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Killer Joe wrote on February 13, 2012
Yes indeed.
"Blaming the word "jazz" for the current sad state of the music, in terms of cultural relevance to most Americans, is ridiculous. Mr. Payton stated, in the panel discussion at Birdland, that the image the word jazz portrays is, to most people, of a drug-induced, negative stereotype of a musician (along with other negative attributes). I assume he bases this image from the reference point of the 1940s/'50s/'60s, when heroin ravaged many of our great talents."
Right and right.. It's not the word that caused people to not follow it like we had hoped to the degree of popular music, it's rock, other forms of music that showed up which interested people more, and which require less of a cerebral understanding to appreciate that jumped in front.
As for stereotyping the musicians. It's pretty obvious that jazz musicians are understood to be of very high intellect and admired greatly, no longer doing drugs. Payton knows that too. I have a feeling he threw that in to get as many negatives to say as possible in his argument perhaps.
