No matter what metric you use, jazz has become the least popular category of music. Studies show that it is the second least popular music genre in the United States, surpassing only classical music. But is it really that unpopular? To answer this question, we need to look a little deeper.Album sales have long been a key measure of the popularity of individual genres, and year after year sales of jazz albums continue to fall. According to statistics, nearly 30% of all music consumed in the U.
S. UU is jazz, which is quite surprising considering that we rarely hear anyone say they hate jazz or that it drives them crazy. Jazz has been transformed into many different styles and subgenres, inspiring artists to infuse jazz into their work in a variety of ways. However, it is possible that sales figures for music albums are so low because popular “crossover” albums are generally not classified as jazz, even if they are a subgenre of jazz or some obvious transformation of jazz. Jazz mega-icons like John Coltrane and Squarepusher illustrate that the common perception of jazz music hasn't changed since those artists were active. Jazz music styles slowly evolved and spread to other parts of the country, so that at the time of the Civil War, jazz existed in some form both in the North and in the South.
Payton's ideas raise a lot of questions and make us evaluate this label that we sometimes place as a jazz musician, when the word “jazz” means so many things to so many different people. But the fact is that new listeners don't engage with jazz music like they did before and long-time jazz listeners often exhibit behaviors that cause them to ignore new releases, even by established artists. Agree or disagree, this is an alarming trend that has seen more and more listeners move away from jazz every year.
