Jazz music to jazz fans oft seems irreproachable, especially in the context of the most recent Sonny Rollins article by Django Gold in The New Yorker. The article, "Sonny Rollins: In His Own Words" wasn't side-splittingly funny, just a mild stab at the jazz heavyweight. And yet, fans of the Rollins man were inept at lightening up.
The gags that follow jazz culture are often met with bitter criticism. The Django Gold case, to make a point, didn't really land with most readers. If it had, the article would be a good piece of satire and not one to be confused with.
And yet, it isn't even the notion that the article was in poor taste (far from it). Moreover, it's that jazz seems untouchable, serious, studious and very dismissive of those who don't "understand" it.
Even articles that seem in poor taste and are, in most senses, written without any direction (mainly slamming the genre since it slams those who don't appreciate it, fire being fought with saxophone-playing-fire) are reprimanded to the fullest extent of the law.
Parks and Recreation took some jabs, The Office (US) had a funny gag about how jazz makes no sense, but even the notorious article "What's the Deal with Jazz" was admonished so harshly that its author was forced to take it down.
Perhaps it's because the former two TV shows have some notoriety that they can slip by unnoticed, but because it's in the written medium it falls into a category of fans that are seemingly snootier than ones who sit by the television.
All in all, the real thesis of it is that jazz, while off-putting to some listeners, is a genre much like classical, wherein if you're not "in the know" then you feel ostracized for merely opening your ears to it.
And that could be the reason these genres aren't making it past obscurity (even if you have global institutions throwing every dollar at the problem to try and fix it).
But that's not to include that big time artists like Macklemore or Ariana Grande feature a jazz sax in their tunes, which is a notable first step to bringing a genre of such fortitude and importance to the forefront (where it needs to be).
So for jazz fans, keep the spirit light and free, much like the genre itself. Only then can the entire jazz landscape begin to accept new and interested fans.
