All what jazz? Or: How to declare something dead without listening to it

By Chris Richards August 11 at 3:15 PM
The Internet is overflowing with bad ideas. What should we do when we step in one?

Scrape it from our boots and quietly walk away? Retweet it in anger? Blog a rebuttal? Wait a few hours for someone else to blog a smarter rebuttal? How should we take part in the conversation when the conversation feels so urgent, yet so stupid?

These are questions that have been chewing up my brain for the past few years and maybe they’ve been chewing at yours, too. I was asking them again on Friday afternoon when a friend emailed me “All that jazz isn’t all that great,” a Washington Post editorial by Justin Moyer declaring that jazz music has become irrelevant and is diverting our attention from greater (unnamed) concerns.

“Jazz has run out of ideas, yet it’s still getting applause,” he writes in a bullet-pointed essay that gooses Coltrane fans and beret owners. If you like or love the music, this position might annoy or infuriate you, which appears to be its only purpose.

But if the piece is sincerely wishing a swift death to jazz, I would like to wish a swift death to music journalism that doesn’t bother to do any listening. Of the 19 jazz musicians listed in the piece, zero of them made their recorded debut in the 21st century. How can the author assert that an entire genre of music “needs a reset” when he shows no evidence that he’s been paying any attention to it?

I’m all for well-argued music criticism that talks trash and throws dirt on graves. (If they’re worthy, the buried will claw their way out or get dug up by curious descendants.) But when Moyer writes that “jazz is washed up,” he’s filling out his death report without checking for signs of life.
read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/08/11/all-what-jazz-or-how-to-declare-something-dead-without-listening-to-it/