Send This Sound Into the Next Millennium

Rock, with its numerous offspring, may have been the dominant musical form of the post-’60s decades, but jazz was the soundtrack that stretched--in one form or another--across the entire 20th century.

And, with the arrival of the last year of the last decade of the millennium, one can only wonder what role jazz will play in the next century.

One thing seems sure.

If jazz is to continue to be a global voice reflecting American culture, but responsive to local variations in virtually every country around the world, it’s going to have to take a closer look at where it’s been, what it is and where it’s going.

So here’s a start--eight small steps to help jazz make the giant leap into the next millennium:

1. Stop Reliving the Past: Yes, it’s important for young players to work their way through the lexicon of bebop, post-bebop and electric jazz. And, yes, material from the past can provide useful foundations for improvisation. But using the music as a source is very different from using its re-creation as the basis for a style. Jazz is inherently an adventurous art, always at its best when it is seeking new arenas for spontaneous expression. And simulations of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane--however well-intended and accurately expressed--can never be more than imitations.

2. Seems to Me I’ve Heard That Song Before: As long as we’re talking about the past, it’s hard to argue with the tunes in the so-called Great American Songbook--the music of Berlin, Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Rodgers & Hart, etc. Add the blues, and you’ve got the foundation (harmonically if not melodically) of most jazz performances. It’s good enough music to stimulate a lot more improvisation, regardless of style. But new tunes are needed, and there’s still a wealth of post-’60s material available for exploration.

3. Education Is Just Education: The proliferation of jazz educational programs--from grammar school to graduate school--suggests that jazz is reaching into the community on many levels. But it’s a deceptive image. How many of the thousands of young people who are assiduously studying jazz in high school and college will ever be able to make a living performing the music? Five percent? Ten percent? It’s great to encourage kids to understand and appreciate jazz from a performance perspective, and that’s the thrust that should be given much more prominence in jazz education. If nothing else, it will help build a new jazz audience. But it’s wrong to encourage kids to believe--other than for the most gifted few--that there’s viable career potential in a field already overflowing with first-rate, largely unemployed players.

4. Get the Butts in the Seats: So why aren’t all those educated, jazz-aware young people finding their way into clubs? It’s not the distance they have to drive, and it’s not the lack of major acts. It’s the cover charge, stupid. Most college students simply can’t afford $18-$20 cover charges (plus drinks, plus tips, plus parking) to hear jazz on a regular basis. Instead of asking musicians to play before empty seats in the early nights of their run, why not fill those seats via low-priced student tickets?

5. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing: Ornette Coleman used to refer to colleagues who concentrated on the financial aspects of their careers as “economical musicians.” But even such visionary jazz artists as Duke Ellington and Miles Davis were well aware that--beyond the artistry of what they were doing--they also were creating a product that needed to be marketed. Too many jazz players feel that their jobs end when they leave the recording studio. But, as is vividly clear in the careers of Joshua Redman and Diana Krall, a well-thought-out marketing program--combining promotion, public relations, touring, etc.--can move an act from the 10,000-album sales level to the hundreds-of-thousands level. Proportionally, it can have just as much impact for an entry-level musician.

6. It’s a Small, Small World: And getting smaller every day, with first-rate jazz being produced by performers from every part of the globe: Cuba’s Arturo Sandoval and Paquito D’Rivera, France’s Jacky Terrasson, Japan’s Junko Onishi, to name only a few. Having proven that they can compete at the highest level via the jazz basics, international artists can, and should, move (as the Cubans, in particular, have done) toward integrating jazz elements into their own cultural expressions. Taking the music global is one of the important jazz tasks of the next century.

7. Watch Out for Strangers Bearing Gifts: The temptation to place jazz in an academic or institutionalized setting is hard to resist. The success of the Lincoln Center Jazz program and other similarly ambitious programs has encouraged foundations, corporations and art centers to provide underwriting for the music. And that can be all to the good. But the potential for a Faustian covenant--one that moves the music into a codified setting, light years away from its vital, street sources--is always present. Program directors at places such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian Institution and the Hollywood Bowl would do well to make sure that they balance the traditional repertory with a receptivity to the changing currents in the outer limits of jazz.

8. The Messiah May Be Late: The moaning and groaning about the absence of a Louis Armstrong or a Charlie Parker or a Miles Davis in the jazz of the late ‘90s overlooks the fact that plenty of first-rate new music is still being produced. Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, among the older players, and Joshua Redman, Jacky Terrasson, Stefon Harris, Craig Handy and Christian McBride, among the younger musicians, may not be the new jazz messiahs, but they have plenty to say that’s worth hearing.

Jazz, at the turn of the century, is now a mature art form, one fully capable of moving forward without the burst of energy provided by a charismatic creative figure. But don’t worry. One will come along soon, and--as with Coltrane--he or she may be upon us before we are fully aware of the power of his or her presence.