Does anyone buy contemporary jazz CD's these days

[CGR]

I see that the Whirlwind label currently have a 50% off sale on their website. In the past I have bought a number of their albums and thought I'd give it a look, but I have been getting rather bored with the blandness of contemporary jazz. My listening habits seem to be more and more focused on the old 1950s and 1960s recordings in my collection from labels like Blue Note, Impulse, etc.

Do readers on here still buy contemporary jazz recordings?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I think Ian (commendablely) buys a lot of contemporary stuff, I rarely buy anything now except to fill in the odd collection gap. Mostly from the mid 40s to late 60s, my time warp period. I do listen to a lot of other more contemporary stuff on YouTube etc ... And according to this, not alone...

"CD sales fell by nearly a quarter last year as a decline in demand over recent years accelerated amid the rise of digital streaming, industry figures show. The drop of 23% was the biggest since the format peaked in the early 2000s and follows drops of around 12% in 2016 and 2017, according to data from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) - Sky January 2019.

BN.

[Old Grumpy]

I see that the Whirlwind label currently have a 50% off sale on their website. In the past I have bought a number of their albums and thought I'd give it a look, but I have been getting rather bored with the blandness of contemporary jazz. My listening habits seem to be more and more focused on the old 1950s and 1960s recordings in my collection from labels like Blue Note, Impulse, etc.

Do readers on here still buy contemporary jazz recordings?

Yes - or rather, I arrange for my staff to buy them for me*. On my current wishlist is the latest offering by the Branford Marsalis Quartet, which has recently received a rave review in Jazzwise by a regular contributor to these boards.


OG


* Out of their own money, as a gift.

[Bryn]

It depends on what you classify as jazz. I get most Matchless releases as they are issued, though admittedly a fair few not as CDs but as downloads via OTOROKU. I also tend to buy CDs from performers at iklectik, Cafe OTO and suchlike gigs.

[Serial_Apologist]

It depends on what you classify as jazz. I get most Matchless releases as they are issued, though admittedly a fair few not as CDs but as downloads via OTOROKU. I also tend to buy CDs from performers at iklectik, Cafe OTO and suchlike gigs.

I am more-or-less in the same position, finding, as I do, less and less contemporary jazz that is interesting to me to be readily on-sale in the few remaining CD retailers. There's something more communal about buying CDs at gigs, in keeping with a large part of what jazz "means" to the likes of me - where the musicians concerned might come up and say "Thanks for buying it", or "You might be interested in this other one we did a couple of years back, too" [], though I wouldn't imagine the earnings for the musos concerned to be that great.

[Old Grumpy]

I am more-or-less in the same position, finding, as I do, less and less contemporary jazz that is interesting to me to be readily on-sale in the few remaining CD retailers. There's something more communal about buying CDs at gigs, in keeping with a large part of what jazz "means" to the likes of me - where the musicians concerned might come up and say "Thanks for buying it", or "You might be interested in this other one we did a couple of years back, too" [], though I wouldn't imagine the earnings for the musos concerned to be that great.

Agree, S_A - something very satisfying about buying a CD at a gig. Less for the musicians to carry home too - as they often emphasise!

[Bryn]

Agree, S_A - something very satisfying about buying a CD at a gig. Less for the musicians to carry home too - as they often emphasise!

Somewhat off topic but last Sunday I got a copy of Loré Lixenberg's The Singterviews Vol 1 DVD at the Phill Niblock gig at iklectik. Well worth seeking out, though it's not jazz, of course.

[teamsaint]

I am more-or-less in the same position, finding, as I do, less and less contemporary jazz that is interesting to me to be readily on-sale in the few remaining CD retailers. There's something more communal about buying CDs at gigs, in keeping with a large part of what jazz "means" to the likes of me - where the musicians concerned might come up and say "Thanks for buying it", or "You might be interested in this other one we did a couple of years back, too" [], though I wouldn't imagine the earnings for the musos concerned to be that great.

If our business is anything to go buy, I suspect that sales at gigs represent a very useful source of income. They make about 100% mark up on book sales, so if its a £10 book and the sell just 10 at a talk , that's £50 in their pocket.

[burning dog]

Mostly buy from gigs

[Ian Thumwood]

I have not got in to downloads but I have not be being a lot of CDs lately either. I find that CDs by the artists I like seem to come in dribs and drabs. The most recent "contemporary" new issue I bought was the recent Teduschi Trucks band studio album which was a massive disappointment. In the past I have loved their mash up of blues / soul / jazz but the latest effort is decidedly middle -of-the -road" and really underwhelming. Before that, I bought the Dafnis Preto big band record which was exceptional and this squares with how I tend to shop these days which is to take a punt on something different. I did the same with the Cuong Vu quartet album which is exceptional.

I find that I tend to be loyal to particularly labels such as Delmark but am finding really interesting stuff on other independents like Cuneiform and Pi. There seems to be an interesting dynamic developing in jazz which I think can be summarised as follows:-

1. New releases are no longer as cheap as they were on line and are increasingly returning to the same level of cost as you used to pay on shops. It is difficult to get any new release under £10 and they tend to fall in at around £11-13 these days. Some new CDs on Amazon are retailing at over £20 and this has put me off new albums by the likes of Myra Melford. I just feel that I am being fleeced by some of the prices charged.

2. The jazz websites seem to promote a small number of albums so that a site like All About Jazz is extremely involved in promoting labels like ECM. It is frightening that so many of the jazz musicians I grew up with and thought to be contemporary are now pensioners ! What is interesting is that some musicians like Bill Frisell and John Scofield are going through a purple patch and producing was staggeringly good albums yet the jazz press seems obsessed with younger artists who are rarely as good. If you want good contemporary jazz, the best players are now my age or older! I am increasingly of the opinion that the generation of jazz musicians who emerged in the 1980s are the last generation to really set the music alight en masse. Regardless of what style of contemporary jazz you go for, all the big hitters are fast approaching veteran status! in the 1980s, labels seemed to fight over signing players like Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Pat Metheny, Abbey Lincoln, etc, etc. I don't feel that there are so many "big hitters" these days and this this is due to a disconnect with the media / record labels / festival organisers who have failed to develop and mentor talent since the 2000's. The best jazz being produced these days is not being signed by major labels and featured in increasingly niche jazz festivals. It just makes it harder to hear this music in some respect although the radio has helped disseminate it. It think the internet has conversely democratised jazz so the better stuff struggles to get to the top. Labels like Verve, Blue Note and CBS have either been swallowed up or issue more "market-friendly" jazz. The best selling jazz albums nowadays are not necessarily the best.

3. There are loads of cheap compilations of historic albums and not all of them are particularly well mastered. Labels like Avid offer good value for money but I think they show just how much historic albums are looked at through rose-tinted glasses. It is amazing to discover just how many indifferent albums were put out in the 50s and 60s which are now manifesting themselves on labels like Avid.

4. An increasing tendency to raid archive recordings which add to the discography of "jazz legends" and labels like Resonance seem to be unearthing a lot of exceptional material which is often more tempting than current musicians.

I am not bored by contemporary jazz but I can sympathize with some of the argument presented here because I would concur that good quality jazz is increasingly difficult to find. Back in the 1980's there seemed a proliferation of great jazz and it wasn't possible to keep up with everything. These days the more interesting stuff seems to be played by a diminishing circle of musicians and recorded on small, independent labels. I think you get less tolerant as you get older and tend to be dismissive of younger musicians who are seriously hyped. It is harder to find "great jazz" and my experience has been that the better stuff takes effort to track down. I love a lot of the Chicago scene these days (Jazzrook shares my enthusiasm) but this stuff comes across as very Left Field these days. There are musicians like Frisell and Scofield who are reliable yet, to pick a recent JRR selection, there aren't too many musicians like Lester Bowie around these days whose music shocks and excites me. I feel that jazz is getting fragmented between people who want something less demanding like Gregory Porter or Kamasi Washington, those looking back towards historic recordings and the more avant garde / experimental stuff by the likes of Halvorson, Shipp, Parker, etc, etc which must appeal to a very small proportion of jazz fans. I don't agree with SA that contemporary jazz is boring but I think the mainstream is struggling to be relevant and there are fewer and fewer mainstream players around as they get older.


Quite interesting to see that labels like Black Saint and Soul note are reissuing box sets of albums from the 1980's that had passed me by. I have been returning a lot to this material and have been impressed by the homespun nature of these albums which is in marked contrast to a lot of album issues today. Today's albums are increasingly "product" and I wonder if this is contrary to the spirit of jazz. Even once "outside" labels like ECM seem increasingly produced and tailored to a more risk-adverse audience. Nothing audacious of shocking about ECM these days and no buzz of excitement from me with their releases which used to epitomise originality.

[Ian Thumwood]

I am picking up this old thread after reading the responses to the features of the "Jazz Times" website throughout the year which was prompted by the magazine's "best of" choices for the 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's. The link is to the most recent set but they are all worth looking at and then comparing with the selections chosen by the readers.

https://jazztimes.com/features/lists/

It always fascinates me looking at the critic's opinion but the response from the readers is perhaps even more fascinating because you can compare them with records that you have acquired as well as looking at what is considered "essential" that is missing from your collection. The other aspect that differs between the critics an the readers is the kind of jazz selected. What intrigues me is that this is an American magazine and therefore reflects the kind of jazz preferred by the audience in the "home of jazz." I think that it is to be taken with a pinch of salt because it merely looks at the most popular albums as opposed to a wider sample of what is being purchased.

The main thrust of the album selection is that those records by the bigger names in jazz tend to get selected more frequently and the selections for the period 1980's to 2010's features a lot of material by the likes of Wayne Shorter, Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau , Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Joe Henderson. There is also a tendency towards commercial records like Norah Jones and Grover Washington and also very little by European artists which seem totally under the radar. I was also struck by the conservative nature of the choices and how minor musicians like Kurt Rosenwinkel are over-represented. (I think three of his albums appear in the lists.) I would have thought that the likes of Jan Garbarek would have enjoyed a bigger audience too.

What is interesting to me is the fact that the list reflects the then "best sellers" with only a few concessions to anything remotely progressive. I was surprised to see Maria Schneider's exceptional "Thompson Fields" in the list which sits at odds with the rest of the "less challenging" material.) The only other things as remotely "progressive" are the Wayne Shorter quartet albums, the initial Ambrose Akinmusire Blue Note album and the Hancock / Hargrove/ Brecker album. The last few decades are strongly suggestive that Pat Metheny is probably the most popular jazz musician in America. I like his music but think that the edgier material he has produced would have to take preference over the more mellow albums. There is also plenty of Mehldau on the list which reflects his almost ubiquitous influence as a pianist since the 1990s whereas the list excludes the likes of Jason Moran's "Bandwagon" which is more representative in my opinion of what a piano trio is capable of. Weird too that the likes of John Scofield, McCoy Tyner, Steve Coleman, Bill Frisell , Jason Moran, Andrew Hill, Paul Motian and John Abercrombie are absent. "Classic" groups like Paul Motian's trio or Branford Marsalis' trio do not feature with a preference being for "projects" as opposed to

The only "European" leader I noticed was Dave Holland whose band was American. The only ECM artists in the list are all "mainstream" jazz artists and there seems to be more loyalty towards artists than record labels. Nothing remotely "avant garde" makes the list either. I could not see any jazz orchestras present other than the MS album either. There also seems to be a bias against jazz records where the music is largely improvised but this is not as much a surprise as the inclusion of some musicians.

I wonder whether these selections are representative of the fact that the tastes in jazz are conservative or that musicians such as Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau have such a high profile ? Is this pattern reflected in UK sales or do the niche preferences of the jazz audience mean that these lists mask the votes for more obscure records ?

[CGR]

I am picking up this old thread after reading the responses to the features of the "Jazz Times" website throughout the year which was prompted by the magazine's "best of" choices for the 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's. The link is to the most recent set but they are all worth looking at and then comparing with the selections chosen by the readers.

https://jazztimes.com/features/lists/

...

I wonder whether these selections are representative of the fact that the tastes in jazz are conservative or that musicians such as Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau have such a high profile ? Is this pattern reflected in UK sales or do the niche preferences of the jazz audience mean that these lists mask the votes for more obscure records ?

I have very few of the CDs mentioned on the website. Could be because I have always had a reaction against hyped up record releases. Over the last 10 years or so I've probably bought more contemporary jazz CDs following listening to the JazzSession podcast, listening to the radio, or reading a jazz mag review.

The lists are rather representative of JazzTimes readership. I wonder how a JazzWise list would shape out? Pretty similar probably.

[Bryn]

I don't feel too secure about what is held to constitute "contemporary jazz" here. I purchase very little mainstream jazz recordings but use my Cafe OTO digital membership to download a considerable number of the 'albums' on their site: https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/downloads/ .

I find it difficult to keep up with the 3 credits a month, so currently around 60 such credits accumulated. Recommended downloads from the Cafe OTO catalogue (all labels) would be welcomed. Don't bother about Matchless Recordings. I have most of that label's releases, either on disc or as FLAC downloads.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have very few of the CDs mentioned on the website. Could be because I have always had a reaction against hyped up record releases. Over the last 10 years or so I've probably bought more contemporary jazz CDs following listening to the JazzSession podcast, listening to the radio, or reading a jazz mag review.

The lists are rather representative of JazzTimes readership. I wonder how a JazzWise list would shape out? Pretty similar probably.

CGR

I think that the marketing of records has played a crucial part in shifting. These lists strongly put me in mind of the Virgin Mega-store in Southampton who had a separate room for jazz and classical records in which there would be racks displaying certain new releases which were given more prominence than others. The JazzTimes list piqued my curiosity since it almost mirrored the same kind of records albeit I think that in the UK a label like ECM has a much stronger profile. I think that a similar exercise in Jazzwise would generate less crossover / fusion records at the expense of more European artists. I just sense someone like Kenny Wheeler's music would carry more weight than the likes of Nora Jones and Grover Washington on this side of the Atlantic.

Your comment about "hyped" records is interesting because I have tended to avoid. As a teenager I bought the first Courtney Pine album having seen him perform a few months earlier with George Russell and I was bitterly disappointed. Consequently, I have largely avoided jazz records which have been hyped with a few exceptions. It was about five years after it's release that I bought "Tutu" - largely because of a lack of enthusiasm I had for fusion. I quite liked it but it now sounds really dated. I bought the first Nora Jones album in the strength of "Don't know why" and the personal on the records. This is an excellent pop tune but the rest of the disc did not live up to my expectations. Gregory Porter's "Be good" exceeded my expectations, however and is a really decent record. I passed on the Kamasi Washington album although I liked the selections I heard. I would also have to say that I am more influenced by reviews on line and have a tendency to explore stuff I have never heard before. Personally, I am far more likely to take a chance on something unfamiliar that something where I could second guess what the music will sound like. i.e. I would be more likely to acquire a record by an artist I knew little about on a whim than the umpteenth Pat Metheny record. The list does strongly suggest loyalty to particular artists which I can appreciate but it does beg the question raised by Jaimie Branch regarding a particular tenor player as to just how many records by that musician do you need?

The most intriguing thing is whether the lists reflect the conservative nature of the JazzTimes audience or whether it masks the attraction for more niche artists. It is noticeable that the selected records could be considered "FM-friendly." I believe that there are plenty of jazz radio stations in the US and suggest that these might have a bearing on what becomes popular.

[eighthobstruction]

....yes i do buy contemporary jazz....not much UK jazz though....