So there was an article on August 9th of this year in the Wall Street Journal titled and asking “Can Jazz Be Saved?” (http://bit.ly/15bU1k). Jazz, like classical, has been bleeding fans for years and the audience amongst the youth are disappearing. The question remains, will the art form go extinct? Will it change into something not as recognizable?

In my opinion, I certainly hope it does.

Jazz and classical, while innovative in their beginnings and I do thank them for their influences in music, also have a dark side: they are both afraid to evolve. There is plenty of evidence to prove both of these cases, but let’s look at classical first. From its birth in European sacred music up until Romanticism, there have been shifts that came along but in no way broke the music. Everything was hunky dory…until the Post-Impressionists came along. I’m referring to Debussy, Satie, and their lot. How dare they start to question the function of classical (this is sarcasm). If Post-Impressionism was a child running away from home but never leaving the driveway and coming back, Stravinsky was that same child running away from home to become a circus sideshow performer. I always loved the story of the first performance breaking down into complete chaos due to Stravinsky’s use of dissonance. Thank God that happened. After Stravinsky, what was known as classical became a completely different beast, thanks to the 12-tone school and other experimental schools that popped up to continue eviscerating the corpse of classical music that was. Sure, you still got Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” (maybe my favorite piece of all time) in 1937, but that was no longer the norm. Even with the experimentation, you also got the new catchphrase for modern classical: contemporary. However, contemporary also gave way to minimalism, which uses orchestration like classical music, but is not classical music in the slightest. I seriously doubt Glass, Reich, or Part would be considered anything close to classical (Part would be closer to sacred).

Jazz I feel is the same way. The jazz I enjoy, the music I listen to repeatedly, is not Basie, Ellington or any of those other guys that have some sort of mainstream appeal. Nor is it that crap you hear on light stations. Dear sweet Jesus no. The jazz I liked I considered much more exciting: Davis, Coltrane, Adderly, Monk and Mingus. These men didn’t just alter jazz, they permanently changed it. And for the better as well. Even though the forefathers I mentioned will always be remembered as long as jazz exists in history books, there are old school people who bitch and moan about it, much like people in “classical” (whatever that is anymore). They also consider themselves the last true audience of their genres. Thanks to their stuffy attitudes, they probably will be. If you want an excellent example of this, check out any jazz or classical radio station for about 20 minutes.
So, will jazz go the way of the dodo, killed off by rich, white European carrying guns? No. Sure, there’s guys like Herbie Hancock who are being innovative, but my vision for what holds for the future of jazz is a bit different, thanks to three sets of musicians who, not being trained jazz musicians, may hold the future of jazz in their works. I also forget to add: they are all create music that has more in relations to electronica than jazz.

The first, and closest, to jazz is Tom Jenkinson, known more popularly as Squarepusher. Mr. Jenkinson started out mainly doing electronica, but his output changed in 1998 when he released Music is Rotten One Note. MIRON sounds more like an outtake of Miles Davis from the late 60’s or early 70’s than an electronica album…and it’s brilliant because of that. Myself, along with most other fans were shocked when this and the accompanying EP’s Budakan Mindphone and Maximum Priest revealed a much different beast. Every album since then has taken a more jazz-like approach to the music, leading up to the recently released “Solo Electric Bass 1”, which is just him with the bass guitar.

The second is Amon Tobin. While his more recent albums Foley Room and Out From Out Where have less jazz influence to them the previous three albums, Bricolage, Permutation, and Supermodified. These albums tend to be influenced by jazz in the samples chosen by Tobin, which then creates the mood that you’d be more likely to find in a smoky jazz club rather than a DJ set. What makes this choice of sample more interesting is that Tobin himself is Brazilian, influenced by many more genres than jazz and belonging to a culture where music styles are more likely to be assimilated that isolated.

My final choice would have to be The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble. A relatively new combo starting out around 2000 and an actual band, they were originally doing live soundtracks to Fritz Lang movies while claiming an influence of The Brothers Quay. They only have an album and an EP out, but I highly recommend both, they are brilliant.

All of these artists are assimilating their jazz influence into electronica, which is producing music much fresher than jazz much more likely for repeated listenings.