They pack huge auditoriums, appear on hit TV shows, write tunes for major Hollywood films and sell records by the ton.
By almost any measure, they’re pop stars, but with one caveat: They play undiluted, bona-fide jazz, a music that for the last several decades has existed almost entirely on the margins of American culture.
Nevertheless, a new wave of jazz musicians has stepped into popular consciousness, despite the barriers that have kept out their predecessors for at least a couple of generations.
Though jazz radio barely exists these days, though most of the major record labels have closed or decimated their jazz departments and though young listeners rarely have opportunities to learn about the music in school or on the tube, a few intrepid jazz artists have transcended these barriers.
Granted, distinct audiences have been drawn to the music of singer-bandleader Cassandra Wilson, singer-pianist Diana Krall and funk-jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood. Each represents a unique brand of jazz improvisation that appeals to particular musical tastes.
Yet these artists have liberated themselves from the jazz ghetto of tiny record sales, public-radio-only broadcasts and “intimate” jazz clubs (where the minuscule audience sometimes is outnumbered by the wait staff). Through either musical talent, marketing savvy, hard work or some combination of each, they have defied the notion that jazz is intended for a small, elite audience alone.
Because each of the performers approaches the art of jazz in deeply personal ways, it’s difficult to say they represent a discernible musical trend that’s catapulting obscure artists into stardom. In fact, the dramatic ascent of a few ’90s jazz musicians may say more about the new audiences than it does about the rising artists.
“The barriers that we had in our generation aren’t there anymore for today’s young listeners,” says Wilson, pointing to Gen-Xers who are willing to check out jazz, pop, rock, blues or you-name-it more readily than earlier generations.
“They skip across time and space instantaneously, because they’ve got the Internet happening for them, so they’re wide open to try new sounds. It’s a small world for them.”
The artists who are willing to meet the new listeners on their own ground (Medeski Martin & Wood offers some of its repertoire exclusively on the Internet) or reflect the wide-ranging tastes of today’s listeners (Wilson’s music merges jazz with elements of country blues and pop) stand the best chance of reaching the largest audience.
Consider Wilson, who was playing in pint-sized jazz venues such as the Cotton Club on South Michigan Avenue at the start of the decade. Three years ago, she attracted a capacity audience to the 800-seat Park West and ever since has played the 2,200-plus Orchestra Hall. Nothing smaller will suffice.
Moreover, the crowds she attracts are not the usual white, middle-aged males one might encounter on a Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase but a richly diverse mix of listeners that more closely resembles the crowd at an alternative rock concert.
“I look out at the audience, and I see a whole lot of people that I’ve never seen before with a jazz group,” says Wilson’s longtime bassist and musical director, Lonnie Plaxico.
“I see the same people who might go to see a play, what looks like a lot of (politically) liberal people, gay men and gay women, which you just don’t see in most jazz places.”
Or take the case of Krall, who to date has sold nearly 300,000 copies of her 1997 release, “Love Scenes” (GRP), a staggering number by jazz standards and one that places her within striking distance of gold-record status (500,000). Throw in Krall’s sales for “All for You” (GRP, 1995), “Only Trust Your Heart’ (GRP, 1995) and “Stepping Out” (Justin Time, 1993), and her sales approach the stratospheric 700,000 level, says Krall producer and Verve Music Group chairman Tommy LiPuma.
“I hesitate to make comparisons, but we’re at a point now where Diana is really ready to become an artist like a Yanni or a Jim Brickman or a George Winston,” says GRP vice president Michael Kauffman, pointing to crossover artists whose sales routinely number in the millions.
And then there’s the unlikely case of Medeski Martin & Wood, a jazz-funk instrumental trio that generally avoids jazz clubs altogether, preferring instead to play rock venues such as the Vic.
“We weeded out the jazz clubs early on, because they were the worst experiences,” says John Medeski, the band’s keyboardist. “That’s where we got treated the worst and the audience was the most ignorant. They were much more like a classical kind of vibe, except the people were drinking and smoking.”
So how did they do it? How did Wilson, Krall and Medeski Martin & Wood manage to attract throngs without diluting the jazz intricacies of their music?
Each, it turns out, found his or her own way to reach listeners.
“I never expected such a huge reaction, and I certainly didn’t try to get it,” says Wilson, referring to the enormous critical and popular success of her two breakthrough albums, “Blue Light Til Dawn” (Blue Note, 1993) and “New Moon Daughter” (1995).
In these two recordings, as well as her newly released “Traveling Miles” (also on Blue Note), Wilson used her resources as jazz improviser as the starting point for a remarkable journey in sound. By delving into unorthodox repertoire — including Robert Johnson’s “Hellhound on My Trail” and Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” — she found unusual sources of inspiration. And by bringing steel guitar, floor tams, cornet and other forms of rustic instrumentation into the mix, Wilson came up with a sound that was essentially unprecedented in modern jazz.
Musically complex but melodically accessible, steeped not only in jazz but in rural blues, Wilson’s idiom blithely ignored traditional stylistic boundaries. Perhaps as a result, she was rewarded with a comparably eclectic — and large — audience.
“Actually, I’ve always been about building bridges instead of ivory towers,” says Wilson, who plays Orchestra Hall Friday.
“I think that radio and the (recording) industry have given us a set of categories to deal with, and most people abide by those categories without even thinking about it.
“It’s a rather myopic view of what jazz is, and I just have a broader sense of the meaning of the word.”
Like Wilson, Medeski Martin & Wood fearlessly pursued a sound entirely of their own making. Though trained in classical music and traditional jazz, the twentysomething players had grown up fully aware of funk, fusion, rock, alternative rock, hip-hop and you-name-it. Drawing on rhythmic and textural elements of each, they forged a tough, organ-bass-drums trio sound that was lean and contemporary yet complex in its harmonic underpinnings.
Equally important, they completely bypassed the traditional jazz marketing and promotion industry.
“We just wanted to go out and play for people, especially younger ones, the kinds of listeners who were going out to the Grateful Dead and that kind of thing,” recalls keyboardist Medeski.
“Billy’s dad had a serious computer set-up, so we just printed up our own press kits, then we called up clubs and said, `Hi, we’re representing this new band,’ and played at any club in the country that would have us.
“We couldn’t afford a hotel, so we’d go out on tour in our van, meet people at the gigs and sleep on their floors. We sold T-shirts and CDs out of the van and went to the next gig. It was basically a rock and roll approach, but it was the kind of jazz we wanted to make.”
The band’s first tour, in 1994, lost money, but with each outing and recording, their fan base swelled. After releasing “Notes From the Underground” (Accurate, 1992) and three Gramavision CDs “It’s a Jungle in Here” (1993), “Friday Afternoon in the Universe” (1994) and “Shack-man” (1996), fully 17 labels were knocking at their door, with prestigious Blue Note signing them in ’97 and releasing “Combustication” last year.
But neither MMW nor Wilson has rocketed to the top of the commercial heap with the velocity of Krall, perhaps the most salable jazz star of the moment. With an upcoming spread in Vanity Fair and likely movie appearances as the result of her recent signing with the William Morris Agency, Krall seems headed in the footsteps of Harry Connick Jr.
“I think there’s something very sensual about the manner in which she projects a song,” says LiPuma, who has produced “All for You,” “Love Scenes” and the forthcoming “When I Look in Your Eyes.”
Equally important, Krall has benefited from a cunning marketing campaign that has placed her on radio broadcasts such as Garrison Keillor’s popular “Prairie Home Companion” show on NPR and TV programs such as the daytime talk show “The View” and the nighttime soap opera “Melrose Place.”
“The promotion and publicity machine never stopped from this office,” says veteran jazz manager Mary Ann Topper, whose Jazz Tree agency helped transform Krall from lounge singer to pop icon.
Whether one applauds these artists or not, there’s no denying that they have ended a long drought in which real jazz was virtually banished from the pop mainstream. Though earlier artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and others enjoyed broad adulation, the rise of rock and roll and mass merchandising in the 1960s seemed to end forever the possibility that jazz could attain another moment in the sun.
“Jazz went through that whole angry period, and understandably so, given the politics of the situation,” says Chris Heim, music director of jazz radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM.
In other words, with the record industry increasingly ignoring jazz in favor of larger-selling genres, the musicians often “literally turned their backs on the audience,” adds Heim. “That left a large part of the audience feeling left out and uncomfortable.
“But if the music is going to become popular again, it’s going to need stars,” adds Heim. “If all of us who love and care about jazz want to see it survive into the next millennium, it has to reinvigorate its audience.
“We can’t just be three people all talking to ourselves.
“And if people can discover this music by discovering these stars, I think it will do nothing but good for jazz.”
