Where Is the Black Audience Today?

Recently, Dizzy Gillespie visited Los Angeles to play a date with his group at El Camino College. This is the artist who, on Feb. 21, will be inducted into the Black Film Makers’ Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Oakland. He is the same creative giant whose achievements have been similarly acknowledged by the NAACP and other black organizations. Yet, the number of black music lovers in the audience was well under 5%. Later the same week, Gillespie played at an Oakland club, Yoshi’s, to a no less disproportionately white audience.

At the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, the Lionel Hampton and Count Basie orchestras performed not long ago for crowds that were even more overwhelmingly white.

One might conclude that these are not “black” neighborhoods, yet obviously there is nothing to prevent a fan of any race from attending jazz events, no matter what the area. But aside from this, I recall a most depressing experience some years ago when the Modern Jazz Quartet, whom I had never seen play to anything less than a substantial house, appeared at a black club in South-Central Los Angeles. The room was almost empty--on a Friday evening.

Why is it that a musical art form developed by Afro-Americans arouses such minimal enthusiasm in black communities? How can it be logically explained that the phrase black music, applied very discriminately to Earth, Wind & Fire, Salt ‘n’ Pepa, the Ojays, Heavy D. and the Boyz, et al., is never used in the trade papers to refer to Wayne Shorter, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner or Bobby McFerrin? (In a weird irony, Kenny G, a quasi-jazz musician who is white, currently has a slot on the “black” chart in Billboard.)

Almost all genuine jazz is shunned by a majority of radio outlets aimed at the black audience. Do most of these stations avoid jazz because there is no call for it, or is there no call for it because the stations have failed to create a demand? A vicious circle seems to be in operation.

The situation, though more conspicuous recently, is by no means new. Mike Gould, the veteran music publisher and record promoter, recalls visiting a Los Angeles station to push some Billy Eckstine records but being told, “We can’t play him.” Quizzed further, the deejay informed Gould that he also could not play Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan or Duke Ellington--this on a station aimed at what was then called the “colored market.”

Gould tartly informed him: “A lot of people have worked tirelessly to bring these great performers to the front of the bus, musically, but attitudes like yours are pushing them back. As for your audiences, in effect you are saying, ‘Why feed them chateaubriand when they’ll settle for hog maw and chitlins?’ ”

In the current issue of Ebony, essayist Marilyn Marshall raises the issue of black airplay. Though the headline on her story, “Are Blacks Giving Away Jazz?,” is perhaps comparable to asking “Are Italians Giving Away Opera?,” it is true, as Billy Taylor pointed out to her, that by and large the white community has indeed taken over support of the music.

A typical case history is that of Sonny Rollins, the saxophonist who will be visiting California this week. (He has dates in San Juan Capistrano on Tuesday and the Palace in Hollywood on Thursday.) It is safe to predict that the audiences who turn out to greet him will be predominantly white.

Born and raised in Harlem at a time when jazz was still the musical lingua franca of that community, Rollins has impeccable credentials. First prominent in the 1950s with Miles Davis and Max Roach, he has won numerous awards as the No. 1 tenor saxophonist. His compositions, such as “Oleo,” “Airegin,” “Dosy” and “St. Thomas,” have become jazz standards. Last year, he starred in the widely praised TV documentary “Saxophone Colossus” (now out on videocassette).

It seems unlikely that a record by the splendid group he is now leading (with his nephew Clifton Anderson on trombone, Mark Soskin on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Al Foster on drums) would make anything but a positive impact on the air were it to be slipped in between items by Stevie Wonder and Dana Dane. Men like Rollins do not need to be pigeonholed as black musicians, but neither do they deserve to be exiled, through the self-limiting policies of radio outlets, from the very media that could play a significant part in expanding their appeal.

Asked if he could analyze the situation, Rollins paused for a long time before replying slowly: “I’ve thought about this a lot, and it’s true. I’ve had the same experience. With certain exceptions, it’s mainly the white audience I’m playing for.”

Part of the problem, as he sees it, lies in the nature of jazz today. “Young black groups like Run-D.M.C. have a high-energy level; popular music has a quality that’s a little more elemental. Sometimes, in an art form like jazz, it’s possible to get to a certain plateau where it runs by itself, with no fresh energy infused into it. Maybe that’s what has happened.”

Surely, though, in its own way, the music of men like Rollins has an innate excitement and energy that can communicate to anyone. Asked how often his records enjoy airplay on the so-called black stations, Rollins said: “Probably never, but I can’t say for sure because I don’t listen to them. I feel bad about it, and I feel bad knowing that other artists aren’t played who should be. If people aren’t exposed to the music, how are they ever going to learn to appreciate it?”

There are, as Rollins observed, some fortunate exceptions. Certain black colleges have opened their doors to jazz composers as music faculty members; as a consequence, some leading artists have appeared there in concerts. Rollins has played at Morgan State and Howard universities and a few other black campuses.

A unique situation is that of the annual jazz festival cruises, which have attracted from 25% to 35% black passengers, most of them well-to-do and leaning toward mainstream jazz.

Where they are during the rest of the year is a good question, though some have helped swell the reasonably interracial crowds at a few clubs in New York and Los Angeles, and at special events such as the Hollywood Bowl summer jazz concerts.

Still, the bottom-line question remains unanswered: Could the black audience for jazz be enlarged through a more aggressive stance on the part of the media, most notably radio? Are the inner-city listeners to be limited forever to the diet of R&B;, soul music, rap and rock now offered them?

Critics, musicians and a substantial body of fans seem to agree that any music capable of giving the world some of the foremost creative artists of this century--Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Benny Carter, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Rollins and scores more--deserves to be presented more accessibly to listeners whose racial heritage they share. That is the very least the Afro-American segment of the public deserves, but we had better not hold our breath waiting for it to happen.