Just discovered that on YouTube. Will try to see the movie, , maybe Netfix?
Your points of view are welcomed.
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Yes it was JohnnyâŠ
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She might be enjoying herself but the lady needs to be careful she doesnât fall off!
Unless the film suggests all the jazz fans are living dangerously at high altitude and their numbers are dwindling.
Very interesting doc. Seems jobbing Jazz musicians are facing typical issues seen in many gig industries - greed on the part of club owners leading to the art becoming the pastime of the wealthy.
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Johnny and Toby, or just Johnny ? 
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I thought that jazz was having a revival at the moment. If someone is killing it off, not everything in the world is bad 
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From the Journal of music :
« Though Prohibition ended in 1933, the jazz club format remained and became a mainstay of American musical life, springing up in every major city and indeed in cities around the world.
There is no doubt that the working conditions were atrocious, especially for black musicians. Long hours in smoke-filled environments, surrounded by drunkenness, cramped playing conditions, treated like servants, often cheated of their money by the club owners or forced into punitive long-term contracts â but these were the only places where most jazz musicians could find work. However, difficult as these conditions were, they did provide one crucial element for the development of jazz â an environment in which the musicians could play every night for many hours and develop their art, their craft and their physical stamina.
Twenty-two sets a week
It is hard to credit just how long the playing hours were in a typical jazz club in those days. The great Benny Golson told me that, as teenagers, he and John Coltrane had stood outside the open window of a jazz club in Philadelphia listening to Charlie Parker, who played five forty-five-minute sets, from 10pm to 2am. This was not uncommon, and, at the very least, a band would play three sets a night.
By the 1950s and 60s, the typical band engagement in a club would be at least six nights a week, three sets a night, and two matinees on Saturdays and Sundays from 3pm to 6pm. This meant that in a typical week, a jazz group would play twenty-two sets of music, each set lasting at least fifty minutes. Right up until the end of the 1960s, this was the environment in which the most important innovations and developments in jazz took place and were on display.
The sheer length of time the performers had to perform for on a nightly basis demanded great physical stamina, and ensured the development of powerful instrumental and vocal techniques. The informality of the environment and the long playing time encouraged experimentation, and those who came specifically to hear the music were rewarded by seeing the music evolve right in front of them â in the 1950s you could watch the Miles Davis group with John Coltrane and Bill Evans perform literally inches away from you, and for several hours, for a relatively modest outlay.
Key figures in jazz, and the music and styles they created and invented, were associated with specific clubs: Duke Ellington with New Yorkâs Cotton Club in the late 1920s, Count Basie at the Reno Club in Kansas City in the 1930s, Charlie Parker with the clubs on 52nd Street in New York in the 1940s, Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot, and Miles Davis at the CafĂ© Bohemia in the 1950s, and Bill Evans and John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard in the 1960s. And many key live recordings from the 1950s onwards were made in the clubs â Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans and John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard, Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot, and Miles Davis at The Plugged Nickel.
New York state of mind
If I were offered a trip in a time machine, the period I would choose would be New York in the mid-1960s, because there, in the clubs, you could witness musicians from every era of jazz performing nightly. It would have been quite feasible in the New York of that time to see Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor all performing in different clubs. You could witness the full span of the music from its origins through to the avant-garde.
From the late 1960s onwards the number of jazz clubs declined as rock music dominated popular consciousness and jazz was no longer considered to be economical for club owners to stage. With the loss of that environment went the loss of the platform for extended playing and the opportunity for experimentation over a long period of time. Surviving jazz clubs went to a two-set per night format, and prices went up. These days, a night at the Village Vanguard, Birdland or Ronnie Scottâs Club is not cheap.
As I write this, I am looking forward to playing in âNew York Frame of Mindâ, a three-night, three sets per night series with the legendary Dave Liebman â who himself began his career playing in New York jazz clubs in the 1960s â and with my longtime colleagues my brother Conor and guitarist Mike Nielsen. At the Bello Bar in leafy Portobello, we will attempt to emulate the atmosphere and ethos of the New York jazz club of the 1960s, with its long playing time, and opportunity for audiences to experience the intimate atmosphere in which jazz originally developed.«
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However I doubt a factory worker will pay 100, 150 euros to listen to a jazz concert.
A set at the Vanguard is $40 plus 1 drink minimum. Compared to anything else in NYC, thatâs a bargain.
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I remember going to the old Ronnieâs 8pm to 2.30am, 4 sets for ÂŁ2 (student club member) plus drinks (and small food order if you wanted a drink after midnight). Over 40 years ago though !
The great thing with those days is that with 2 sets per band, you could relax and see them really stretching out. No booting out to let in the next audience ! Sort of like NYC clubs of that era.
Really big acts like Buddy Rich and Ella were 2 audiences per night though, early and late show. Premium admission price too, inevitably sold out.
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I agree, itâs reasonable.
In the 80âs, 90âs, I was going some July at Nice Jazz Festival. You paid the entry, around 15 euros, and could listen to ten concerts from 5 pm to 11 pm. Then following the players to their hotel place and continue to listen to some of them there, to 4 am.
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Nobody killed jazz. Go to any Hi-Fi show and 99% of the music played is jazz.
But then again⊠
Not sure that Diana Krall or Norah Jones can be named jazzâŠ.Not in the true spirit of creativity and improvisation.
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Who were the best players you saw?
Whatâs the limit for you betweent whatâs jazz and whatâs not? I donât think itâs that easy to figure it out in some cases, there are so many sub genres as well. Diana Krall is more jazzy than âtrueâ jazz, still she deserves being in the jazz genre IMHO. On the other hand I struggle to put Norah Jones in the same spot.
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Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters 2, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Tania Maria, BB King, Wayne Shorter with Santana, Pat MethenyâŠ.
What I wanted to say is that a part of jazz became more and more jazzy as you said, easy listening jazz that you can hear in markets and elevatorsâŠ.
Maybe Diana Krall doesnât match that category, but you have my idea.
At the other side you have the true spirit of jazz, where improvised music, creativity, imaginationâŠ.is present. For example the Jazz London refreshed.
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Thatâs a fine definition of jazz.
And of life well lived!
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Exactly.
The need for big sales, profits, rentability, âŠ.killed in part jazz today. Easy listening jazz is the most representative.
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