Then word from H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales (1928) why not:
They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R’lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway.
Sends shivers down the spine eh, you can always rely on Lovecraft for a touch of the reliably barking slash fantastical.
My reason for running the quote above is to do with cults. Careful now. But gotta have a lead in, somehow.
Digression over. Has jazz become a cult? Carried away with its own rites and rituals? In the words of Mrs Merton let’s have a heated debate.
Oblivious to the wider music industry?
Full of arcane lingo, bizarre practices (audiences clapping solos, the extolling of “chops”, odd hat wear, nodding) is this, to the wider world, a deliberate mystery? An attitude of we like being in the wilderness?
If you subscribe to the idea you can see and explain why it happened. Neglect, a music that is extremely difficult to play properly, a feeling of being hard done by, small gigs attended by one man and his dog, Rover, getting down to the grooves – and the Street Choir AWOL from the groves of academe if not otherwise engaged with the White Lightning for purposes of warding off the vapours. Mmm, reliably.
Booster-ish types take the reverse approach and pooh-pooh such posh-oh or otherwise “negging” however insincerely conveyed.
“Oh there were 160 people packed into the back room of the Olde Dawg on Thursday to hear Militant Mike and his Terminators rip through ‘Cherokee’ – All that Tristram, and no publicity – note, kind sirrah. And there was a bally tube strike. Huzzah. Put that in your pipe and SMOKE it. Everybody digs jazz. Pass the port, Rupe, like a good chap. Lovely.
Quite. My thoughts? Jazz is FAR too big to be a cult. Why then am I rewatching Paul Thomas Anderson classic The Master?
Ah, of course – reminding myself again not to become a Scientologist although often tempted to check out the apparently “banging” East Grinstead dianetics jazz scene when walking down the Tottenham Court Road and accosted by somebody even more naive than me.
What if the icons become fewer and fewer, though? Who is worshipped then?
Is it a case – down the jazz care home – in the words of the Stranglers song ‘No More Heroes’:
All the Shakespeares?
They watched their Rome burn
Whatever happened to the heroes?”
No other love
Personally I like, as much as the next person – irony alert – dinner at 4pm but hey not to be sniffed at if you rise at dawn and a visiting accordionist reprising the hits of Daniel O’Donnell is the ONLY diversion much more preferable than a trip to the men’s shed or Emmerdale… any day of the week is an improvement. Bring it on.
Infrastructures have grown because of the ability of the community to organise itself. Myths and legendary things help the scene develop its own culture.
Dreams of the elders are inspirational. We can swear we heard Buddy Bolden shout! Teachers playing jazz with students is a way of combatting ageism and being at one with a new generation is a good thing. Each one, teach one. Jazz musicians are more educated than most pop or rock musicians and have far greater ability and a technical grasp usually.
And if you gaze out at the next audience you find yourself playing to and work out there are only three people out there – that’s not a cult that’s three people of insight and independence. They aren’t brainwashed by media to be there because the media is writing about something else entirely. Jazz is far more than three chords and the truth. They are there because they love the music, know what they want and go for it.
Monetising the music is the last thing on anyone’s mind. I find it deeply shocking when I meet entitled “jazz marketing folk” earning more than their charges.
Jazzers don’t need to be on the cover of a magazine or pander to daytime TV or even bitter at the chancers.
They get by on terribly inadequate, demeaning fees. The cynic – another post – knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing; the sentimentalist, more applicable perhaps, the absurd value of everything, the market price of nary a single thing. Dear Oscar of course.
Far beyond sentimentalism, being able to express that sound of jazz inside body and soul is the first thing on anyone’s mind.
Call it a cult or delusional if you will but it hasn’t gone away, you know. And won’t. Let’s hope.
– Check out the marlbank gig guide – you’ll see at a grassroots level all over the place there’s lots going on.
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