If you like jazz don’t go to a jazz festival

[triplebass]

It seems that everybody can get a gig at a jazz festival nowadays as long as they are a big name or they don’t play jazz. At least that seems to be the story for quite some time now in european jazz festivals. 

I was offered a ticket from a friend who was playing the Gent Jazz festival so i checked the program of the day and the main acts were some (what i heard on the embedded video) Adele type rip-offs. And basically the whole program seemed to have about 15% jazz or jazz related music. What’s going on? Is the word jazz so attractive that you can stick anything in the program and your sales are great?

Opinions, experiences?

[Mykesbass]

Hasn't it been this way for years? I went to the original Capital Radio Jazz Festival at Alexandra Palace - very late 70s or early 80s. BB King and Chuck Berry were among the headliners. When it transferred to Knebworth I saw Jimmy Cliff and the Average White Band. Plenty of jazz as well (Lionel Hampton, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubek) but always a few bigger name mainstream acts.

[Baloney Balderdash]

3 hours ago, triplebass said:

It seems that everybody can get a gig at a jazz festival nowadays as long as they are a big name or they don’t play jazz. At least that seems to be the story for quite some time now in european jazz festivals. 

I was offered a ticket from a friend who was playing the Gent Jazz festival so i checked the program of the day and the main acts were some (what i heard on the embedded video) Adele type rip-offs. And basically the whole program seemed to have about 15% jazz or jazz related music. What’s going on? Is the word jazz so attractive that you can stick anything in the program and your sales are great?

Opinions, experiences?

Jazz is a very broad genre.

 

As broad as rock, if not even more so.

 

There are a lot of jazz outside of traditional jazz, just like there is a lot of rock outside of traditional classic rock.

 

 

Edited July 19, 2024 by Baloney Balderdash

[triplebass]

1 minute ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Jazz is a pretty broad genre.

 

As, if not even more, broad as rock.

 

There are a lot of jazz outside of traditional jazz, just like there is a lot of rock outside of traditional classic rock.

 

 

i know that, but there’s acts now that have NOTHING to do with jazz, there’s no relation whatsoever to what the idea of jazz is in my understanding but still they’re making it to the line-ups.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

@triplebass - I take your point, but it's been like it for years. Many years even before this....

 

 

[Len_derby]

It’s not just Jazz festivals that get up to this. I’ve been to folk festivals where there’s been very little music that could really be termed folk. However, I did once go to a festival where there was country and western.

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

@triplebass - I take your point, but it's been like it for years. Many years even before this....

 

 

I was gonna post one of those, their version of Rosalie

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

Anything can be jazz if you play enough wrong notes

[Baloney Balderdash]

10 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

Anything can be jazz if you play enough wrong notes

 

English translation of the Danish lyrics:

 

Babble of the Woke [really the Danish tittle is a word play on the title of a famous poem by the Danish poet Søren Ulrik Thomsen]

 

Spastic lamb chops against the brain's blown out meat clock

10000 Volt at low current, through 7000 years

I will drown in your crotch of worms and uterine inflammation

Gaia

- Goddess of the Earth in spirit and flesh -

replicates the keyboard's genetic pitter-patter

of rye-haired monkey grunts and people who counts to 2

 

The sweet porridge flows with cream along grandpop's bloodless gums

an inane scavenger in a desert

of way too much John Denver

and Povl Dissing [Danish folk singer] is dead:

 

"We are in the year 3016, the end time's last gateway

The new Stargate scandal,

Arnold gets thawn out and made president

He declares war on the Star Federation

Him alone lay the Earth to waste!"

"A horse and a man with a white trunk will appear

and likewise a 10 legged pig with 7 heads of lions on dragon necks

The Earth will crack open,

and Satan who lives in its mid

will throw a free barbeque party on his swastika shaped grill"

 

Edited July 19, 2024 by Baloney Balderdash

[jazzyvee]

I remember a few years ago going to a Jazz festival in my city and we were there for the weekend and there were no Jazz artistes on the main stage, and we saw two jazz bands one on in a shopping centre and the other in a small gazebo nowhere near the main stage area. All the bands we saw on the main stage were good bands but not jazz. Good job it was a free festival. But I haven't been to it since then unless there is a someone I know playing jazz there and go to support their gig.

[bassace]

Been to Cheltenham lately?  Wasn’t Elaine Paige there one year?

Edited July 19, 2024 by bassace

[Newfoundfreedom]

Jazz festivals sound great! I might try one. I hate jazz. 

[mike257]

To be fair, if you look at the size and scale of something like Montreux, you wouldn't get that level of profile for something purely jazz focused. If bringing some slightly more mainstream artists in boosts the visibility of the festival, gets people there to see the actual jazz happening at the event, and provides a much needed cash injection to a somewhat niche (in mainstream terms) live scene, then maybe it's a good thing!

[bassace]

And Sam Smith at the Proms this year…

[knirirr]

8 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Jazz is a very broad genre.

 

As broad as rock, if not even more so.

 

There are a lot of jazz outside of traditional jazz, just like there is a lot of rock outside of traditional classic rock.

 

 

 

Something I read recently described jazz as a "meta-genre" rather than a genre, and also suggested that what defined jazz was the musicians playing it asserting that their material was jazz.

This doesn't seem unreasonable to me. The jazz jams and gigs I play cover a variety of material, some of which the general public enjoy and some they complain about (and turn us down for gigs if they run venues).

This,  this and this are all jazz...

[knirirr]

3 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

Anything can be jazz if you play enough wrong notes

 

Apparently so...

 

 

[wateroftyne]

I guess it's part of the tactic by promoters to ensure that there will be people in the audience.

[nilorius]

Jazz fests are allright. I like to hear them.

[triplebass]

funny enough you see all sorts of rock, pop, world and i don’t know what else kid of music at a jazz festival but you never see a jazz artist at a rock, pop, world, folk or whatever else festival. ain’t that a nice little twist, everybody’s jazz if needs be, but it only works one way. how lovely and inclusive, so modern too…

[bassace]

Tony Bennett at Glastonbury?

[triplebass]

16 minutes ago, bassace said:

Tony Bennett at Glastonbury?

i stand corrected. having said that, i am looking forward very much to the general statistics that will prove me completely wrong.