You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Do We Think About The Word "Jazz?" - #167

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

Today Peter and Adam try not to skirt around a somewhat controversial subject: the word "jazz". See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Ennis and I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Daily jazz advice coming at you. You know, that's interesting because today we're talking about the word jazz. Oh, that's right. Are we going to be able to skirt this for yet another day? I don't know.

We have a question from one of our listeners, I believe, right? I hate controversy. Yeah, no, we have a question from our loyal listener, Joe. What's up, Joe? Yep, Joe is a good dude. And he writes in... The great state of Texas, I believe. That's right.

Yep. He writes, I'd like to know. what you guys think about the word jazz, you've skirted the topic before, but I just watched Miles ahead and mentioned Miles saying that jazz was a made-up word. It's social music. Nicholas Payton calls it black American music. What do you think? What do you think, Pete? Well, Miles ahead, that was the Don Chito movie, right? Okay, first of all, that's not a documentary. No. Although I do think that Miles probably spoke about this in his autobiography with Quincy Troop. That would probably be, you know, really the place to go to see what he said about that or some

interviews and things like that. So we should be careful just about these kind of, that's not even a docu drama, is that what it's considered? I think it's pretty Hollywood-ized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, it brings up, you know, an interesting point. And I think, you know, I don't know, until recently, I didn't know a lot about the history of the word jazz. To me, you know, words are powerful and meaningful, and everybody brings a different perception. And I think that when we're in a multicultural environment, which is basically what the world is, is most parts of the world as it should be. We need to understand these things

and bring some sensitivity to this. And I think that most people, you know, the good things about jazz is to most people, musicians or not, certainly non-musicians, it has a very positive connotation now, I think. People think, I mean, the most negative thing

is like, that's some weird, complicated music that I have to study and you have to go to school to learn how to play. Right, right. That it's like a nerd thing would be the only maybe negative. But a lot of the controversy of the is based upon the entomology of the word and the origins of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and then to me, I probably bring, and it may be similar to you and a lot of musicians of our generation,

the connotation of the word is such a beautiful thing because it represents the culture of this music that we love so much, the musicians, the music, most importantly, the lineage of it, you know, everything that it's brought, you know, to my life. So I see it as a very positive thing. Now, when you start to dig deeper, you can kind of start to be like, ugh, yeah, maybe. It's definitely a weird word from a weird time that was, you know, kind of put upon a sound of music that was, you know, in a weird way. But it's kind of one of those things that's like now it's been so long and it's been around that, you know, everybody just kind of accepted it. To me, whenever I hear the word, I think of the sound. That's all I think of.

And I think that's the way with a lot of words, you know, that probably have positive and negative connotations is you just think of it in the context of your lifetime. Right. And that can change for people. I mean, it's like there's a certain time when either. television or Hollywood or radio, whatever, could start to put out a certain image. Like, people hear jazz and they think, oh, a heroin-addicted saxophone player. I mean, all different things can be assigned to something that aren't necessarily real. So we always bring our perception and where we are sitting to that kind of situation, I think.

I mean, it's also the word starts, it is kind of a funny sounding word once you think about it, but it's got like some interesting kind of, you know, jazz, you know, z and stuff. That's very of the time, right? Yeah. And it kind of comes back around, you know how like adding a Z to something, you know, skills. That was kind of in for a while. It was in for you. It was in.

Well, we're the, my family is actually officially the Martins. That's right. If you come to our house, like our Wi-Fi network is the Martins. Yeah, yeah. What do you think about? Not the password, though. What do you think about Nicholas Payton and, you know, his writing on the word and black American music? Is this a good time to skirt?

No. No, I mean, I think that Nicholas is probably, you know, one of the most thoughtful, if not most thoughtful, musicians of our generation's most intelligent. I mean, certainly one of the most amazing musicians. Incredible. But thoughtful historians as a musician from such a unique point of view. And I think that he probably nails these issues better than anyone does.

I mean, it's not just him. There's a lot of other folks that, you know, have joined in, I don't know. I'm sure that Nicholas didn't come up with black American music, but he started doing bam and using that. And really, you know, came at it for, from a standpoint that made a lot of sense, I think. I encourage everybody actually to read Nicholas' blogs,

his posts on the Word, jazz, and on Black American music. It's really interesting. I also encourage... Yeah, just Google Nicholas Payton, Bam. Yeah, it's some good stuff. It's really good stuff. Also, Amiri Braka has a lot of writings, even back in the day, on the Word, and what they were calling it in the 60s and the music, you know.

I don't know if he's written on it blog posts, but Orrin Evans has some great thoughts on this. I remember talking with him, And, you know, he's worked, I know he did an interview, like a panel thing with Nicholas, and I remember hearing him speak. Like, he has some really unique and intelligent perspectives on this. Yeah, that's great. Well, Joe, you know, we didn't skirt it, that's for sure. But we also...

We might not have concluded it, conclusively answered it. Yeah, you know, words are complicated and always shifting, and it is what it is. For now... I think what may be the situation with this, there's definitely some better alternatives, and black American music is a far superior, you know, definition. there may be too much kind of cultural and institutional, you know, from a what could be perceived as a positive side using jazz for long enough now that that ship may have sailed for better, for worse. That's what I'm not sure about. So you talk about, you know, jazz studies department. This phrase of like jazz is America's classical music. That's used so much on the institutional level and, you know, musicians. And I mean, I remember Went Marsal, I think it was the first one I heard saying that, Duke Allington, that. And I don't, I'm not, you know, there's a, you know, there's. You know, There's some things about that for me I was never crazy about because it was like, I mean. It's different. It's just you're trying to make it sound like elitist and important.

The music already makes it that that it's important. Yeah, yeah. You know, but I understand why it was done and to place it. And in terms of money that was, institutional money that was put behind jazz, that really opened the door. A lot of people started thinking, oh, this is America. Well, why are we putting all this music into European music when we have our own music? And so that would have been the time to say black American music, the same way, European classical

or whatever. But ultimately, you know, the timing of it may not have been quite right. But we'll see. We'll see. Well, thanks, Joe, for the question. And if anybody else has a question, controversial or not, you can always go to you'll hear it.com. Let's get back to our list of seven great albums. I think we'd do that one better.

Yeah, we're also still running, you know, our You'll Hear at Special for our listeners. That's 10% off of any Open Studio All Access Pass annual. I like the word rag time. That wasn't, was that controversial? Ragtime? I don't know. We should ask Royce, our in-house official ragtime expert. We're steps from the Scott Joplin House. Yeah. I'm just thinking of other words we could choose. I guess that wouldn't work. You want to come to my ragtime gig? No, it's going to be jazz. That's Royce. It says that all the time, man. That's true. Well, his gig is actually a ragtime gig.

Yeah, he does ragtime gigs all the time. Yeah, let's, you can go to you'll hear.com, asker's question, you can enter you'll hear it 10. If you go to open studio network.com to save 10% on an annual all access pass. That's right. Inclusive. Yeah. And with that and every other

word, you'll hear it.