A couple weeks back I went to a show at the Someday Lounge here in
I’m not going to go into a critique of the show, aside from saying Chris Brown was pretty much the monster player I expected – with all the understated tastiness of his father (and more bombastic-sisity) – and the Collective showed why many consider these folks to be the next generation of Portland heavies…**
I know it was a Sunday, but can anyone tell why there was NOBODY there? ...aside from a (very) few friends and family, myself and a couple from LA who just happened to wander in for dinner. The club owners mentioned that this was one of the BETTER attended Sunday shows. It shouldn’t surprise me. Rarely, if ever, are any of these jazz shows mentioned in the local weeklies. It makes me sad to think that these players - who have undoubtedly devoted themselves to the study and mastery of this art form, and if that night was anything to go by - (basically) have no audience.
Granted, I am new to the jazz scene here and my opinions might be shaped by a certain naivety. Obviously there are many who appreciate and support jazz music, so I don’t want to oversimplify my point, but in this artist-friendly city, you would think that this kind of music could really flourish.
I think “jazz” is becoming a negative four letter word. To many, it means: scholastic, esoteric, difficult, boring, old, conservative, etc. I’m not saying that the music is any of these adjectives, but that’s what a lot of folks think of when they think of “jazz.” Too bad, because anyone who takes the time to explore the genre will find that it is anything but boring and conservative (esoteric, maybe).
What happens to the soul of an art form when one can study for a PhD at the local university? And exactly what kind of jazz do they play at school? For one considering heading down that path, it’s an important question. Will we be playing Orenette Coleman or Benny Goodman? Or does it even matter? Does anything even matter? Why are we even here?
Maybe we should just make pirate music: Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhh!
**Another tidbit about the aforementioned Someday Lounge show…
Toward the end of Chris Brown’s set, with the band vamping, he got up from behind his drum set and introduced the quartet. When he finished, he mumbled something about an hour being too long for his bladder and went off to use the restroom - leaving the band vamping away and exchanging puzzled looks. He must have really had to go because he was gone for awhile. Eventually, he came back and finished out the tune. End of set.
I didn’t know what to make of it. It was kind of funny, but I’m not sure if I would have felt that way if I was playing with him. Would he have done that if it was a packed house? Doubt it. Was it just a indication of what he thought about the evening? I’m guessing so…
Jazz is dead, long live the King?
1 comment:
Did they just vamp the whole time?! For the love of Pete, somebody take a solo or something. When the captain's away, the little pirates should play. Control of what happens onstage rests with those ONSTAGE. Anyone who leaves me out there unsupervised like that is probably going to come back to something he didn't expect, and then have to join in. Maybe that's what he was hoping for, something unexpected. Maybe that's the promise of jazz and improvisation: the sense that the unexpected might happen. But maybe it's become too "expected" somehow. Or maybe it's just become quaint. Adhering too closely to form and tradition is kind of a ladder into a musty attic.
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