Jazz Corner: Is There A Need For Music Categories?

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“All music is folk music; I never heard no animals make it!”Louis Armstrong has famously said. Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

Recently I had a young musician tell me excitedly about a new recording in which he had participated with classical and jazz musicians. Very happy for him, I asked him what type of sound emerged from his collaboration. He had obviously been thinking about this and said, “Well, at first I thought it would fall under the heading of World music but now I believe it should be New Age music.”

My confusion was total.

If he thought I would get an idea of the sound if it fell in the World music bin (I hadn’t a clue), I was completely at a loss by it being labeled New Age music.

Should I worry that I was out of touch with the current lingo or are we tying ourselves into unnecessary knots about neo definitions?

Fortunately, I was able to convince myself that it was the defining of sounds that might be awry.

I was also a bit amused and wondered what the unique Louis Armstrong would have said. When Bob Dylan’s sound was popular in the 1960s, a journalist had asked Louis Armstrong what he thought of this new folk music. “All music is folk music; I never heard no animals make it!” was the response.

If asked today what he thought of “World music,“ I am sure Mr. Armstrong would say something similar.

Why is there a need to pigeonhole music, particularly modern music? Is any music better understood or appreciated if it is categorized? I should hope not.

I have long felt that retail record stores — sadly a vanishing tribe — in years gone by, needed to sift out their merchandise of LP records (vinyl) and CDs (compact discs) and place them in various bins. Thus ‘jazz’, ‘R&B’, ‘Motown’, ‘Soul’, ‘Funk’, ‘Fusion’, ‘Rap’ and other categories would send potential customers directly to their shelves. It would, I conjecture, bring some order to their stock and make it easier for the shoppers and increase sales for the store.

While this is a practical aspect of placing their goods where sales are maximized, why would we wish to restrict ourselves as music consumers to these categories? Does it make choices any easier and more importantly, is the listening experience enhanced in any way?

Two important contemporary musicians Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock have emphasized at different times that they don’t believe in categories of modern (American) music. Each of them has embraced different styles and genres of music. It is worth considering their viewpoint.

In 1956, Ray Charles played at the Newport Jazz Festival and the live recording was sold as Ray Charles at the Newport Jazz Festival. Simple enough you’d think, right? Wrong! There was an objection that Ray Charles was not a jazz musician (Hello?). Atlantic Records — who had released the album had to rename the album, Do the Twist with Ray Charles. Exactly the same recording but now under a new category!

I leave you with one question to ponder:

Was Frank Sinatra a jazz vocalist or a ‘popular’ (pop) singer?

Does it really matter?