Moving Past The Same Argument We Always Have

Anthony Dean-Harris
Editor-in-Chief
anthony.deanharris[at]nextbop[dot]com / @retronius

Last night, I was flipping channels between Roy Haynes performing on Letterman and Eastwood After Hours: Live at Carnegie Hall (1997) on Turner Classic Movies. Earlier that day, I for the first time listened to Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson (1957), an album for which I was familiar and knew a few of the tracks, but never heard it all at once and how the tracks work so well together. As much as I try to advocate for modernism in jazz and especially as I try to move past the confines of classicism, it's impossible for me to completely cast aside jazz's past. It's not that I don't appreciate jazz roots, I just have a lot that I have to do. I wish more people would understand that about me. Even more, I wish more folks would understand I’m not alone in this plight.

It's no secret that Nextbop is not the only thing I have to do. I'm editing another publication. I have a part time job as an English tutor. My Google Reader is filled to the brim with music blogs, newspaper feeds, magazine articles, political commentary, and shared items. If I leave it alone for six hours, it can easily fill to overwhelming capacity of items easily marked as read without a second thought. A large part of the auspice of editing Nextbop and crafting a quality Line-Up each week is to constantly listen to new jazz music. All the while, I recognize that I still don't know nearly as much as I should about jazz's past and will make efforts to learn more of my roots. Still, much like my reticence to watch The Wire, a long running past seems more daunting than inspiring and I generally avoid something in entertainment that looks more to me like taking vitamins. Add to that the fact that jazz isn't the only genre of music that I listen to and thus also make time to listen to rock, R&B, and a little bit of hip hop (this, too, is a new occurrence). I'm also pretty adept at my knowledge of film and television and still watch a good deal of both. Needless to say, I consume a lot of media. Time management is a bit of an issue. Much of my generation have around the same amount of divergent interests. Yet time and again, I hear the harping of some older jazz figure lamenting the death of jazz, whether in sales or in ideology, and how young folks just don’t appreciate their elders like they used to.

What I find most irritating about all this is the conversation's inability to move forward. We can spend all day looking at examples like Gerald Clayton, Roy Hargrove, or Joshua Redman who have reconciled their playing under a classicist model for jazz while incorporating modernist elements. I can write increasingly similar screed after increasingly similar screed about how the two models can be reconciled, or how this argument isn't worth having because modernists won't up and stop making music and dyed-in-the-wool classicists won't stop complaining for love of the sound of their own laments, totally enamored in their "Jazz Ain't What It Used to Be And Why Don't My Kids Call Me Anymore Blues", and we could still have a blog post or magazine feature dredge up these same raw emotions to hearken yet another litany of comments and another week of interdisciplinary internet hot potato. When it's Geoffrey Keezer giving a very even-handed tweet about the importance to remember the basics of jazz while celebrating its new influences, the thought gets a few solemn head nods. When it's Dwayne Burno cursing up a storm and making sweeping statements about an entire generation, the comment is lambasted with relish or lovingly embraced instead of ignored like the inflammatory (and dare I say ignorant) neo-conservate speech best known from angry old men. (I love Peter Hum, I really do, but Hum, this post really pulled us all back in again.)

I'm going to put this out plainly. I am tired of having this argument. I know that by mentioning it here, I'm part of the problem by even acknowledging it. But I also know that we can't move forward if we have all this infighting holding us back. When an angry old man starts spouting off at the mouth, we need to follow the late Sidney Lumet's example in Twelve Angry Men and start turning away en masse. There will be times like these when we can let talk like this still hold us down, but we need to move forward and make strides to embrace different lines of thought and leave the grackles outside to screech into the morning until they tire themselves out.

So jazz community, I'm telling you this because I love you. I'm young, black, and I have a love of this genre of music in many of its iterations and permutations. There really aren’t a lot of folks in this community like me just based on those “young” and “black” elements. (And I’m stil male. Folks like Kyla Marshell, Angelika Beener, and Meghan Stabile show there are even fewer young, black females in the jazz scene. We’re all a pretty rare breed.). I'm a little involved in its scene and I am focused on seeing it's growth. And quite importantly, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. So please, jazz community, heed my advice-- young people aren't going to love and appreciate something just because you say it needs to be loved. If that worked, it would certainly be a whole lot easier to evangelize Christianity ("This is a bible. It says Jesus loves you." "Oh really, let me immediately ascribe to the belief structure you have just posed because I clearly have no preconceived notions about all of creation and am easily convinced of whatever people tell me and never question premises or sources." [And I say that as a rather devout Baptist]) Young people aren't going to stop liking what they like solely because an elder says something of their time is inherently important without providing a good reason. Most importantly, young people aren't going to stick around institutions that constantly lament ages of old. This does nothing for them.

Likewise, young people of the jazz internet (because let's face it, I can say internet now, I'm talking to young folk), heed my advice-- learning foundation gives you a greater appreciation and understanding of the institutions of today. Old people will always complain, so just sit there, nod your head and smile, and let them tire themselves out. Chances are, they're too stubborn try to agree with you at that moment anyway. Learning about more older forms of music gives you a certain degree of hipster cred. You're already into jazz, what's currently the ultimate obscure "Oh, I'm listening to ERIMAJ. Yeah, they play jazz. You probably never heard of them" kind of moment you technically have all the time. 1) Play that up more often. 2) You can definitely take that further and say, "Oh, you don't know Mingus Ah Um? It's a totally important album. Psh, what kind of person are you?" Serious hipster cred there, just try not to be a dick about it. We already have small numbers and a stigma; we need to work that angle, though. Lastly, call your grandmother more often (and I should probably practice what I preach), she’d really appreciate it even if she spends half the phone call complaining about how she wished you called her more often. Like I said, old people love to complain. It keeps the circulation going, I guess.

Essentially, this is a mutual effort. I hope I don’t have to argue until I’m blue in the face about this (which would be quite an accomplishment on my behalf with my rich caramel complexion), but I really hope that we as a community can move forward. There will be disagreements about art and its direction but that is by no means an excuse to lose cordiality, even less so an excuse to lose our good sense. I don’t want to have to talk about this again, but I probably will; jazz people always get caught up in one tizzy or another.

Anthony Dean-Harris is a co-editor of the online literary blog, SunDryed Affairs, a contributing writer for African-American Reflections and hosts the modern jazz radio show, The Line-Up, Fridays at 9pm CST on 91.7 FM KRTU San Antonio. More of his writing can be found at his blog, In Retrospect and you can also follow him on Twitter.