There’s an interesting discussion going on in the comments section of Facebook. I don’t know how to link to such things, but the discussion starts with Charlie Bertsch’s review of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s new album. In it, he talks about the ways a jazz artist of the post-rock and roll era might have been able to “make it big.”
Within the context of that significantly reduced market share, the only way for a jazz artist to make it big was to produce music that satisfied both hardcore fans and casual listeners who might buy an album or two to stand in, metonymically, for the collection they didn’t have the time, money or inclination to assemble.
Now, I’m pretty sure that what really fascinates me about the subsequent discussion is that I’m out of my league. I know little about jazz beyond “I like this.” I am, in fact, just the kind of audience Charlie references above, someone who listens to jazz sparingly and mostly casually. My taste preferences are towards noise, so the “stand in” albums I might listen to aren’t necessarily the “easy” ones … like everyone my age, I know Time Out, but my favorite jazz guy when I was young was Pharoah Sanders. Still, I don’t have much time for the jazz avant-garde … when I once saw Cecil Taylor in concert, I couldn’t wait for him to get off stage so Sun Ra could play.
Charlie’s example of the kind of album which could “stand in” for all jazz is Kind of Blue. It’s an excellent choice … it’s as popular as any jazz album ever made, it was cutting edge art, it was instantly great and its greatness has stood the test of time. It certainly is one of those “if you only had one jazz album, this should be it” kind of recordings. All of which perhaps explains its lofty status amongst hardcore fans. But casual listeners like it, too … as Charlie says, “it could be enjoyed by people who didn’t want to think too much about what they were hearing.” Kind of Blue is challenging, or it’s background music … it works as both, which opens it up for a large audience.
Where Charlie and I differ … well, I’m not even sure we differ, and even if we do, I’m far from sure I know what I’m talking about … is regarding the intent of the artist, in this case, Miles Davis. We agree that Kind of Blue is, to use Charlie’s word, “palatable” in ways other works are not. We agree that “palatability” is part of what makes the album so popular to this day … it rewards not only the hardcore fan but the casual one. But … and here I’ll quote not only the article, but Charlie’s comments, because they go together, and because it’s entirely possible I’m reading something into them that doesn’t exist, so best to let the reader judge for themselves:
[T]here’s no denying that Davis and his collaborators succeeded in recalibrating the virtuosity of hard bop so that it could be enjoyed by people who didn’t want to think too much about what they were hearing. … I do think its popularity and appeal to casual jazz fans are no accidents. … By slowing jazz back down after the hard bop years, he made it more palatable to those who were looking for a soundtrack rather than a primary focus.
Again, we agree that Kind of Blue can be enjoyed by more than just hardcore jazz fans. Where I disagree is about the intent of Davis in this particular case. What I read into Charlie’s comments is that Miles intended to cross over to those casual fans. He “succeeded” in creating something that “could be enjoyed by” casual fans … that success is “no accident” … Davis “made it more palatable.”
I’m inclined to think that it was an accident. I’d feel more certain about my opinion if I actually knew anything about the subject … this is definitely a discussion where I’m learning more than I’m offering. But I see Kind of Blue this way: Miles Davis has an idea for extending his experimentation with modality. He gets the right people together, they make Kind of Blue, it’s a trendsetter, and yes, it is popular and some people to this day use it as background music. But I doubt the notion of making music that was “more palatable” to casual fans ever crossed Davis’ mind at that time. As I said in the comments, “I can't think of many artists who seem less interested in making his work more palatable to an audience than Miles Davis.”
This is all trivial, I realize. I love to listen to Kind of Blue, as does Charlie, as do many people, both for “hardcore” and “casual” reasons. It is indeed a “palatable” work. It hardly matters whether Miles intended it to be that way.
A postscript. My favorite Miles Davis album is probably A Tribute to Jack Johnson. The fact that I have a favorite Miles Davis album is in itself odd, implying I know more than one of his albums … my background in jazz is far too limited for that to be true of many jazz artists. Anyway, Jack Johnson is anything but background music … no one could use it that way. It comes from Miles’ most fevered “electric” period. But for someone like me, it is also palatable. It’s closer to rock music than most of Miles’ electric period, at least the stuff I’m familiar with. It’s also more structured, to my ear, than Bitches Brew (although both are “constructed” rather than pure jam sessions). Background, no, palatable to a rock fan, yes. (Since I’ve already gone far afield of any possible expertise on my part, I’ll say that In a Silent Way might be the Kind of Blue of the electric period … you could almost use that one as background music.)
A second postscript. I should add that On the Corner from 1972, which I am less familiar with (Jack Johnson is the chronological end of my taste preferences here), was apparently created out of Davis’ desire to reach out to the young black audience. If that’s the case, then I’m wrong when I say that Davis was never interested in making music that was palatable to a larger audience.