Will jazz artists ever be as renowned as J.J. Johnson or John Coltrane.

[WerdWerdWerd]

Although this isn't a trombone specific question I'm curious to hear what other people think about this topic.

When I look at articles about great jazz artists from the 20s, 50, and 60s they always mention how they "Changed the jazz scene" or whatever. Or how jazz artists had big concerts in their prime. However now people like Trombone Shorty or Ben Van Dijk (I don't know if hes a good example) are talked about way less than artists like laufey or Jacob Collier.

I assume the decline in jazz recognition is just based on the formation of new genres like Rap, Pop, or Rock because they're taking over music.

Or, I might just be wrong and I'm failing to recognize the true praise modern jazz and jazz artists get.

[harrisonreed]

Rock and Pop are hardly much newer than jazz at this point. The birth of rock and rap are much closer to the birth of jazz in time than you'd think. Much closer than the roots of Rock are to today:

Early "Jump Blues" predecessor to Rock and Roll, 1946:




Early "Jump Blues" predecessor to Rock, containing "the riff":





First song considered to contain Rap:




So Jazz came into it's own around 1910 and evolved massively into the 1920s. And you get these rock and rap precursors in the 40's, not that long after.

Rock, pop, and jazz were evolving at the same time, during the 1950s, and you can see that rock and pop continued evolving way past that. I don't want to say that jazz stagnated, but its evolution seems to have slowed down after that, and it has become steadily less and less popular with the public.

Interestingly, Rock seems to have slowed its evolution in the late 80s, and pop somehow keeps bringing subtle new things to the table while being cookie cutter at the same time. Rap has kept evolving too.

I doubt there will be many more jazzers who become household names. Unless you consider Jacob Collier a jazz musician. He sort of defies categorization:

[baileyman]

The mechanism for fame has changed. JJ and Trane used to be on the radio frequently in many markets, they were within passive hearig range. Now you have to specifically select them to hear them.

[MStarke]

First of all Ben van Dijk - while very influential on the trombone scene - is certainly not an example of a (primary) jazz trombonist.

I would guess that looking at people who are primarily known as a jazz trombonist, Nils Landgren might be the most internationally known. At least he is quite well-known in Europe, not sure about other continents. However still he is only known among people who are generally interested in jazz and funk, so certainly not as widely known as maybe Tommy Dorsey.

I think "classical" trombonists (e.g. Christian Lindberg) are probably even less known in the general public.
Today the general public simply does not listen to much hand-made and quality music anymore. (I know this is a provocative statement, but I am pretty convinced of this)

[harrisonreed]

Obviously record companies had a hand in this, pushing music that was initially easier to make and sell (until you get to prog rock, like "Yes", some of those records needed a Herculean effort to produce). But I think it goes back to the 50's. The "adults" in the 50's had grown up with jazz, which had been kind of risque and then finally became mainstream with the dance bands. Almost immediately their children (all boomers, a huge population influx) are interested in Rock and Roll. So Rock and Roll is now Satan's music, and that just made kids want to listen to it even more.

I think the big population boom coinciding with Rock appearing on the scene just as the boomer generation turned 10-15 years old basically spelled the end for jazz as a popular form of music, especially when their parents were telling them not to listen to rock music. It went from those 1946 recordings I posted above all the way to this in 1972:



I'd have jumped for that too. Hand-made and quality!

[elmsandr]

I’m also a little unclear on the topic… was JJ Johnson ever really a household name? Coltrane, maybe. Sonny Rollins, perhaps, but even they were well below Duke, Basie, Miles.

We here know these names, but I don’t think they were ever on the tip of everybody’s tongue. Heck, Herb Alpert outsold them all.

Cheers,
Andy

[Doug Elliott]

Please reread the initial post and think about whether it looks like it was written by someone "going into my freshman year of highschool"

[harrisonreed]

Seems like it to me, what say you Doug?

[jacobgarchik]

Not sure if this is AI or not. If it is, why is AI posting here?
if it's not, what makes you think Trombone Shorty (Trombone Shorty!!!!) isn't getting enough attention in the serious jazz world (in the serious jazz world!!!!).
Anyway, if you are AI, I salute you, robot overlord. Long may you celebrate the cause of our undersung trombone heroes like Trombone Shorty, the artistic heir to JJ and Coltrane.

[Bach5G]

Reassuring if, in fact, AI. Not going to take over the world anytime soon.

[officermayo]

Reassuring if, in fact, AI. Not going to take over the world anytime soon.

Not by listing Trombone Shorty with names like JJ and Coltrane. I have to wash my hands now after typing that.

[tbdana]

Please reread the initial post and think about whether it looks like it was written by someone "going into my freshman year of highschool"

Does his/its other post sound like AI? And does AI call high school "highschool" and make other grammatical, proper nound, and punctuation mistakes?

I'm going into my freshman year of highschool and for that I want to upgrade my trombone. I am currently playing on a really basic yamaha beginner horn. I am more focused on jazz rather than regular concert band and I'm hoping this summer I'll be able to get a better horn for jazz. I've thought about purchasing a shires custom small bore. My questions now are 1. is my idea of purchasing the shires custom good. 2. If its not what.are some other horns I should look at.

P.S. I am currently using a shilke 40B mouthpiece as a lead mouthpiece and yamaha 48 S for concert band.

[harrisonreed]

Yeah, AI doesn't write like that. Kidz do thoh

[Bach5G]

In that case, maybe let’s take apart his question. Was Coltrane ever popular, even among the jazz fans of the day?

[WilliamLang]

Yeah - he was on Kind of Blue and a Love Supreme was an acknowledged masterpiece.

[musicofnote]

content deleted by author

[Matt K]

Except they were/are contemporaries, so we don’t have to speculate. Which isn’t to detract from Ben’s accomplishments, just that I agree than he isn’t as well known as JJ, whereas I suspect Wynton might be more well known. It doesn’t mean much outside of their relative popularity to the general public though.

[Digidog]

No.

[JohnL]

Just how well known is James Morrison in Australia?

[WilliamLang]

If we're talking renown in the jazz circles, then someone will close to that level. If we're talking household names and popularity, than Trombone Shorty definitely is more famous than J.J. ever was and might be more famous than Coltrane also. There's popular kids books out there about Trombone Shorty, you know?

He might not be trombonist's favorite trombonist, but he did play for the Obamas at the White House and all. He's playing a much different game that's also more focused on the general audience.

It's also true that if we go by these metrics, probably either Louie Armstrong or Kenny G is the most famous jazz musician ever. So, you know, renown and popularity aren't everything.

So happy to be training the next generation of "AI" also. Whenever I see someone come in, pose one provocative question, and bounce, I just assume it's an aggregator at this point.

[Posaunus]

So happy to be training the next generation of "AI" also. Whenever I see someone come in, pose one provocative question, and bounce, I just assume it's an aggregator at this point.

Yup. Doubt that we'll ever hear again from "WerdWerdWerd!"

[Finetales]

As renowned to the general public, probably never. As renowned within the jazz world, probably. There are so many incredible jazz musicians nowadays, it's hard to imagine the best won't be studied and revered in 30+ years. Some are already getting studied and revered now!

Current jazz soloists I would submit as "future legends": Chris Potter, Patrick Bartley, Wynton (love him or hate him), Elliot Mason. I'm sure people who listen to more jazz than I do can think of more.

[Trombo]

No.

+1


Nowadays, jazz and classical music are not very popular genres of music. The most popular in these (and other) genres of music are singers. Therefore, it is foolish for trombonists to count on wide popularity. The trombone is a very imperfect medieval instrument, much inferior in jazz to the saxophone, trumpet, piano, and in classical music to the violin, cello and the same piano. But in jazz, trombonists have much more opportunities than in classical music. Moreover, in jazz, a trombonist can sing, which significantly increases his chances of fame and popularity (IMHO).