Beyond Jazz Bullying

When I started listening to contemporary jazz, I kept reading about the “jazz police” and “jazz purists”. The self-appointed “authorities” on what jazz was. It was annoying that there was these “gatekeepers” that deemed what I was listening to was inferior. That what I enjoyed wasn’t jazz because… why, exactly? It didn’t swing? It had vocals? Happened to be smooth? 

It’s just music they didn’t like. 

Jazz bullying.

There was this belief that jazz was academic. That you had to understand jazz. I have always fought the notion that jazz should be on a pedestal. Jazz should be where everyone can access it. It is such a deterrent when something seems as sweet as music seems inaccessible. I believe this notion is part of the reason jazz continued to  slip in popularity. Why would people want to listen to something that they thought they had to do homework for?

Thankfully, I don’t hear about this anymore. I am encouraged and inspired to see jazz continue to move in a forward direction. Younger generations are making the music their own. I love it. Jazz is alive. It’s not in some dusty prison of time that the jazz police want it, never to break free.

I want to go back and experience the time when jazz was dance music. Even better, I want to go forward in the future and experience this. If everything is cyclical, isn’t this overdue?

Do you need to define jazz in order to enjoy it? Nope. I wish I could have shut off that judgemental noise when I first got into the music. It didn’t stop me from enjoying it but it did affect me, as evidenced that I’m writing about it decades later. 

Don’t deny yourself joy. Listen to the music you want and revel in it.