Darwin's Theory of Jazz

There is a big movement towards academic Jazz singing and playing and what I am calling Folk or Pop Jazz. Sadly some are calling it a natural evolution of the music.
How did we get here? I'm sure the Beatles had something to do with it. That’s another whole blog. There was definitely a decline in people going out to hear live music after the drunk driving laws affected most of the club scenes around the country. Jazz musicians ran to the universities looking for work. 30 years ago there were only 3 colleges in the U.S. that offered a jazz program. Now almost every school in the country has one. We are turning out factory made jazz musicians faster than Detroit could make the Edsel .It’s a “Catch 22” educating so many to the music is priceless and important to its preservation but, they are released into a market that has about as many opportunities as Siberia. Every young jazz wannabe in the country is borrowing money from their family or sugar daddy, depending on their ethics, to make cds and flood the market with them. While getting the American songbook out to the masses is important, it could be seen as music inflation and a product of commercialism and capitalism. Those of us that came up learning our craft by actually living it for 30 years are finding it harder and harder to find a new audience as they are now exposed to “new Jazz" by the commercial jazz machine that can make a jazz star out of anyone that has enough money, is 19 and good looking and can sing or at least know how to use Pro Tools. Hey after all it’s the land of the free and everyone depending on how cunning they are can have a big piece of the pie
There’s a few good Dj’s left in the country like Ross Gentile at WSIE in St Louis. Ross plays what he deems great jazz and great singing period, but countless Jazz radio program directors because of various factors of the nature of the new beast,are under pressure and are forced to feed the commercial jazz machine
I am, in no way bitter and consider myself to have a blessed life and career and to be alive to watch any transformation, not just this one. I am proud of every line on my face and proud to be a part of the “old” jazz that’s left. I’m not Doris Day, I’m not Frank Sinatra. I don’t sing the melody all the time. I sing jazz standards and the American songbook my way Like Ella, Carmen and Billy and Betty.
Whenever I am asked if I do anything original my answer is, “Yes everything I do is original “