Jazz and Elitism | What makes Jazz fans so snobby!

Not all Jazz fans are elitist snobs, but not all Jazz fans aren't....

Andy is a drummer, producer and educator. He has toured the world with rock legend Robert Plant and played on classic prog albums by Frost and IQ.

As a drum clinician he has played with Terry Bozzio, Kenny Aronoff, Thomas Lang, Marco Minneman and Mike Portnoy.

He also teaches drums privately and at Kidderminster College

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elitism is a cultural indicator of a higher social class, upper middle class or middle class wanting the supposed exclusive cultural qualities of the UMC. In Europe, since the 80 s its become more generalized IMHO.

[johannhauffman]

Wunderbar Video Andy. Might be in the top ten, but only time will tell.
I am no snob, but……
About a year ago we hosted a dinner party with friends.
We played popular music, mostly classic rock and some pop throughout the evening.
Everyone had fun. Many laughs and an enjoyable time for all.
As it was winding down I put on “Kind of Blue”. Perfekt for the situation. If you want to listen it is interesting. If you don’t want to listen it is perfect background music. And I just love it.
A short while later I stepped outside for a smoke. I return and Miles is away. In place is some 80’s german pop Video with some beavus and butthead quality animation.

Now I stomped about a bit. Just a bit, not like a four year old. And I pointed out the absolute
Wrongness of what happened in my absence. (In a fun way).
I think this is justified.
Question is….
Would this make me a Jazz Snob? ?

[ernietarling]

What gets missed a lot is the role of melody. A lot of the most popular jazz up to the sixties really, is improvising well known melodies, and putting a new slant on them. There were some very good musicians writing their own original material, Ellington, Monk, John Lewis etc. But then a lot of people started writing material that was not strong, and then improvising on effectively nothing. People are not stupid; they lose interest. The same goes for a lot of so-called techno music; no melody, just an intro that carries on and goes nowhere.

[adbadhed]

My local jazzers won't let anyone sit in and there's no decent jam session nearby. So I play in a rock n roll band and its made me a better player.

[MattCarter]

What I like about bop guys playing over standards like the GAS etc is that it’s like a musical discussion about that tune.

[CVGuitar]

17:11 lol -- FZ had that quote about how without deviation from the norm, progress isn't possible

[greggibbs]

Art is becoming more and more democratic, given the wide spread of art styles among the population - musicians, artists, writers, poets, film, dance, etc. Art is not elitist, though perhaps in the past. Now more and more can engage in their artistic skills. In fact there are too many books, too many paintings, too many albums, too much of everything to the point where you materially know it is now an arty populism.

[jibsmokestack]

Lester Young invented cool and most of the hipster lingo that followed. He either first said it or it was first said about him. With the ‘Birth of the Cool’ session Miles codified Cool Jazz but that sound and the musicians that played it was greatly influenced by Lester Young!

[revkenwiz]

I thought classical music fans were snobbish. Jazz tends to exhibit a superior feeling over other genres. Peace & love

[navyflyer]

When Benny Goodman was chosen because he was a white band leader for the national jazz radio program. The Jazz critics call the music sophisticated and intelligent. Those adjectives had never been used for Count Basie or Chic The classical musicians were snobs and white Jazz critics brought that snobbery over into jazz. Jazz musicians on a whole are down-to-earth.

[jesseleecable]

If you can't be a snob about jazz, what can you be a snob about?

[Hartlor_Tayley]

I like bad jazz and I don’t care. Great chat Andy.

[Keith-zfn]

I'm a part time jazz musician average ability and I don't care what people think of me.The number of solo hours I've spent trying to hone my skills none of the knockers were there at any stage.

[Eriugena]

Is that a rhetorical question? Because the answer is all the talking.

[jacksonelmore]

Albert Ayler is my favorite sax player does that make me a snob

[TeaParty]

Some of Coltrane's music sounds like a strangled duck.

[michaellord]

Replace "Jazz" with "Classical music" and you can make the exact same arguments. Mustache doesn't work. Clean shaven or goatee or bust.

[kristijankozarmiletic]

Personal experience: jazz musicians were some of the most insufferable douchebags i ever played with obssesed with some stupid theory stuff instead of just playing or writing something thats fun and nice to listen to... for example, had way more fun with some death metal guys, who barely knew how to play their instruments. Nobody knew any music theory, or all the chords... hell some didnt even know notes... and nobody cared. Way more fun and imo way better songs were written with those dudes... Noone wants to listen to some pretentious fckery played by a guy who dresses like hes from a hipster clothing store commercial telling you how you just cant comprehed the genious of his theoretocal masterpiece and how its better than what you like to listen to because its "complicated". And it sounds like every other jazz song ever written...

[nquantum]

There is that one comment under every great jazz song calling it elevator music. Ill be honest that pisses me off and fuels my sense of elitism. At the same time I remember when I first started getting interested in jazz about a couple years ago. It took some time before I even really understood what it was about and started to appreciate it. It's a bit like whiskey if you know what I mean😉

[daveinitely]

Hi Andy. Thanx a lot for this video. Regarding codification and sameism in Jazz: Obviously, the real books/fake books played a huge role in this process (at least later on), in combination with Jazz study program and degrees at professional music schools. Adam Neely Ethan Iverson in a comment to a Youtube video by Adam Neely basically made the point that the real books can be seen as an attempt by predominantly white musicians to (not always successfully) crack the code of Afro-American musicians.