I used to tell people I met on airplanes or at parties that I wrote about jazz for a living. Once they got past wondering just what type of “living” that amounted to, they’d smile and say, “I love jazz,” then pause, adding, “But I don’t know that much about it.”
They were leery, thrown off by chart-and-graph references to jazz’s development stuff like how ’40s swing begat ’50s bebop, which gave rise to ’60s free-jazz and all that. As if there was a textbook (well, actually some critic friends of mine are writing one, but that’s another story) and there might be a test, you know. Not to mention the political squabbles: why swing was king or bop the thing or how ’70s fusion killed it all.
Or maybe they’d been put off by all that technical talk: flatted fifths and extended chords and the numbers behind swing’s rhythmic propulsion like it was rocket science or something.
Then there’s the cult aspect: those older guys bending and swaying at the back of the club, making like Jewish elders swaying to an fro at temple, or the generalized bowing down before...