And all that jazz

I have a couple of friends – a father and son – who are jazz musicians. Dad, a trombonist, is/was kind of a giant of the genre. He is written up in assorted lexicons as a major Canadian musician, and also paid his dues in the London jazz clubs of the 1950s and early ‘60s, when he was with Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine, and also did sessions work with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and so forth. Big time guy.

The son, a jazz guitarist, is equally gifted and gets it from both sides. He has his dad, and his maternal grandfather, who played with Django Reinhardt, and he actually uses granddad’s guitar. A guitar that has seen a lot of smoke-filled rooms.

They (whom I shall not name, out of respect for their sensitivities) don’t have the proverbial pot to piss in. I mean, these guys are consistently broke and the odd buck they get from gigs goes towards paying the rent and buying groceries.

I once wrote liner notes for them on one of their CDs. Glad to do it. I like them and respect them. However, they had no money with which to pay me, so they paid me in CDs. Great music. They gave me 20 of them. I think I still have about 17 kicking around.

Part of their problem is, you see, they are jazz ‘purists’ and regard with disdain any attempt to popularize an often difficult genre. Dad once played with both Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, and knew both men well from the early jazz scene in London.

“I’ve never forgiven Charlie for selling out,” Dad said to me one time. “He was a brilliant jazz drummer, and then he went to rock music. What a pity.”

Yes, I thought, I am sure Charlie is filled with guilt every time he fires up the Bentley, thinking of how he could be driving a rusted out ’85 Nissan like you.

I once told the son how I liked both the voice and trumpet of uber-junkie Chet Baker.

“Ah – a romantic,” he replied, almost disdainfully.

You see, that’s the problem with a lot of jazz and jazz musicians. They cringe at the thought of popularity – which translates into making money. They also cringe at the thought of making their music understandable to the run-of-the-mill lay audience, like me.

I once had the ‘privilege’ of interviewing George Shearing. The idea of chatting with the guy who composed Lullaby of Birdland was a nice little perk in my journalistic career.

First words out of his mouth: “Don’t ask me anything about Lullaby. I’ve come to loathe it. It got too popular.”

It’s true, I thought, you guys are all elitist sons-of-bitches who think: “How dare the unwashed public like our stuff. We only want other musicians and purists to like our stuff.”

Wendy, during a stint with the Alberta Culture Ministry (yes, the oil-patch province has such a thing) had a chance to hang out with Dizzy Gillespie one time. I was agog and asked what he was like. She told me.

“Mainly drunk. And when he was sober he was the most belligerent and arrogant bastard I think I’ve ever met.”

I have a friend who is a jazz snob. He puts on stuff that nobody else has ever heard of. Stuff by old guys with dark glasses and porkpie hats. Stuff that goes on and on for days.

If I didn’t have my few jazz/pop records that I love, I’d conclude that jazz doesn’t deserve to make money because it really sucks.