The Modern Recreation of Jazz

As an avid jazz lover who grew up with Miles Davis and John Coltrane, the state of jazz music today makes me a bit disheartened. With New York's only smooth jazz station going under last year, the controversy surrounding Herbie Hancock's win for Best Album at the 2008 Grammys, the Weather Channel reformatting their Local on the 8s soundtrack from smooth jazz to rock, and jazz artists discussing the siege of their genre, less and less people are getting turned onto it as time goes on. While jazz used to have the reputation of pulling directly at heartstrings with heavy use of the brass section (saxophone, trumpet) and instrumentals, now younger people are connecting more with crass hip-hop and empty rock and roll lyrics. All of this bad news makes me think that one of my favorite musical categories is going to end up with a grim future. Is this really going to be the case? If there's a way, how can the music industry draw people back into the world of jazz?

I think the reason why our generation isn't connecting to jazz as much as our parents or grandparents is because, aside from the amount of diverse music we have nowadays, is that we don't really have many jazz artists we can relate to. The youth of today often compare jazz to elevator music, music our parents like to listen to on car rides or the weak pieces we had to play or listen to in high school music classes. For the most part, our exposure to this sort of music has been mediocre at best, so no wonder only a small percentage of people aged 18 to 34 like jazz. In order to draw a more youthful audience to jazz, there needs to be a good representative for the genre. That representative needs to have charisma and talent, and should have the gift to correlate different styles of music with jazz.

The man who best exemplifies all of the above is Brit Jamie Cullum. Releasing his first studio album, Pointless Nostalgia in 2001 and his latest, The Pursuit, this month, Cullum has become the United Kingdom's biggest selling jazz artist of all time. While he often sings updated takes on standard classics, he also likes to sing covers of more modern songs, such as Pharrell Williams' "Frontin'" and Radiohead's "High and Dry". His energetic showmanship, cool demeanor and fashionable style make him relatable to the younger generation, despite the fact that he plays an older style of music.

If it takes a physical change to get ears to listen to jazz, then so. If the artist's music is just as decent as his style of dress, that makes things a lot better. The kids will take anybody who looks good seriously nowadays, though. Luckily an artist such as Cullum, who has both the look and the talent, draws in listeners from both the jazz world and the VH1 crowd. Should more jazz artists cross over as well as he, the jazz industry as a whole would be in a lot less danger from extinction.

Source: Musician Says Jazz Genre is Dying

Lady Gaga Is LETHAL

Some people are bad for your health. To dwindle that down, some celebrities are lethal, in terms of fierceness and actual physical effects. While some feared getting stabbed by Madonna's cone bras or crushed to death at a Pearl Jam concert, everyone is overlooking one of music's most dynamic artist on the scene today; Lady Gaga. After many sources reporting that photographer A.J. Sokalner died from a heart attack after photographing Gaga at an event in New York City, one has to wonder how else this ferocious diva can affect a seemingly normal, healthy person. Let's investigate.

Firstly, one can become obsessed with Lady Gaga in a very short period of time. From the first or second listen, Lady Gaga's debut album 'The Fame' sticks to listeners. Whether they like to admit it or not, everybody has a soft spot from her. Young girls want to dress up in her high-cut leotards, the gay community religiously follow her after she declared her love for them, and even celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and X Factor judge Cheryl Cole admit their infatuation for her. Celebrity obsession is a dangerous thing, however. What can start out as an innocent admiration (a mild affliction) can turn into intensive, compulsive feelings where one feels he is truly connected to the soul of Lady Gaga. When this goes too far, one can no longer control his thoughts on Lady Gaga, which can drive him to depression or anxiety.



Secondly, Lady Gaga can influence one to do not-so-innocent things. The Gaga is not one to be modest, in terms of dress or conversation. She has openly declared her disdain for pants, calling them 'uncomfortable' and 'not sexy'. Before hitting it big, the singer danced in burlesque clubs to earn a living and ordered tons of cocaine while perfecting her look all day in her apartment. She sings openly about her sexuality in many of her songs, and candidly discusses it during interviews. Since the performer is everywhere nowadays and is a very popular force in pop culture, many young people look up to her. They see the Gaga as socially desirable, so a lot of growing girls want to follow her lifestyle, even though it is not the purest. While the pop singer's goal is not to be a role model, and although she may or may not have as much influence on girls as imagined, girls will follow anything that's cool. That may not be a good sign for parents. The parental figures better take a close look at whether their babies are wearing pants when leaving the house.



Finally, Lady Gaga can cause wildfires with her chest. There is even proof of this, so best beware:

Note: This was cross-posted to my blog for my Online Journalism class. Hope my professor is proud!