ic Wales: Is jazz the new black?

[Bud]

Diana gets some coverage in this article...

Source: IC Wales

Is jazz the new black?

Aug 13 2004

Hannah Jones, The Western Mail


I BLAME it on Diana Krall. Since the blonde singer became famous for her piano-heavy reworking of jazz standards, (and for not talking about a "close friendship" with Clint Eastwood), the music press has been salivating over young divas and crooners who look as good as they sound.

And it's a surprising thing because jazz isn't pop music - a place where beauty can often seem to be more important than talent.

Jazz was once the preserve of "real" musicians who could flaunt their wares, irrespective of how they looked, dressed or dated.

It was flair that counted - not attention to their hair.

As Ella Fitzgerald once said, "I know I'm no glamour girl, and it's not easy for me to get up in front of a crowd of people.

"It used to bother me a lot, but now I've got it figured out that God gave me this talent to use, so I just stand there and sing."

But these days, it's not so straightforward if you want to shift records.

Jazz doesn't seem to be governed by tenets of what constitutes good taste or great musicality anymore - it seems that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling.

If a jazz performer comes out with a sound that's vaguely interesting, that's good in itself of course.

Yet if a singer with jazz sensibilities comes out who also happens to be a babe who can belt it out - Krall, Jane Monheit, Harry Connick Jr, Jamie Cullum, Amy Winehouse, Stacey Kent, and Norah Jones please take a bow - it's something altogether more appealing.

Sex, say the sages, sells.

And although jazz has had its fair share of sexy passengers who travelled on the free-form highway - Billie Holiday and Chet Baker immediately spring to mind - it's historically been the playground of extraordinary musicians whose talent is their singular mark of distinction.

A pretty face never mattered until now, neither did breeding, fashion sense or media-savvy sensibilities.

But if jazzers are interested in selling records it seems they have to have much more than musical dexterity.

So much so that we're now seeing a proliferation of beautiful ladies and gents who are leading the way when it comes to pulling jazz out of the doldrums and back into the sequinned hued limelight.

If you want proof, let's take a look back to the jazz charts of 2001.

This was the year when singers with attitude, who just happened to be drop-dead gorgeous, started making waves.

The best-selling albums of that year were The Look of Love by Diana Krall and Come Dream With Me by jazz's it-girl phenomenon, Jane Monheit.

The only people who really cared if they could sing were the "serious" aficionados.

But for the majority of the record-buying public, style triumphs over how many triplets you can glissando around in endless bars of fast improvisation.

Jen Wilson, director of Swansea-based Women in Jazz, worries that standards in music often play second fiddle to looking good.

She says, "The marketing people spot somebody able to attract people on the edges of the jazz market, pluck them out of the jazz fold and hope that with a bit of spit and polish they'll be able to work in the mainstream market.

"Obviously the artist welcomes this, but in the course of time the music gets diluted as the creative process is taken over by the money boys. Interestingly, however, Annie Whitehead, one of Britain's ace trombone players, took a risk a couple of years back and posed discreetly naked with her trombone, and she was middle-aged.

"Now if EMI or somebody got hold of her, what would they do?

"They'd probably see somebody about 50 and think, no thanks."

Mark Walker, programme director of the UK's only commercial jazz station, Jazz FM, argues that the "new breed" of performers have moved jazz forward.

He admits that it helps record sales if an artist is telegenic, but insists this is never enough in itself.

"People like Amy Winehouse and Jamie Cullum appeal to a younger audience now and have made jazz cool again," he said.

"They've helped it move away from the smoky room image people have of jazz.

"But these artists are not there for no reason and they're very talented.

"They aren't just manufactured like pop stars - yes, they look good and yes, they perform brilliantly.

"And if people like them they're bound to be curious about other types of jazz and maybe pick up a Frank Sinatra record or Miles Davis CD.

"They're just taking jazz forward."

Jazz, by its very nature, is a hard beast to tame.

It's complicated, intricate, daring and highly idiosyncratic.

It is the musical equivalent of walking up Snowdon in your slippers and getting to the top.

And its popular base seems to be grounded in those artists whose look or off-stage persona rival those of movie stars.

Andy Roberts, presenter of BBC Radio Wales' Jazz Connection, says these sorts of performers should be embraced into the jazz canon because they are broadening jazz's appeal.

"Selling records is big business these days and of course it doesn't hurt sales if a singer is good looking," he said.

"A lot of people are fed up with rock and pop so they've started to look to other forms of music.

"It's a modern world and the good thing about jazz is that there's so many types of it, something which will be heard throughout this year's Brecon Jazz Festival.

"One of the performers is Amy Winehouse and she's starting to be really successful.

"She's like the modern day Billie Holiday as she's a bit of a screw-up. She's also not afraid to show that she's very much a complicated 21st century woman.

"Some people are really down on this new generation of singers but they should really be more open-minded. As far as I'm concerned, people like Krall and Winehouse are opening up jazz to a new breed of listeners.

"And that's no bad thing."

This "new breed" of jazz performers are a PR pro's dream.

The industry's latest big-selling femme fatale is the Mercury Award-nominated young gun and Brecon Jazz Festival headliner, Amy Winehouse.

Winehouse, the daughter of a taxi driver dad and pharmacist mum, is a slight 20-year-old white Jewish girl from north London. However, it's been said that Winehouse the singer is a 50-year-old fat black woman from Brooklyn.

If you've heard her talk, you'll know she has a chatty Cockney drawl; if you've heard her sing, you'll never forget her striking, jazz-soaked vocal.

But that's not all of the story, of course.

She called her first album Frank, and, as its title suggests, Winehouse is somewhat outspoken - singers Dido, Rachel Stevens and Katie Melua have all felt the whip of her tongue in recent interviews.

She's also not afraid to talk about her love life, admits to liking casual sex, smoking cannabis and dissecting life in a "I've just got out of bed with someone I don't know the name of so I think I've have a gin sling and pack of 20 Embassy red" street kid kind of way.

Krall, on the other hand, has been famous for being a good-looking woman who happens to play the piano with dynamic subtlety and sing with easy controlled pitching for a lot longer.

The American is a classically trained pianist but there wasn't enough interest in her to even strike a dissonant note until she was 30.

Krall, who comes from British Columbia, established herself as a performer in the 1990s when she transferred from the small Canadian label Justin Time to a major.

This is the business model since followed by Jamie Cullum, Clare Teal and many others supplying the seemingly endless demand for easy-on-the-ear jazz singers with a firm grasp on the great American songbook who are also easy on the eye.

As a professional with a serious passion for what she does, she's certainly more at home performing than talking about her wardrobe.

But the record-buying public's love affair with Krall the woman - as opposed to Krall the Piano Gal - is something she now expects to talk about.

"I used to be really shy and not comfortable with that aspect of the business," she said in an interview.

"I've learned to have fun with it too. In some ways (the look on my) record covers represent a sense of freedom and pleasure in life I'd always felt but not always been able to express before.

"But the main thing is, it doesn't detract from your art. If I wore socks and didn't shave my legs it would still sound the same. Wouldn't it?"

Point taken - but it's doubtful her CDs would sell as well.

At 48, singer Cassandra Wilson is the most sensual of singers.

Stanley Crouch, a columnist for the New York Daily News, said of her, "She seems to sing through her skin, not her throat, and her voice has the sound of the woman alone, the woman in love, the woman wrapped up with her man in that perfect congress of grace, style and power."

You've got to wonder is he talking about Wilson the woman there, or Wilson the voice? My guess is that it's both ... and neither.

Adam Shatz, jazz critic for The Guardian, put it this way after hearing her sing.

"Most of Wilson's followers seem to be captivated by her aura, that mysterious ether that has as much to do with her presence as with her voice. It's a compound of body and soul, and it's essential to her appeal.

"Wilson inspires devotion: with her golden dreadlocks and voluptuous figure, she radiates an earthy, self-confident sexuality. Her now vacant, now piercing stare gives her a look that writers often describe as 'regal'.

"To her female fans, she's a pillar of strength, someone who knows how to handle men; to her male admirers, she's an alluring challenge."

But singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, a dynamic and experienced performer hailed for years as "the new Ella" insists that it shouldn't matter what a performer looks like or how interesting they are off stage.

"Take Abbey Lincoln," she says. "Abbey is in her 70s now. She doesn't have to get into that whole competitive thing - she says 'I'm Abbey Lincoln, I don't have to prove anything to anybody', and she's right.

"The danger is when the industry identifies a trend and wants you to be part of it, and then you can't step outside of the box or you'll be punished. You just have to have faith in doing your thing, and you'll work enough - and enough of the public will get it; they won't leave you.

"OK, maybe I won't play the Royal Albert Hall the way Diana Krall is going to - but who cares?"

The record-buying public, that's who.

As a rule they subscribe to the theory that "good looking" equals "good sounding".

Miles Davis once said that the only way the public should judge a jazz artist is on the basis of his or her projection and ideas.

Trust me, I've looked at the quote and nowhere in there does he say anything about their sex appeal.

That said, however, I'm sure the dark prince of the trumpet would applaud anyone with an iota of talent who brought jazz and its vast repertoire back into public favour ... as long as they were in the groove.

[FrimFramMan]

...this is soooo tiresome.
The Jazz press is now whining because popular artists aren't ugly enough or members of a minority.
Perhaps these "journalists" would rather be reporting on school board meetings or vehicle accidents.

[Coda]

FrimFramMan: I don't always agree with you, but on this one, I'm with you 100 percent. What a contemptuous attitude to assume that ugliness automatically gives you credentials. Whatever people look like is fine, but are you supposed to "play down" what God gave you so that some people won't be offended by your looking good? It's like saying: we won't take a jazz act seriously if the person is easy on the eyes. I've heard entertainers say that they feel they must keep up their appearance to get jobs, and sometimes people can get carried away with one too many cosmetic surgeries. But overall, I think it's a good thing if a performer respects his or her audience enough to look good for a performance. If someone came out looking slovenly, I would think that person doesn't care about the audience. So I don't really get what this writer is complaining about.

[Bud]

The article references Amy Winehouse. Here's her website. Hope you're on a high speed link - I'd imagine it would be a pretty slow site via dialup. Also, it has a rather questionable interface - you need to put your cursor on top of the heart to get a navigation menu:

http://www.amywinehouse.com/amy.html

There are some audio and video clips. Must admit, I don't understand the big deal - she doesn't do much for me...

[mark in saskatchewan]

i think what the article is saying that its unfortunate only the good looking jazz artists are getting famous....and suggesting that there may be many many artists out there with just as much talent but aren't as marketable to the buying public.

its not a question of looking good---but who's good looking. a lot of the legends of jazz wore tux's and other great clothes to concerts...and thats going the way of the past.

how many of you have heard of molly johnson? she's an amazingly talented singer, who isn't the type of person who will jump through commercial hoops--so no fame. holly cole is too much "outside the box" for most of the buying public......

the article isn't criticizing its just stating that jazz isn't about the "look" ITS ABOUT THE MUSIC! and will always be ABOUT THE MUSIC! like all great arts...it is what it is.

[so_cute]

That article lost me when the writer referred to DK as an American, and then in the next paragraph said she's from B.C.. Ok, if they know she's from B.C., what gives? Someone was fer sure a whiz kid in geography! That reminds me last week I was watching Vicki Gabereau and one of her guests said "here in America", so maybe B.C. really is part of the U.S., only it's kinda sorta a secret.

Amy Winehouse is a toolette, and I don't know why they're calling her jazz. The songs I've heard sound like R&B with a bit of hip hop flavour.

Good golly Miss Molly Johnson! She's awesome, but I agree, I don't see her becoming massively popular any time soon.