get to a professional standard takes commitment, tenacity and thousands of hours of practice. It’s not easy trying to condense that into the four years at Newpark. Ideally, they’d have put in loads of the hours in the years leading up to it. If they haven’t, then they’re going to have to work at it while they’re at the college. Otherwise, it’s going to be tough.
Now, whether students know what they’re letting themselves in for when they sign up to the course in the first place, that’s a different story.