Fellow TruthSeekers/TruthSpeakers:

I have been following the dialogue here at Bird Lives! for just over a year now, and the time has come to contribute my thoughts on our "common concern"--what we perhaps should call The Jazz Dilemma. I should say at the outset that all my own involvement in jazz is strictly noncommercial and voluntary. I am not beholden to any corporate interest, and thank goodness, for from what I have seen of The Music Business in general, it's got to be about the most f--ked-up industry extant. I am strictly an outsider who has peripheral contact with the workings of this "through-the-looking-glass" world.

It has been my understanding for some years now that what jazz activity does exist in the recorded music field by the major labels is, in essence, "charity" made possible only by the success of pop mega-performers who can move millions of units annually at retail. (Ditto for European classical music; activity in these areas allows the corporations to appear "hip" and oh-so-"cultured".) Can anyone disprove this thesis?

The latest figures I've seen (1998) showed sales of recorded "jazz" representing 2.8% of domestic music sales. If that figure includes "smooth jazz" and reissues of back-catalog (the umpteenth remastered version of "Kind Of Blue", e.g.), then what portion of total music sales is the work of living, mainstream jazz artists? Maybe one half of one percent? As a neat little British pop band (The Jam) in the 1970s pointed out: "The public wants what the public gets."

What do the Entertainment Conglomerates give us? "Prole-feed", as George Orwell put it in "1984": eye candy to fill the spaces between commercials. Is it any wonder that the general public in this country knows little of, and cares less about, jazz? What we face is a classic issue of SUPPLY AND DEMAND. The supply of people trying to find a niche in the jazz realm far exceeds the demand for serious, dedicated artists. And believe it or not, referring to a successful pop singer as a "bitch" (which has happened on this Website), or verbally beating up on the Marsalis siblings, won't change a damned thing.

Indeed, if we could harness all the "negative energy" expended in jazz circles these days on the latter activity, and channel it into something productive, we might actually make some progress.

At this point, you're all wondering: Just how depressing IS this Diatribe gonna get? I have concocted a motto for dealing with the real world: "Embrace Reality...before it crushes you!" Some years back, I sat in on another radio show host's interview with the late saxophonist, Bill Barron. I asked for his thoughts on The Jazz Dilemma. I will paraphrase his reply, since I don't have a transcript handy of that interview: "If you are to devote your life to serious jazz music-making, you pretty well can forget about being prosperous."

Lucky, indeed, are the rare exceptions to that rule. It's my understanding that institutions like the Berklee College of Music include in their curricula issues like marketing oneself, the "business side of the business", etc. I would like to see some Feedback from some recent graduates, or people currently enrolled at these schools, to this effect: What are they being told about their REAL prospects of success? If only perseverence, hard work and dedication were sufficient guarantors of success!

By success in this context, I mean achieving a career as an independent voice in the music scene or at least to be a much-demanded accompanist, with monetary compensation sufficient for living, shall we say, comfortably. A career playing in pit bands is an honorable way of making a living, but probably not what folks had in mind when they enrolled in school. It seems to me that our music school grads, bursting with enthusiasm to go out and make their marks on the music scene, need to be prepared for the prospect of having "day jobs" to keep them alive.

I haven't attended a jazz conference in a number of years, because each was seeming to blur into all the others. Same topics, same panelists--same airing of grievances by those who feel marginalized, SAME ABSENCE OF SOLUTIONS. Thus, the title of my little essay. It seems that what we need is a magic wand, or an infinite number of clones of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Rahsaan was keenly aware of social injustices as he gathered information on the state of the world aurally.

Theoretically, just as an infinite number of chimps pecking randomly at word processors could eventually manage to duplicate a Shakespeare play, an infinite number of Rahsaans firing randomly at corporate chieftains and politicians could bring order and justice to our world. But, here I delve into fantasy. My thrust with this essay was simply to try to starkly clarify the reality we are up against. I hope I have not disappointed the reader by admitting my lack of a solution. The first step in resolving a problem, they tell me, is to admit that the problem does, in fact, exist.

Let all members of our community who are of good will contemplate these issues and contribute what they can to devising solutions. In the meantime, those of us who do love this music and the people who make it must soldier on. "La lucha continua!" ("The struggle continues!")

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