JAZZ LEADS A HAND-TO-MOUTH EXISTENCE. IT WAS BORN IN THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT OF NEW ORLEANS IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, AND HAS NEVER FULLY OVERCOME ITS DISREPUTABLE ORIGINS. JAZZ LACKS THE SUPPORT FROM GOVERNMENTS, FOUNDATIONS, AND RICH DONORS THAT OTHER, MORE DECOROUS ART FORMS ENJOY. JAZZ IS TOO MUCH OF THE STREET TO BE CONSIDERED HIGH CULTURE, YET ITS AUDIENCE IS TINY COMPARED TO THE MASSES WHO CONSUME POPULAR MUSIC. POP STARS LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT PERFORM IN HUGE STADIUMS. IMPORTANT JAZZ MUSICIANS PLAY THE BAR BAYEUX IN BROOKLYN.
On a recent trip to New York, I went to the Bar Bayeux. I was surprised by how small it is. (I should not have been. The Village Vanguard, the most iconic jazz club on the planet, holds 132 customers.) Important artists like Immanuel Wilkins, Joel Ross, Billy Hart, Sullivan Fortner, Melissa Aldana, Uri Caine, and JD Allen have played the Bar Bayeux. I went there to see a duo with Adam Kolker and Frank Carlberg. Kolker plays all the reed instruments except double reeds and has a masters degree from the New England Conservatory. Carlberg is a respected New York pianist who composes and arranges for his own big band. There may have been 25 people in the club for their sophisticated, enormously skilled, beautiful set. When it was over Kolker passed a hat.
There truly is such a thing as “the jazz community,” and it is worldwide. If you are a hardcore jazz fan, you can travel to a jazz festival anywhere—Skopje in the Republic of North Macedonia, say, or Pančevo in Serbia—and your people will be there. At large events like festivals, where jazz fans gather in one place, you can almost convince yourself that the jazz audience is substantial. But the jazz market share is barely a blip in the vast money pool of corporate popular culture. In jazz, there is never enough money for anything.
