Constructing The Jazz Tradition Analysis

During the 1980s and 1990s, artists and critics alike seem to be at odds with the commercialization of jazz and what direction jazz music should continue in. Scott DeVeaux, a white jazz scholar, and Wynton Marsalis, an African-American jazz musician, have differing viewpoints on how jazz traditions should be continued. For Marsalis, keeping jazz traditions is critical in preserving “true” jazz music. In an interview with Musician magazine, Marsalis makes comments of how “black music [jazz] is no longer black music” and that “our [African-American] vibe is being lost” (“Soul, Craft, and Cultural Hierarchy” 297). Marsalis’s comments reveal that he feels the need to return to jazz’s traditions that hew believes are rooted within the African-American community. In contrast, DeVeaux states in his essay, “Constructing the Jazz Tradition”: “The question is [how] the uses to which jazz tradition is to be put: whether as an alternative conservatory style for the training of young musicians; as an artistic heritage …show more content…
For Marsalis, mainstream (pop) music was something he disapproved of and criticized Hancock about in the interview with Musician. Marsalis didn’t think compromising personal styles for the sake of sales was worth it and even went as far as saying, “I’m just trying to raise questions about why we as musicians have to constantly take into account some bullshit to produce what we want to produce as music (“Soul, Craft, and Cultural Hierarchy” 302). However, DeVeaux counters Marsalis’s criticism by pointing out that “jazz [was] a music that developed largely within the framework of modern mass market capitalism” (as quoted in Walser 343). While DeVeaux acknowledges neoclassicists like Marsalis who disapprove of the commercialization of jazz music, he believes that jazz music will only evolve when others stop overemphasizing traditions and the history of