Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Jazz's declining popularity

It's unquestionably true that the jazz audience is shrinking. Why? I have quite a few thoughts about that and may drop them here.

Right now, though, I want to focus on this comment by Ted Gioia:
This is all the more unsettling, when one considers how much jazz education has expanded during the last two decades. When I was in college, jazz studies hardly existed ... Yet jazz was very popular with the students, even if it rarely showed up in a classroom. Nowadays, jazz is accepted at virtually every institution of higher learning. Yet, judging by the NEA study, the students don't have the same level of interest as they did back when it was excluded. 
I have quite a bit of respect for Gioia  but often find myself questioning his judgment on the popular culture and how jazz does or does not fit into it. Especially when I read something like the above.

Look, it is a fallacy to argue that if B follows A than A must have caused B. True enough, but it is plain stupidity not to wonder if there might not be a link. It's something that we should investigate. Could it be that jazz education is part of the problem?

OTOH, a lack of correlation definitely implies a lack of causality. If the supposed cure correlates with the disease getting worse then it's time to question the efficacy of that cure.

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