The Death of Jazz... ...and Baseball, Too?

Over the weekend (if you consider that the weekend starts on Friday; long gone are those college days when youthful exuberance demanded the weekend start on Thursday!), I finished reading Joe Posnanski's excellent book, The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America. Did I mention it is an excellent read? O'Neil had such a zest for living, I'm now sad I never got to meet the man before he passed away. Posnanski was lucky enough to spend a year traveling with O'Neil, and there are wonderful life lessons* learned every step along the way.


* My favorite life lesson? When O'Neil schooled Posnanski with, "Son, in this life, you don't ever walk by a red dress."

One thing stuck with me after reading the book, however. O'Neil often compared baseball to jazz. He also compared living to jazz, but he insisted that the rhythms of baseball most closely matched those of jazz. I do think he was right about that.

What, then, do we make of the premise that jazz is dying, or perhaps that it died with John Coltrane in the late '60s? My wife was watching the Grammys last night, and she mentioned the same thing, that jazz is dead. Perhaps someone on the show said as much, I don't know.* The only part I watched last night was when Neil Diamond took the stage to sing "Sweet Caroline." How he could pull that off without any hint of irony, I have no idea. The only worthwhile part of the show immediately followed his performance, when they paid tribute to those musicians, producers, and even one music photographer who passed away last year, followed by an excellent rendition of "Who Do You Love?" as a tribute to Bo Diddley.

* I can't stand the incredible proliferation of awards shows -- too much self-congratulatory back slapping can't be good for any industry, and it's not like the folks in Hollywood or the music industry really need any more attention. So I boycott all of the award shows, even the Oscars, on general principle.

I thought I would explore the thought that jazz died with Coltrane a bit more, since people still practice and listen to jazz in great numbers. I have friends who are dedicated to the genre, and who still travel great lengths to attend the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Of course, as soon as I opened their website, I saw a picture announcing the scheduled performance of Jon Bovi. Maybe jazz really is dead, after all.

I also found this very recent article from a musical magazine called The Walrus (with an obvious reference to The Beatles, no? Actually, probably not.), in which the author talks about jazz and how it might slip into the same category as classical music: no composer creates anything fresh and new; performers just put their own interpretation on the classic pieces of the genre. Alexander Gelfand actually makes a convincing argument that many musical genres hit similar walls during the '60s, when new musicians revolted against standard elements of music such as meter, harmony, and tonality in attempts to push the boundaries of music. Nothing new there. People in all walks of life were revolting against the Establishment during that time frame.

Personally, I am ambivalent towards modern jazz for all the same reasons why people describe jazz as dead today. As much as I love swing, big band, bebop, and other earlier forms of jazz, I detest the random, meandering improvisational form that took hold on jazz in the '60s. Too many of the sounds are discordant, and the songs don't seem to go anywhere. Everything is too loose, if you will. How can anyone tell if a truly improvisational effort that goes on for 25 minutes is any good or not?

Very good rock-n-roll, on the other hand, is invariably tight musically. There should be no random notes, and a three-and-a-half minute performance does not allow for any wasted effort.* Think about the signature songs of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and even The Ramones. All of their songs were tight and to the point. I do remember being introduced to a small college band's sound by a fellow traveler on an airplane ride back in 1993. I remember thinking, "Wow. This sound is tight!" That was The Dave Matthews Band, just getting ready to release their first commercially successful album, "Under the Table and Dreaming."

* Obviously, lots of songs played on classic rock stations ("In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," "Hotel California," and virtually anything by Chicago, Boston, the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, etc.) do meander and take up unbearable amounts of time. I don't listen to those, either.

Back to the question: what to make of the death of jazz, if jazz is so closely tied to baseball? I would be remiss if I failed to include in this discussion the contributions of Ken Burns, who did two very extensive documentary series, one on Baseball, and one on Jazz. Clearly, O'Neil was not the only one who saw the connection between these two very American pastimes.

This discussion could get way out of hand at this point. The rise of rap and hip hop culture affected the style of play in the NBA, and there is a great intertwining of hip hop attitude in American culture at large (yes, even in the suburbs) these days. I don't want to get into all of that.

Drawing just one parallel to the jazz-baseball pairing, rock-n-roll could be associated with football. The rise of rock music in the early '50s and beyond coincided with the rise in popularity of the NFL and college football, and the NFL tends to get artists for the Super Bowl halftime show from the ranks of rock-n-roll (the early days of using Up With People notwithstanding), so I do think that case is strong. The rise of football also coincided with the rise of television, and there is a lot to be said about changing media and changing tastes, as well.

Baseball has its own issues that have led to declining interest among the American public. The litany goes on and on:

• The players strike of '94 that forced the cancellation of the World Series just about killed the game.
  
• Sadly, it was not until the Steroid Era home run bashers brought people back into the seats in '98 that baseball seemed strong again.
  
• Now, we all wonder how to deal with the statistics from the Steroid Era.
  
• Starting times for playoff games are too late for the next generation of fans to stay up and watch their heroes play the most meaningful games.
• Many of the playoff games that used to air on one of the big four networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox) now are being shown only on cable stations like TNT or TBS.
  
• Kids don't get out and play sandlot games with their friends any more, depriving kids of the pure joy of playing outside the regimented structure of organized baseball leagues.
• A major drawback to organized youth baseball is the constant pressure to win imposed upon the kids by their coaches and parents; it often leads to burnout.
  
• Ticket, parking, and concession prices for a family of four hover close to $200 at most MLB ballparks, making the possibility of regularly taking a family to see a game nigh impossible.
• Actually going to the ballpark is still the best way of seeing the game and taking in all the rhythms, the sounds, and the music of baseball, as O'Neil described it.
• Watching a game on TV still leaves a lot to be desired, since you cannot see the action on the entire field at the same time in any camera view, unlike football and basketball.
• The MLB "salary cap," in which teams spending well above the cap limit pay a relatively small payroll tax, does not have the same effect as does the NFL cap, which significantly levels the playing field for free agents, thereby ensuring competitive balance.
  

There are many, many reasons why Americans do not watch or play baseball in the same numbers as we once did. The rise of football, basketball, and even "extreme sports" have all crowded the sports landscape. The same splintering of TV viewership that accompanied the rise of cable TV (where there is a niche for any viewing pleasure, meaning we never will have 109 million or so people tune in to a single show ever again) has had an impact on how we play and watch sports, as well.

I would also argue that people's tastes have changed since baseball's heyday in the '30s-'50s. People don't really listen to baseball games on the radio any more; who has the time for that? Forget that listening to baseball on the radio is the perfect medium if you cannot make it to the ballpark in person. Even if you can go to the ballpark, you'll still see fans listening to radio broadcasts while watching the game. It's a powerful connection that exists between radio and baseball.

I grew up listening to Cincinnati Reds games on WLW 700 AM with Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brennaman, primarily because the pizza delivery cars we drove only had AM radios in them. There was nothing better than listening to the games while driving to and from the next delivery location on a hot summer night. A very big reason why I've wanted a satellite radio receiver for the longest time was because I would be able to listen to Reds games on the radio once again, no matter where in the U.S. I lived.

What I'm really trying to say here is that the rise and fall of jazz and baseball fandom does seem to be linked. There are perhaps no more American modes of expression and entertainment than baseball and jazz. But the reasons for the overall decline in popularity for those two pastimes are complex and have to be couched in terms of shifting cultural patterns, as well. It's a fascinating topic, and I thank Posnanski and O'Neil for making me think of it.