Jazz music: Is Jazz Dead?

I listen to and enjoy all kinds of music: popular music songs, rhythm and blues, classical, rock-to name some; but I am a rabid jazz music fan, about which I am like a devoted relative. I notice everything. So as I hear of the steady loss of jazz radio stations, jazz night clubs and iconic jazz musicians, I feel a quiet panic and wonder whether the art form known as "jazz" is in decline; slowly dying right before my eyes and ears.

Nevertheless, something inside of me insists that this is not the case; just can't happen. It should not happen. Jazz is too important; too big to fail; too necessary. The question then becomes: will jazz music continue to enjoy the influence, excitement, force or following of the Bebop and Hard Bop years?


If you've forgotten what Bebop is; it hit the jazz scene in the mid 1940's, representing a shift from the swing dance music craze of the big bands. Bebop's chief founders and architects were trumpet player John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, alto saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker, and pianist/composer Thelonious Sphere Monk.

Hard Bop, on the other hand, was an extension of Bebop and was developed during the late 1950's. It's main musical influences came from rhythm and blues, gospel music and blues. Its innovators were trumpeters Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, pianist Horace Silver and drummer Art Blakey.

So, is Jazz dead, or slowly checking out?

OK, as far as the history, legacy and survival of jazz music are concerned, maybe another bebop revolution is not around the corner, but I am confident that jazz still has a lot of life left, and a lot to live for.

Time may have closed most of the historical meccas for jazz music, turned off the lights in many of the 24hr jazz radio stations and prematurely taken away the Davis', Coltranes, Parkers and Browns. But time has also grown a new vibrant, powerful, talented crop of serious, young jazz artists; trumpeters Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton; saxophonists Joshua Redman, Eric Alexander,; bassist Christian McBride; pianists Mulgrew Miller, Eric Reed; singers Dianne Reeves, Dena DeRose, Janis Siegel, Kurt Elling, to name some, but there are hundreds more artists, male and female, making jazz their love and occupation, but more importantly, being great role models for young people through their work, professional ethic, and healthful lifestyles.

Time has also brought wonderful advancements in digital recording technology and the Internet, making classic jazz music easily accessible on CDs, DVDs. live streaming and video; giving new life to the work of past jazz masters. Time is most assuredly, on the side of jazz; and Jazz, I am sure it will continue to live, thrive, entertain, and influence future generations of music lovers. 

Now in the 21st century, time has brought a debilitating, unfathomable scourge to the world, and the world of  jazz: the COVID-19 epidemic. Overnight, musicians world-wide find themselves facing tough, uncertain futures with the canceling of touring schedules; shuttered clubs and other music venues. Unable to work or make a sustainable living at their vocations, artists in general must be preoccupied with the thought that things may never be the same. But jazz performers and those who depend on this art form to survive should be encouraged by the knowledge that jazz is ultra resilient, it has overcome every destructive social, economic and manufactured impediment visited upon it: If the much vaunted, dreaded "ROCK 'N ROLL" monster could not kill jazz or put it out to pasture; then, nothing can!

And one more thing, not only will jazz never die; it cannot be killed! that's unless all the birds in the world suddenly disappeared, You see, birds had making innovative, spontaneous, improvisational music down pat, long before humans got hip to it: okay, listen to those birds that sing early in the morning up in the trees when you are just waking up: that's jazz in it's purest form. That's what was being sung in Charlie Parker's 'head,' interpreted and reproduced out of an alto saxophone: it revolutionized "Jazz." 

Today Charlie Parker is revered as a jazz genius: why do you think he's called "BIRD?!"

 

I encourage music lovers to park the fancy cell phones, take at break from texting, kill the unnecessary conversations; get yourself a CD of jazz music by Miles Davis, or John Coltrane, or Dexter Gordon, or Bill Evans, or any one of the scores of jazz greats, past or present, live stream it, pipe it into the iPod or whatever you're plugged into, and let the music play.

Support Jazz: buy some jazz today; listen to jazz music. Jazz is an original American art form. Get some everyday.