New crop of `jazz' singers a bland lot
By Howard Reich
Chicago Tribune arts critic
April 11, 2004
They're young, glamorous, beautiful, talented, evocatively dressed, sumptuously photographed -- and, oh, so boring to hear.
Packaged to appeal more to the eye than to the ear, the new jazz singers -- or at least the vocalists being marketed as such -- have sold millions of records and, therefore, have redefined the art form for listeners around the planet.
There's one nagging problem, however, with the stunning ascent of the new vocal stars who draw on jazz-swing traditions: On purely artistic (rather than commercial) terms, they're dwarfed not only by the jazz masters who preceded them but by lesser-known contemporaries, many of whom are hustling to pay the rent.
Though the murmuring Norah Jones rules as the biggest selling vocalist on Blue Note, the most prestigious label in jazz, her diminutive voice and limited technique pale alongside the work of her less-hyped label-mates, such as the vocally plush Dianne Reeves and the steeped-in-blues Cassandra Wilson.
Though generic singer-pianist Diana Krall is about to ride a wave of publicity for forthcoming release "The Girl in the Other Room" (which she co-wrote with her pop-star husband, Elvis Costello), her jazz chops have proved rudimentary compared with, say, the formidable singer-pianist Patricia Barber.
Among the men, too, the gulf between the photogenic, easy-listening artists and their hard-core jazz brethren is gaping, at least as far as artistic achievement is concerned. Uncounted fortunes have been spent promoting such bathed-in-nostalgia singers as Peter Cincotti, John Pizzarelli and Steve Tyrell, but does any informed listener really consider them in the same league with the brilliant, oft-explosive -- but decidedly less commercial -- Kurt Elling?
Stack up the pretty boys, and girls, against fierce and fearless individualists such as Elling, Barber, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Lizz Wright and Philip Manuel, among others, and it's clear that the 21st Century has ushered in a bland new world of watered-down jazz singing, a pseudo-chic Muzak for a new millennium.
"I think we're very oriented toward image, toward a certain kind of `look' these days," says Michael Friedman, whose Chicago-based Premonition Records released several of Barber's breakthrough albums, including "Cafe Blue" and "Modern Cool."
"There's not much attention paid to a Kurt Elling or a Patricia Barber or people who are doing interesting things in the vocal area -- people who are trying new ideas.
"It's driven, instead, by image. Peter Cincotti is a handsome dude. Jane Monheit is a beautiful young singer.
"Beautiful singers singing beautiful songs in very non-confrontational ways -- that's what seems to work today."
Not that there's anything inherently wrong with talented young musicians playing a conservative, easily digested music for a large, record-buying public that is embracing the musical equivalent of comfort food. Though it's debatable whether most consumers actually listened to Jones' blockbuster Blue Note debut "Come Away With Me" or simply played it as background music, there was no questioning the quality of its production values or the back-to-basics appeal of a quiet little voice singing over a straightforward instrumental backdrop.
For jazz devotees and musicians, however, the rub comes when artists such as Jones, Krall, Cincotti and the rest are marketed by jazz and pop labels as the real thing, the new stars of swing-based music.
The process may have begun in earnest with Krall, whose crossover recordings such as "Love Scenes" and "When I Look in Your Eyes" made her the Norah Jones of the '90s. The soft-focus, quasi-romantic CD jackets and glossy magazine ads aptly represented Krall's pleasant but lackluster music and proved a jazz-based singer-pianist could reach a larger pop audience, given the right look and promotion.
"I've been trying to figure this out, and I think what has happened is that the record companies have found a way to finally control what is called jazz," says Bridgewater, a Grammy- and Tony-winning jazz singer.
"The record companies had this idea of taking a Diana Krall and putting lots of money behind her and selling her in the way that they do pop artists -- putting her out there and having her visible, a huge marketing scheme, and people bought into it.
"And then Norah Jones kind of took off, and that has enabled these record companies to redefine what a jazz singer is.
"To me, true jazz singers try to do something different with their music, to explore different ideas.
"But what [record labels] are trying to do now is make jazz a kind of easy listening, a hip new Muzak."
It's worth noting, however, that it wasn't record company promotion alone that fueled the ascent of the easy-listening singers, for writers and critics have done more than their share.
When Monheit emerged, in 2000, writer David Hajdu, author of the critically acclaimed Billy Strayhorn biography "Lush Life," wrote in The New York Times that she "sings like a black jazz master of the past, specifically Ella Fitzgerald." A few years earlier, critic Stephen Holden in the same publication said Krall "suggests the young Peggy Lee," a comparison he continued to invoke.
The vocalist who even approaches the technical virtuosity of Fitzgerald or the cunning stylistic economy of Lee has yet to emerge, but the gushing encomiums helped generate media buzz, publicity and sales.
Among today's record labels, none has been more successful at crossing over than Blue Note, an ironic turn of events, considering that the firm was founded in 1939 as an independent alternative to the prevailing tastes of the day. As such, it was Blue Note that early on recorded such iconoclastic as pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell and such larger-than-life personalities as tenor saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins.
To this day, the label has continued to champion such unconventional and distinctive talents as Elling, Wilson and Reeves, but it's clear where the promotional muscle is being applied.
Though Blue Note officials said they were unavailable to comment for this article, Bruce Lundvall -- the label's president and one of the most revered executives in the industry -- earlier this year offered his assessment of Jones' success.
"The melodies are lovely, and there's no screaming and yelling," he told Billboard earlier this year, in explaining the 18 million copies of "Come Away with Me" Jones has sold to date, as well as 1 million-plus copies her recent "Feels Like Home" sold in its first week. "I was just lucky I made the decision to sign Norah on the spot."
Lundvall has pushed ahead, signing Van Morrison and Al Green -- important, widely admired artists whose jazz roots couldn't push up a dandelion.
"Norah has changed our direction to a degree," Lundvall acknowledged in an earlier Billboard interview. "Our story now is that we've dropped the boundaries and opened the borders."
Considering that jazz represents a mere 2 percent to 3 percent of record sales by U.S. companies, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, it's difficult to fault Blue Note for wanting to beef up its bottom line.
Yet a price is paid when an art form is redefined in the public imagination by artists so limited in technical skill and artistic vision. In an earlier era, the high-flying virtuosity of Fitzgerald, the deep-and-gritty confessionals of Billie Holiday, the fascinating vocal experimentation of Betty Carter and, of course, the protean gifts of Frank Sinatra set the standard.
Their most popular successors, alas, have proved less impressive technically and less innovative musically than one might have hoped.
"Look -- if Frank Sinatra were alive, none of us would have any work," says Elling, a Grammy-nominated vocalist who believes Jones, Krall, et al perform a valuable service by at least introducing listeners to the standard jazz-swing repertoire.
"In jazz, there always has been a dialectic between people who are playing more inside [the mainstream] and people who are reaching out, and many of us refer to the same canon of tunes.
"[Listeners] who are curious and interested in digging deeper have a place to go."
Or at least they do so long as singers such as Elling are struggling to be heard over the radio saturation of the Jones-Krall-Cincotti contingent.
"The biggest downside of all this is the future, because we're really not conditioning people to expect the unexpected, to be moved, to think music can be a major part of their lives" says Friedman, Premonition owner.
"Music becomes something that people kind of use as a background."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
