I'll let that simmer for a minute and wait for the hot glares to cool before I continue. Ready to go on? Alright, let me clarify. One person can't really be blamed entirely for the declining in popularity of an entire art form. To be fair, there are a lot of contributing factors over the last few decades. The shift in culture due to the popularity of television, the birth of rock and roll, the sexual revolution, etc... But no stronger argument has been made for the declining popularity of jazz music than the shift away from dance music in the 1940s and 50s which is primarily attributed to Miles Davis and his development of Bop.
Before Miles Davis the primary medium of performance for jazz was as a dance band. Music was relatively simple and had clear meter to make it easy for Johnny and Sally to get there Lindy Hop on between malted milkshakes. Miles Davis brought to the table a new era of complexity and virtuosity to the art form. Modal harmonies, asymmetric meter, bebop, hard bop, all these things come from Miles Davis. Before Davis you had Happy Days are Here Again, and with him you had Bitches Brew. Miles Davis took jazz into a much deeper and darker corner than it had ever been before, and it's there that it seems to have found a home, cramped though it may be. With the shifting away from dance music in the 40s and 50s, Johnny and Sally had to find something to groove to, so the sexual revolution drove them to Rock and Roll and artists that could only be filmed from the waist up because of how "extreme" they were. Jazz had passed the title of Devil's Music onto rock and roll, a crown it would never regain, despite titles like Bitches Brew. Miles Davis had formed jazz into music for musicians. Jazz would soon be studied in conservatories all across the country and eventually the globe. Professors of music would start to apply music theory to jazz and teach technique. Jazz became institutionalized and commonplace. Despite many valiant attempts at rebirth and innovation of the art form, Johnny and Sally already had found music to which they could simulate sex on the dance floor and rebel against their parents. Lucy and Ricky may have slept in separate beds at the time, but dammit, Johnny and Sally needed to express their darkest desires at the school sock hop. Thus jazz went the way of all things...and died.
Or did it? Yes, jazz DID lose its appeal with the masses as a form of dance music, but it also gained a new audience of serious musicians. The audience may be smaller, but the loyalty is much stronger than that of Johnny and Sally, who will always turn to the newer and "edgier" music of the day simply because it is popular. Jazz is now played and loved by people AROUND THE WORLD. Everyday jazz reaches new emotional depths and pulls at the soul. Just simply because the common man doesn't appreciate it, doesn't mean its time has passed or that the art form is no longer valid. Most people are stupid, after all.
(This blog was originally posted on Jazz Heresy @ http://jazzheresy.blogspot.com/)
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