This post is by Dan
Why the 1980s?
This history of jazz is long, and no
one has lived through all of it. Focus on the 1980s allows us to share direct
experience of a decade in which the music known as jazz diverged from a
progression through a sequence of styles to become postmodern by simultaneously
drawing from older styles while grounding the art in new sources of
inspiration. According to British jazz critic, Stuart Nicholson: “Postmodernism
has meant the essentially teleological model of jazz evolution ended in the
Eighties, although no one realised it at the time. Today, jazz comprises a
myriad of highly individual interpretations drawing on a variety of sources, often
beyond the music” (Nicholson, 1999).
The tendency among some critics,
including Nicholson (1990), is to treat the 1980s as a “resurgence” of styles
that were suspended between the late 1960s and 1980. In the simple narrative,
jazz abandoned the rules operative in its peak years (roughly 1950-1965) in
order to regain more popularity among music fans who had left jazz for progressive
rock, post-Beatles. In the more pernicious narrative, jazz “sold out” by
creating jazz-rock “fusion” such as the quartet led by vibist Gary Burton
featuring the rock-influenced electric guitar of Larry Coryell.
In response to such departures from the
tradition, as the narrative goes, neo-traditionalists led by trumpeter Wynton
Marsalis restored jazz’s abandoned legacy. By going back to styles rooted in
acoustic instruments playing be-bop and standards, this resurgence returned
jazz to its core values and strengths and gained a new level of popularity
among listeners.
Fans like us who lived through these decades can easily spot
the flaws in the simple narrative.
First, jazz in the late 1960s and 1970s
did NOT abandon its traditional forms or sacrifice any of its appeal to those
who cared to listen. To the contrary, jazz of the late 1960s and 1970s
maintained the high level of innovation and artistic quality that has always
been its hallmark. Scott Mortensen’s Playing Favorites blog pays due respect to
the jazz of the 1970s and serves to debunk the notion that jazz needed a
resurgence after that decade. What more likely happened leading up to the 1980s
was a change in the business side of jazz, which offered musicians fewer
opportunities for recording and performance. But the musicians did not
disappear, and they never have during the many economic ups and downs that have
always affected access to jazz.
Second, the jazz-rock and fusion
experiments did not vanish in the 1980s but rather remained as foundational
principle for many leading jazz artists today. Guitarists Bill Frisell and Pat
Metheny are prime examples of artists who emerged during the so-called
resurgence but who also capitalized on the expanding vocabulary and made it
“mainstream” today, 40 years later. If anything, jazz became more diverse in
the 1980s. According to British critics Brian Morton and Richard Cook: “Jazz
fragmented in the ‘80s, often creatively, sometimes confusingly, but always to
someone’s advantage. It became, before the term had been coined, a world music”
(2010, p. 463). Our aim is to revisit the 1980s with the purpose of revealing
the diverse threads of a rich tapestry of musical styles that contribute to
advance jazz’s status as a global creative art form.
A key development that influenced
jazz in the 1980s was the creation of digital music in the form of compact
discs (CDs) and downloads from the Internet. This resulted in major
consequences, including the issuing of back catalogs of major labels in a
convenient format and the wider distribution of music through legal and illegal
copying. These technical developments coincided with shifts making jazz more
international and eclectic. Jazz absorbed a variety of styles and musicians not
based in the United States. In particular, European artists became prominent
not just as practitioners of the American art form but also innovators in their
own right. Independent jazz labels in Europe became a reliable outlet for
American musicians and helped European players to achieve international
reputations.
We hope that our blog reflects the
diversity of jazz as it was recorded during the 1980s decade. Comments are
always welcome!
Cited reference material:
Morton, Brian & Cook, Richard.
The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums,
London: Penguin Books, 2010.
Nicholson, Stuart. Jazz: The Modern
Resurgence, London: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Nicholson,
Stuart “Everyone his own leader in postmodern jazz,” Independent, 1999). https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/everyone-his-own-leader-in-postmodern-jazz-743837.html
