[JPL] Conversation Piece

Tue May 6 15:59:44 EDT 2008

Sharing thoughts...for conversation. 

  During my interview with NPR's Tell Me More...I made this comment... "jazz is a highly intelligent and complex music...and for us to expect many folk to get it...might be asking a bit much." Key word there is "many." I thought long and hard about that statement before I said it. I've come to that conclusion based on my experience with the music as an almost 20 year broadcasting professional and about 25 years as a jazz musician and educator. I realized some would disagree...for various reasons but that's about the only way I see it now. Much of the response was on point but some of it was flat out stupid and some interesting. A WBGO "producer" accused me of being a "jazz hater." YIKES! To go there from what I said? Someone else said... "Sinnett's comments on jazz being too intelligent for people is silly. Folk should check out Zorn, Colemen, etc..." Really? Another said..."Sinnett is a smooth jazz artist...and everyone knows that...so what does he know." Funny. Me a
 smoothie. So on and so on but fortunately there were just as many that agreed.  

  What it made me realize is that I now understand...albeit on a much smaller degree...what Ken Burn's had to deal with from the aftermath of "Jazz." It got folk talking yes but how much of it do you remember as being positive? I believe what I was trying to do with my interview was what Burns was trying to do...reach the non jazz community. There is a lot of dysfunction and strange and unnecessary cynicism in the jazz family. In some ways it's easy to see how much of the problems jazz faces are self inflicted. Instead of being glad to hear something about jazz in a high profile situation some of those in jazz choose to rip apart what THEY didn't like without offering an opposing viewpoint of value to what they disagreed with...to better the conversation. Just dark cynicism which doesn't do a thing to help this great music. 

  It's interesting in that most...if not all... of the criticism comes from folk already in jazz so my thinking is why do we spend so much time trying to please them? Won't they listen anyway if we play jazz? There's little objective thinking in my view from the jazz base in that too many of us in that circle think that because we get it...everyone else should. Then the other part...those outside of this circle see how those of us in it share our views and believe me it's not a pretty perception they have. Can the jazz audience...as comparatively small as it is...be pleased at a level needed to keep the music healthy on a national and international scale? Barely and that's in some areas. From my perspective my interview wasn't about trying to reach those already into jazz. It was about how to get those...young and old...who don't like or listen to it...to believe it's something worthy of their support.  

  Therein IMO lies one of the main dilemma's for jazz...Too often I see that's what those of us in jazz are doing...trying to please those that already get it and too often apparently...many of them don't to the degree of embracing what THEY like...not necessarily what we present them. Many in this small group have favorites...be it styles, artists...etc. Where really does that get us with jazz?  As said earlier that's what I think Ken Burns was trying to do...reach those outside of the jazz circle... and many of those in the jazz community didn't get it. In my response to some of the criticism of my interview I said that if more "got it," jazz would be more than 2% of the record sale marketplace. Or if more got it presenters would have more "jazz" on "jazz" festivals or straight up and smooth jazz formats wouldn't be disappearing. 

  So in the bigger picture many don't get it and it's based in large part on what the general cultural understandings are and expectations with music as a fundamental source of entertainment. This by today's standards is scraping that proverbial bottom of the barrel. Jazz...in its methodology of performance... is the complete antithesis of what the majority of folk usually expect to hear in music. I see very few things said about this and I think until more start to find a better way of one...recognizing that this is the number one problem confronting building a bigger jazz audience and two...finding a way to make those that don't listen to jazz better understand it and believe it's something meaningful and profound to our culture...the struggle will continue.  

  Lets come up with a new box to step out of. 

  Jae Sinnett   

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