I call it the "Guinness Theory." Some people refer to it as "developing a palate" or "getting accustomed." But it is really the Guinness Theory.
A few years ago, my father decided he was going to teach himself to appreciate certain drinks. The grappa, the cognac, the after-dinner drink, the nightcap sipped slowly from small, delicate glasses. Whiskey on the rocks rather than whiskey as a shot. But it all began with learning to love the Guinness.
I tell you that to tell you this. Flash forward a few years, this past summer if you wish to be most accurate. I am sitting, listlessly watching the condensation beads drip down my glass. I look around. Everyone else seems to enjoy the jazz band. Why is it doing nothing for me? Am I too young? Too pop-culture influenced? Too removed from the days when the new sounds transgressed norms and solidified listeners? It jarred me to think I might believe jazz to be nothing more than an artifact, something only alive on record and only dying in the nightclub.
As I sipped my appropriately chosen stout, a touch downtrodden with this realization, it hit me. I needed to instigate an audio version of my father's Guinness Theory. If someone can train his taste buds to be receptive of a flavor, why can I not teach my ear buds to be receptive of a sound?
It isn't that jazz was ever unpleasant to my ears. There are plenty of tunes to appreciate with infusions of the characteristic blue notes, suggestions of the prominent syncopation. I simply never pushed aside albums from The Roots or The Redwalls, Portishead's trip-hop or Saul William's spoken word, to get to Ella Fitzgerald or Charles Mingus. That is, of course, unless I was rummaging for study music. In that case, jazz proved an excellent background sound.
And it stayed in the background because everything I heard was created long before me, born during a completely different place and time. Jazz is as beautiful and powerful and moving as when first played on stage. But unlike The Beatles or The Rolling Stones — bands still constantly credited for their musical influence — jazz greats are not so frequently mentioned by current prominent artists.
Certainly we all recognize the trumpet sounds or the vocal stylistics of Louis Armstrong. They are familiar. Yet hearing "What a Wonderful World" is more of an association with cinematic sways of sentimentality rather than the realm of jazz. The soul of the sound remains as foreign as Armstrong would find his New Orleans hometown today. Similarly, "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" calls up far more memories of World War II epic films than Duke Ellington tunes.
The names — Miles Davis, Count Basie, George Gershwin, to mention a very limited few — similarly become more and more removed from jazz as a musical genre; more and more associated with something other than the sounds. While these forefathers and their labors are currently being antiquated — vinyls stored in special boxes and brought out only on special occasions, sounds saved for the sake of personal nostalgia or media manipulation — the natural consequence is to practically ignore their descendants. Plenty find struggle enough in naming a few legendary jazz artists or their less commercialized songs. How many can name a still-living, non-legend jazz musician? I sure as hell could not, even sitting that summer evening in the presence of a few.
And so began the quest not only to find, but also to appreciate the living jazz. Turns out it is not only thriving, but pretty damn tasty.
At my first experience of Jazz at Five on the Capitol Square, I was surprisingly overtaken. I walked over with the most idealized expectations, anticipating feeling so very chronologically displaced, so very 1920s, so very Harlem. Thoughts of jazz came with a compelling desire to jaunt around in flapper-garb with a half-empty flask of good old American moonshine at my hip at all times.
Instead, the scene was so very 2005, so very Madison. There were no flappers. No women in drop-waisted dresses and long pearl necklaces. I spotted no flasks. Then again, I did not look around much. My eyes and ears quickly followed the eyes and ears of every other attendee, right up to Sara Yervand at center stage.
Upon hearing her first notes, clarity and confusion simultaneously set in. I immediately understood the source for all the local critical acclaim caused by her debut album Introducing Sara Yervand, released this past May. I also immediately questioned the lack of interest in contemporary jazz. That American moonshine would be hard-pressed to produce an effect as encompassing, as alluring and as forceful as the intoxication of that voice, those sounds.
It took me no longer to appreciate the music than it did to realize it was floating out of every corner door. Jazz? Dead? Hardly in this day and age. Hardly in Madison. There may not be an abundance of musicians around town classifying themselves as jazz artists, but those that do are nothing if not notable.
Yervand sings Saturday nights at Maduro. The Concourse Hotel Bar has amazing Wednesday night jazz jams — amazing particularly if you are willing to wait for the regular musicians to roll in much nearer closing time than when music begins at 8:30 p.m. Joe Andersen hosts Monday Organ Night at Café Montmartre. Ben and Leo Sidran may not host Organ Night anymore, but they still regularly make their presences known at Montmartre. It is not for lack of opportunity that one can continue to deny jazz. A mere week of lessons will quickly acclimate one to the enjoyment of the genre.
Admittedly, much of it resides in the willingness of the listener. A willingness to be auditorally vulnerable. There is always the possibility that weekly sessions of country blues appreciation with Catfish Stephenson at the Up North Bar will not leave your music collection with a sudden influx of similar sounds. On the flip side, there is also the possibility of discovering an affinity for rock with a heavy country influence; rap rhymed over thick blues bass lines.
With those possibilities in sight, what is next? Tackling the electronica I have never quite gotten into? Throwing aside my extreme fear of very angry, incoherent screams to give hard, hard rock the accolades it deserves? Listening to the newly discovered comfort sounds of newly created jazz, I realized the Guinness Theory proved true once already. It certainly will again.
Christine is a senior majoring in English. She is still searching for just the right flask to complement her jazz night experience. Questions or comments may reach her via [email protected].
