OK. Jazz Tribes.
You didn’t know you were in one. Who me? Yes, you, us. Reader, all of us at least some of the time and we switch or belong to a few. The tribes – beyond jazz these might be punks, goths, ravers, metal fans – are arrived at via various routes so here goes within jazz itself the microniche – nice – jazzers.
1 The clubster
You read that right. Jazz clubbing is a great way to build knowledge by going to the same place regularly and finding new artists delivered up by the programmers of the specialist jazz club or night that you most dig.
Try a number of clubs first if new. You’ll soon work out if you like the place enough to return regularly. Then you can dig deep and work out why certain regulars go down so well and catch them live.
2 Style counsellor
Not your typical plumber look. Beboppers were the coolest of all and the descendants of the pioneers who follow their example still make an effort. Cast your eyes around the jazz club the next time you’re there for tips.
3 Muso
There’s nothing like friends coming out to support your gig if you play yourself especially when you’re starting out. Peer approval is better than zany mirrors down the end of the pier any night of the week.
4 Media lover
OK we are not talking about what sub-editor second jobbing as the jazz guy in The Times recommends or the rightwing classical writer who nobody reads found in The Telegraph moonlighting on the jazz beat. Media influenced usually means the brand that is Gilles Peterson, whether his record label, festival in a field or radio show. There’s no other show in town really in terms of the jazz media at the BBC.
5 Socialite
No, you’re not necessarily on the Brew. You’re down the social that is online all the time. But this brings us to why Laufey who is the most streamed jazz artist of the new generation has succeeded. Streaming we think is very like social media. But Spotify and other services like it are the devil incarnate to some musicians because of the terrible royalty rates and tech sector exploitation. Even if you hate the very idea of it it’s patent stupidity not to be on a streamer. Just as when some avant labels typically put 30 second extracts of tracks only pre-release on Bandcamp (you know who you are!) being a refusenik doesn’t make sense.
We live in a consumer driven world musically when ”impressions” – not the miraculous John Coltrane sense but the non-purchasing consumption of free music as a first point of entry – is the only game in town for PROFILE and FREE ADVERTISING.
That’s the Faustian pact of being on it and even accessing music via it which is let’s face it weird if you grew up as we did with cassettes, singles and LPs.
You get some profile and free shares and then have to try somehow to get people to move over to buy physical stuff and better still turn up at gigs.
Musician starting out and even established heads: you won’t have the marketing muscle to buy advertising in some megabrand or back links. So how instead are you going to promote stuff on your own label if you have one? Use any free tools at your disposal. If only 1 per cent of people streaming – if these numbers achieved are any way respectable that is and they’re going to be modest, let’s face it – either buy something physical or even better go to a gig and be long term you will have used the tech to your advantage. How are you gonna destroy Spotify, pal? By not being on it. Great idea!
6 The eclectic
This kind of listener and gig goer typically like all sorts of music including jazz and occasionally goes to hear jazz acts who they have heard of somehow via Jools Holland or somebody playing it on Strictly.
7 Avantist
Critics, and avant jazz fans are not only critics but soi-disant intellectuals to boot. But if you think only avant-garde albums qualify as top jazz listening you are barking.
8 Label lover
Usually this means people who adore Blue Note, ECM or let’s be sane for a moment, both. Other labels are available!
9 Collector
The tribe who don’t listen to what they buy but post the artwork in their socials, keep the CDs and vinyl in shrink wrap and talk matrix numbers or vinyl pressings tankard in hand over a few real ales down the Dog and Duck or squirrelled away in a windowless basement somewhere in deepest Borehamwood chilling before the next swoop for audio treasure rare as hen’s teeth on eBay. Most worship down the Soul Station at the shrine of Hank Mobley because rare vinyl by the great tenorist is the most valuable and collectable artist discography out there. Fact.
10 Tradster
Easy tiger. Also known as trad jazzers in a UK sense ”the UK jazz explosion” these days contains no trad jazz. Mainly that’s because its heyday was in the pre-Beatles time of Mr Acker Bilk. Everyone’s gran’s favourite squeeze at one time or other to be bowled over by, geddit, the Basin Street Brawlers, Pigfoot and other new gen whippersnappers owe Bilk, Kenny Ball and Chris Barber a lot. And what about the dearly missed and very amusing jazzman’s very own surrealist and Bessie Smith loving belter George Melly? Ah, them’s were the days.
A term that means different things to different people but usually includes bands like the band Mark Knopfler immortalised and gently poked fun at in ‘Sultans of Swing’.
But before you sneer, revert to snide comments about stomping, banjos etc and old pub haunts in Deptford spare a thought sometimes trad slips in through ingenious reinvention and many avant-garde players were once upon a time trad jazzers. Even ragtime, a proto-jazz style, put through the Postmodern Jukebox juicer, is somehow a thing. But god we love Knopfler even when he’s taking the piss a bit. Who said, jazzer, you shouldn’t laugh at yourself? Check out MK’s brilliant and quite jazzy ‘Mr Solomons Said‘ which we have played to death this year which you may not know yet. No wonder because to us it’s the UK’s no.1 jazz drummer Ian ‘Ianto’ Thomas on the track doing incredibly simple things you might think extremely well at a pace where others might crumble into simply snoozing along.
11 Spiritual jazzer
This is usually to do with the worship of father, son and holy ghost John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Albert Ayler and the hundreds upon hundreds of artists since who have been inspired by this jazz trinity.
12 GOAT lover
The kind of listener who like Dean Benedetti in the case of Charlie Parker, Francis Paudras in the case of Bud Powell or Simon Spillett in the case of Tubby Hayes idolises deeply and life changingly one particular artist as chosen Greatest of all Time (GOAT) and all round diamond gal or geezer.
13 Lifestyler
Folk who like jazz to talk over it with their friends in bars, supper clubs and restaurants. And they also flock to the movies for the genre as soundtrack to a drama or comedy picking up the sounds somehow along the way for flavour and mystique as much as anything else. Do check out Robert Altman’s genius homage to KC jazz found on 1996 flick Kansas City. Reader, you too will be swinging.
You must be logged in to post a comment.