THE GIG

Times Is Tough

Audio from today’s appearance on Soundcheck is online, with a small twist: instead of focusing strictly on the Vision Festival’s weekend marathon, the conversation covered broader economic realities for the New York jazz musician. There wasn’t a lot of time -- the show also included a 20-minute segment about the Jazz Loft Project, and a nice in-studio performance by Grant Lee Phillips -- but I think we credibly scratched at the surface.

The theme of the segment apparently derived from a line I dashed off in an email: “It’s a fantastically open time to be a jazz consumer in the city, and a borderline oppressive time to be a jazz artist (economically, not creatively).” Let’s continue this conversation, shall we? Is there any insight to be shared about that paradox? Does anyone disagree with my premise? The lines are open; leave comments below.

And while we’re on the topic: I didn’t get to mention that the Vision Festival marathon will include a moderated discussion on “The effect of the economy on life decisions of the young musician.” This Saturday, 5:30 to 7 p.m. More on that here.

  Oh, and the image above is of trumpeter Steven Bernstein, whose music was chosen to illustrate the segment. Photo by Ziga Koritnik.

Tweet Revenge

So, this conversation still has a little life in it, eh? Others have linked to yesterday’s Soundcheck program, in which Vijay Iyer brought an admirable objectivity to his conversation with Terry Teachout. I appreciated some of what Teachout said, too, though I still take issue with his core conclusions -- among them, the notion that young people shoulder the bulk of responsibility for the declining numbers. Iyer made some good points about demographic trends, including this aphorism: “The problem has been not one of accessibility but one of access.” 

I’m holding fast to my conviction that the poll results are suspect, and should at least be considered as something other than absolute fact. (For more on that, see the comments in a recent post here, notably one by J.D. Considine.) But it’s really no surprise that Teachout, a former member of the National Council on the Arts, would give those results his full endorsement. “Those are real numbers, hard numbers,” he says on WNYC, with what strikes me as a note of defensive credulity. His particular critical perspective also explains his view that jazz’s “high-art” stature has driven an audience decline. As I have argued before, that doesn’t account for what’s really happening among present-day jazz fans, whose interactions with the music largely skirt institutions. 

Blah blah blah, right? OK, here’s what I’m getting at: Howard Mandel, Arts Journal blogger and president of the Jazz Journalists Association, has kicked off a campaign to amass evidence of live-jazz attendance. The medium is Twitter, and the hashmark of choice is #jazzlives. Find more instructions here, on Mandel’s blog, and here, courtesy of Darcy James Argue, who helpfully explains:

The point of all this, of course, is to leverage Twitter's social media juju to draw attention to the live jazz that's happening around us all the time. Even if we take the NEA survey numbers with a grain of salt, it's pretty clear that if you want the kids to come to your shows, you've got to start by reaching them the way they want to be reached.

I have heretofore been a Twitter agnostic, but hmmm...?

Programming Note

[Update: Show is archived here] Some critics are natural-born list-makers. I’m not generally one of them. But for some reason it has been easier than usual to track my favorite albums this year. I’m keeping mum about those for now, at least on the jazz tip. On the pop side, I’ll be blabbing this Friday at 2 p.m. on Soundcheck with John Schaefer.

If you can’t tune in, you can stream the show live at the website, or listen to an archive after the fact. The segment will feature some of my Top 10 non-jazz albums of 2009 (thus far). As of this writing, the list is subject to change, though I do suspect that Maxwell, pictured ever so smoothly above, will make the final cut.

My pop focus on the show doesn’t mean that jazz is being slighted. Will Layman, who writes for PopMatters, will offer his picks. I don’t know Layman, but his Top 15 from last year looks pretty tight. 

Related link: Pride: Deadly Medley - Soundcheck, March 27, 2009

(My last visit, part of a series inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins.)