CHAPTER 15

Jazz Today

OUTLINE

1) Paradigms Lost and Found

a) The 1990s term “post-historical” conveys the idea that the various political and cultural
movements of the past are behind us and that we are now at the pinnacle of history and
can act with a clean slate. This arrogance has resulted in debacles of all kinds.
b) Even so, this might be a useful way to look at the three narratives of jazz history to make
sense of jazz in the twenty-first century.
i) Art for art’s sake: at an impasse. At the end of the twentieth century, neoclassicism
represents a retrenchment, not a progression. Presently, the best of its jazz visionaries
are neither avant-garde nor neoclassical. By 2012 and 2013, best-of-lists were
dominated by relative newcomers (we will meet a few in this chapter), some with
debut recordings.
ii) Fusion: also appeared at an impasse. Most of pop is moving away from melody and
harmony, thus offering less to jazz, yet as we’ve seen, a younger provocateur like
Robert Glasper demonstrated in 2012 that unlikely pop material might offer jazz
artists genuine inspiration.
iii) Historicism: very much alive in the work of individual musicians yet not nearly as
prevalent as it was a decade ago. The inclination to pay homage to the past is
curtailed in periods of renewed creativity.
c) These narratives give us a way of understanding jazz history but not the present scene.
2) Classical Jazz
a) Some have described jazz as America’s classical music, but the meaning of “classical”
has changed over time.
b) “Classical” has been used in this book to refer to the European concert music tradition.
But it can also refer to the status to which any “serious” music aspires.
c) Here we let classical represent no particular style or movement or time period, but rather
the status to which all serious and lasting music (including rock) aspires.
3) Four Phases
a) Within this classical formulation, jazz has gone through four broad stages that mark its
place in the cultural world.
i) 1890s–1920s: genesis of jazz in the black South, especially New Orleans, where
musical and cultural mixes resulted in an improvised, bluesy music that helped build
social bonds in a variety of social gatherings and appealed to a broad range of
culturally, racially, and geographically diverse populations.
ii) 1920s–1950s: transformation from a community-based form to an art that spread
worldwide, influenced other genres and styles, and was performed by uniquely voiced
performers as dance music and as an object of modernist intellectual interest.
iii) 1950s–1970s: increased artistic possibilities while alienating the public, which turned
to more accessible forms for dancing and singing.
iv) 1970s– : Classical status on two counts:
(1) Depends on academic study and institutional support instead of the commercial
marketplace.
(2) Attitudes of young performers
(a) Young jazz musicians are weighed down by the past in that they were partly
defined by their pedigree. Moreover, they were obliged to perform the music
of the past because modern practices are too difficult for many listeners. This
dilemma replicates the dilemma of European classical music.
b) On the other hand, its status as a classical music leaves young jazz musicians to draw
freely on the past or present and on different genres and styles; it also provides the
expectation of jazz evolution.
4) Lingua Franca
a) Although there is no single jazz school, today’s jazz musicians all speak the same
language, which is grounded in bebop and respect for the past—a lingua franca.
b) One reason for this is that jazz education has been codified in undergraduate music
programs. And yet, even though they learn a shared pool of musical practices and
knowledge, the jazz art form inherently discourages replication and promotes highly
skilled individual voices.
c) Pianists can act as a case in point, showing how individual visions and lingua franca
combine to create musical diversity.
 d) Pianists like Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor do not share much in common, but those born
later, such as Brad Mehldau and Danilo Perez, differ significantly in that they can cross
into each other’s realms even though they have varied approaches.
5) Vijay Iyer (b. 1971)
a) Vijay Iyer, a prolific and often astonishing pianist, exemplifies the way contemporary
jazz artists may inch forward by tracking backward and laterally, while expanding on
personal roots.
b) Born and raised in New York, Iyer met alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, who was
raised in Colorado, spurring an intense consideration of the relationship between jazz and
the classical music of Southern India, called Carnatic music. Though Iyer and
Mahanthappa do indeed explore their familial heritage, which reflects the changing
demographics in America, they are first and foremost dyed-in-the-wool jazz musicians
who have studied its history deeply.
c) “Lude”
i) This tune is a highlight of the Vijay Iyer Trio’s second album, Accelerando, and has
become a particular favorite at concerts, where its repetitive chords, insistent rhythms,
and three-way interplay can create a trancelike sense of engagement.
ii) “Lude” combines rigorous discipline with spontaneous give and take. The
6) Esperanza Spalding (b. 1994)
a) Because of illness, she was home-schooled in her early years, and despite her obvious
gifts did not take to school until she auditioned at the Berklee College of Music and
received a full scholarship. She considered switching to political science until guitarist
Pat Metheny, a Berklee alum, and vibist Gary Burton, then Berklee’s vice-president,
encouraged her to stay the course.
b) In 2011, Spalding stunned the music business by unexpectedly winning the Grammy
Award as Best New Artist (incredibly, she was the first jazz musician to do so).
c) “Short and Sweet”
i) “Short and Sweet,” the closing selection on Chamber Music Society, displays
Spalding’s talents as bassist, singer, bandleader, and composer-arranger.
ii) The combination of strings and Spalding’s wordless crooning may set off warning
bells that we are on the terrain of easy-listening pop. Yet as she la-la-las, the
ensemble tills an ever-deeper groove, defined by her first-beat-of the-measure bass
 notes and Terri Lyne Carrington’s expert drumming.
7) Cécile McLorin Salvant (b. 1989)
a) The release in 2013 of the album WomanChild by a virtually unknown twenty-three-year-
old singer of French and Haitian parentage generated much excitement, and perhaps a
touch of hyperbole. No one wanted to jinx her with inflated claims—there have been too
many one-hit wonders, too much promise unfulfilled—but neither could anyone listen to
the American-label debut recording by Cécile McLorin Salvant and fail to acknowledge
an outsize talent that radiates authority and authenticity.
b) In 2009, she recorded an album (Cécile) with Bonnel’s quintet, and a year later entered
and won the annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in Washington,
D.C. (the jurors included Bridgewater, Reeves, Patti Austin, Kurt Elling, and Al Jarreau).
c) “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues”
i) Based on a pioneering feminist canticle recorded by Id Cox in 1924 during the
traveling-tent era of black vaudeville. Cox rerecorded it in 1961 when a new generation
of white women singers associated with the burgeoning folk and blues movement
embraced it.
ii) McLorin Salvant’s performance mines the humor and the defiant autonomy of the song’s
lyrics while tackling it with the same interpretive skill she brings to relatively
sophisticated standards.
8) Enjoying the Shadows
a) Each of the previous three selections can be considered in terms of one, two, and
possibly all three of the narratives cited for the evolution of jazz: art, fusion, historicism. Yet
another narrative would chronicle jazz’s global reach.
b) Abdullah Ibrahim (b. 1934) and the narrative of jazz’s global reach.
i) Ibrahim has come to represent the South African subgenre of Cape Jazz.
ii) In 1959, he co-founded The Jazz Epistles, a cornerstone ensemble in South African
music, with other musicians and composers who would achieve international renown,
including saxophonist Kippie Moeketsi, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa, and trumpeter Hugh
Masakela.
iii) Through recordings, he dedicated himself to jazz and grew particularly enamored of
Ellington and Thelonious Monk. He was steeped in traditional African songs, which had
a long-standing penchant for chordal harmonies and repetitive rhythms that he would
 refine into irresistible ostinatos and vamps.
iv) Upon hearing him, Ellington was so impressed that he convinced Frank Sinatra’s Reprise
Records to record Brand’s trio for a session that was released as Duke Ellington Presents
the Dollar Brand Trio.
9) Concluding Reflection
No one has been able to predict the future of jazz. Many people today believe that jazz is
dead or no longer relevant, citing its absence from commercial radio and television
outlets as proof. Evidence to the contrary is in the hands of an incredible number of
young, ambitious, innovative musicians, the majority of them pouring forth from colleges
and music schools, determined to make a contribution to jazz’s unfolding history.