Samara Joy, others just Ale and arty.

**Serial_Apologist** · 29-04-23, 22:21

This week's advertised fare seems not to be attracting the usual numbers. I am wondering what people felt about Samara Joy. Undoubtedly she is very good as a model conventional "jazz singer"; judging by her introductions I guess she had gauged her audience well

I couldn't help thinking that, had she been around in the 1960s she would have stood out among the well known vocalists of that era, but for me the whole performance - "How many couples are in the audience tonight?" etc. - smacked of two generations back in the past.

**Quarky** · 30-04-23, 07:49

At age 23, she has plenty of time to develop in various directions. Rather than staying rooted in the past, being regarded as a younger version of Sarah Vaughan, she might develop her skills of composition, as with folk/pop singers, e.g. Joni Mitchell.

**Ian Thumwood** · 30-04-23, 11:08

Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post

This week's advertised fare seems not to be attracting the usual numbers. I am wondering what people felt about Samara Joy. Undoubtedly she is very good as a model conventional "jazz singer"; judging by her introductions I guess she had gauged her audience well

I couldn't help thinking that, had she been around in the 1960s she would have stood out among the well known vocalists of that era, but for me the whole performance - "How many couples are in the audience tonight?" etc. - smacked of two generations back in the past.

I did not bother to listen although I have been aware of the amount of media attention Samara Joy has been getting. It is depressing that singers seem to be getting the lion's share of what little media attention jazz gets but it perhaps symptomatic of the state of music in general. It because of stuff like this that I have largely lost interest in contemporary jazz although the conundrum of what jazz is seems to be equally problematic too. I feel the latter issue to have been especially damaging and largely a product of too many white / European musicians trying to redefine jazz - especially where they have come out of a classical (and middle class) education. I wish more black, American musicians would re-connect with the freer element of jazz as opposed to the more groove-orientated stuff churned out by the likes of Robert Glasper which would have been dismissed as fusion forty years ago. To a large extent, the "mainstream" in jazz seems totally played out and as the last generations of meaningful players head towards their pensions, the void just seems to be filled with nostalgia acts like Samara Joy which look back to the heyday of jazz. Jazz has lost it's ability to shock and challenge and you wonder what the point of it is in 2023.

I find the whole situation really depressing and am shocked how jazz has changed both it what is being performed and the attitude of musicians from when I first started listening to jazz on the 1980s. The problem sems manifest to me. A great technique is a given these days and I think musicians are more technically savvy with both how they approach music theory and employ technology including music production. I would have to say that the major sea change with music is that in the last twenty years production has been more valued that innovation. Even record labels like ECM can no longer claim to be at the vanguard of jazz with the approach on this label having become fossilised. For me, I find it a very sad state of affairs. You can find musicians who are creative but the jazz media often refuses to explore these avenues . There was an interesting interview that I read this week where Ken Vandermark was questioned about the vibrancy of the music scene in Chicago which he has likened to what was happening there in the 1990s. It is really fascinating as much of this music is seriously under-reported.

As I have said before, I personally think that the most interesting developments currently in jazz come from both the avant garde and those musicians seriously grappling with composition. The rest of jazz is in danger of becoming a museum piece or at least disconnecting with it's black , American heritage which I feel is really problematic for the future of the music. By the same token, I do wonder who the audience for jazz is. I strongly believe that listeners rarely want to invest time "understanding" jazz so that Samara Joy is an easy way in -albeit I would suggest that she is probably better than a lot give her credit for. At the same time as reading the Vandermark article, I read that saxophonist Jameel Moondoc has passed a few years back and was reflecting how unnoticed this was in the media. I would suggest that players like Vandermark and Moondoc are more honest and intergral to what jazz is about that a singer whose style is rooted in the 1950s and 60s.

In my opinion jazz shot itself if the foot in the early 2000s in being obsessed with the modish as opposed to looking a building an audience for anything that is more demanding than say the jazz / pop act, the EST trio. The problem is that audiences these days are diminishing in size and are reluctant to listen to music that is considered a challenge. This is volte face with how i got into jazz in the 1980s. I do not feel that it is an issue that solely applies to jazz either. I believe that the Improv scene is a shadow of it's former self when it could attract audiences in the 70s, 80s and 90s. If you listen to commercial radio you have an even worse situation where there is a limited range of music with play lists limited to the greatest hits of popular bands and a similar dissatisfaction with contemporary artists. In the light of audiences wanting to remain in their comfort zone and wishing to listen to something familiar or evokes their perception of nostalgia Samara Joy makes perfect sense.

**Serial_Apologist** · 01-05-23, 16:01

Originally posted by Ian Thumwood View Post

I did not bother to listen although I have been aware of the amount of media attention Samara Joy has been getting. It is depressing that singers seem to be getting the lion's share of what little media attention jazz gets but it perhaps symptomatic of the state of music in general. It because of stuff like this that I have largely lost interest in contemporary jazz although the conundrum of what jazz is seems to be equally problematic too. I feel the latter issue to have been especially damaging and largely a product of too many white / European musicians trying to redefine jazz - especially where they have come out of a classical (and middle class) education. I wish more black, American musicians would re-connect with the freer element of jazz as opposed to the more groove-orientated stuff churned out by the likes of Robert Glasper which would have been dismissed as fusion forty years ago. To a large extent, the "mainstream" in jazz seems totally played out and as the last generations of meaningful players head towards their pensions, the void just seems to be filled with nostalgia acts like Samara Joy which look back to the heyday of jazz. Jazz has lost it's ability to shock and challenge and you wonder what the point of it is in 2023.

I think it is actually possible to define what jazz is and hear much of what gets put on J to Z as long as one adheres to the continuities and practices that remain present in the music, rather than trying to define it in terms of "feel", or the necessity for "tunes" or clear rhythmic definition, else we get in trouble over this listener's idea of the "right kind of feel". We know that musician A from Generation L disapproved strongly of Musician B from Generation M, and yet we love or at least respect both musicians and their contributions. I tend also to think public jazz tastes tend to be generational too; at the same time I respect your admiration for early jazz, understanding that personal perspective to generationally reflect the consolidatory stage jazz had entered by the time you came into the music, whereas for me, in the early 1960s, it was at its most revolutionary, with political implications that seemed almost imminent. The fact that politics then went backwards and have continued to do so would inevitably result in jazz becoming "just another" means for musically endowed people from often relatively privileged backgrounds to do it well as an alternative to rock or folk music ("too simple"), along with academicisation and the nearest it's possible to commodification, while the most revolutionary aspects become (in John Stevens' words more or less) an imagined ideal world in which talented and less talented could formulate music together before sympathetic listeners.

I find the whole situation really depressing and am shocked how jazz has changed both it what is being performed and the attitude of musicians from when I first started listening to jazz on the 1980s. The problem sesms manifest to me. A great technique is a given these days and I think musicians are more technically savvy with both how they approach music theory and employ technology including music production. I would have to say that the major sea change with music is that in the last twenty years production has been more valued that innovation. Even record labels like ECM can no longer claim to be at the vanguard of jazz with the approach on this label having become fossilised. For me, I find it a very sad state of affairs. You can find musicians who are creative but the jazz media often refuses to explore these avenues . There was an interesting interview that I read this week where Ken Vandermark was questioned about the vibrancy of the music scene in Chicago which he has likened to what was happening there in the 1990s. It is really fascinating as much of this music is seriously under-reported.

This substantiates my view that the changes you and I agree have occurred reflect the present-day situation.

As I have said before, I personally think that the most interesting developments currently in jazz come from both the avant garde and those musicians seriously grappling with composition. The rest of jazz is in danger of becoming a museum piece or at least disconnecting with it's black, American heritage which I feel is really problematic for the future of the music. By the same token, I do wonder who the audience for jazz is. I strongly believe that listeners rarely want to invest time "understanding" jazz so that Samara Joy is an easy way in -albeit I would suggest that she is probably better than a lot give her credit for. At the same time as reading the Vandermark article, I read that saxophonist Jameel Moondoc has passed a few years back and was reflecting how unnoticed this was in the media. I would suggest that players like Vandermark and Moondoc are more honest and integral to what jazz is about than a singer whose style is rooted in the 1950s and 60s.

Personally I see it as no problem that jazz has in some instances evolved away from its Afro-American heritage; this was inherent from the start, when white people became aware that jazz was no " primitive" music but spiritually liberating to the post-Victorian repressed spirit as well as intellectually challenging. There is still plenty of jazz that is deeply directly connected to its black heritage, or re-connecting via other compatible genres on its own terms in a multiculturalised world, and not just in America. And of how leading Americans began to appreciate and work with for example British jazz musicians once we began to stop thinking of ourselves as second-hand imitators of some "genuine" article.

In my opinion jazz shot itself if the foot in the early 2000s in being obsessed with the modish as opposed to looking a building an audience for anything that is more demanding than say the jazz / pop act, the EST trio. The problem is that audiences these days are diminishing in size and are reluctant to listen to music that is considered a challenge. This is volte face with how i got into jazz in the 1980s. I do not feel that it is an issue that solely applies to jazz either. I believe that the Improv scene is a shadow of it's former self when it could attract audiences in the 70s, 80s and 90s. If you listen to commercial radio you have an even worse situation where there is a limited range of music with play lists limited to the greatest hits of popular bands and a similar dissatisfaction with contemporary artists. In the light of audiences wanting to remain in their comfort zone and wishing to listen to something familiar or evokes their perception of nostalgia Samara Joy makes perfect sense.

With capitalism now in serious trouble it is no surprise to find its proponents, publicists and apologists doubling down by presenting jazz in its safest light, or that jazz with some of the ingredients that went into evolving it into a radical form at its most challenging missing or re-simplified to make a "new" jazz, one that is emblematic of the "world of freedom" in the same way safe old classical (and some post-Minimalist or Neo this that or the other) music is, which jazz true to its very own sustaining spirit really is not. Your solution to these problems is I think to locate the problems of current jazz on purely musical terrain terms, while mine is to remind myself of what the jazz that most appeals to me consists in by listening to it in its time.

Samara Joy, others just Ale and arty.

Samara Joy, others just Ale and arty.

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