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4. The New York Jazz Scene in the 1990s
- University of California Press
- Chapter
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70 Jazz in the 1990s, as in the 1920s and the 1950s, enjoyed a particularly high public profile, one that perhaps culminated with the airing of Ken Burns’s Jazz on PBS in 2001. Interest in jazz, however, was still centered more on the personalities of musicians and the abstract development of musical style than on the contours and effects of a temporally and spatially located scene. Building on the previous discussions of history, memory, race, culture, and practices, on one hand, and spatiality, on the other, I offer as a corrective a focus not only on the people moving through and populating the scene, but also on the spaces and institutions they manipulate (and that manipulate them) in the process of making jazz. Central here are the relationships between all involved as the scene changes and develops, even in the course of one decade. In the pages that follow, I will rapidly sketch the major elements of the jazz scene in and since the 1990s. Toward the end of the chapter I devote more attention to the interaction of those differing elements to show how, together, they have as much impact on the making of jazz as ready-made notions of musical or historical progress. musicians The number of New York–based musicians active on the jazz scene is difficult to determine. Reliance on the data one could gather from the membership rolls of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians chapter 4 The New York Jazz Scene in the 1990s The New York Jazz Scene in the 1990s | 71 (AFM) would probably be misleading, undercounting musicians who might be said to be part of the New York scene.1 An alternative approach, using data taken from the most recent United States census, might be misleading as well, as it would include all those who claim “jazz musician ” as their profession and perhaps not include those who simply describe themselves as a “musician.” One government-funded report relied on union membership, questionnaires, and sophisticated sampling methods to estimate that there are more than seven thousand musicians in the New York metropolitan area who derive at least part of their living from jazz performance (Jeffri 2003). These and other factors make choosing a statistically representative sample of musicians for a study such as this one extremely difficult, if not impossible. Among the variables that one might have to account for in attempting to construct such a sample are race, gender, ethnicity, age, geographic background, instrument(s) played, training, performance style(s), and status on the scene. What can be said with certainty is that new musicians arrive in the city every day from different parts of the United States and the world. Like musicians conversant with other musical styles (see Florida et al. 2010, 800–801), many of them are seeking to establish themselves: to make themselves known to other musicians, to get gigs, and perhaps to attract the attention of critics and recording industry personnel. At the same time, many other musicians leave New York City, some moving across the Hudson River to New Jersey, some to areas immediately north of New York City or further north in New York state, and still others to parts of northeastern Pennsylvania, other states, and even other countries . In many cases the musicians who leave are those who have grown tired of the pace or expense of the city, are advancing in age, or have young children (Milkowski 2001). The musicians who remain in the city live primarily in three of the city’s boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.2 As in many other cities, one’s income largely determines where one can reside. Typically, only those musicians with the most prestige and/or the most stable financial portfolios can afford to reside in the more expensive Manhattan locales, which include Central Park West, Midtown Manhattan, and some areas of Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and SoHo. Residing in those areas tends to afford musicians easier access to Manhattan recording studios, performance venues, recording company offices, and other important sites. Other musicians living in Manhattan typically reside in less expensive areas: on the Lower East Side or further “uptown,” on the Upper West Side, in Harlem, and in Washington Heights. Anecdotal [3.93.173.205] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 03:40 GMT) 72 | Scenes in the City evidence, however, suggests that the majority of musicians live in Brooklyn, having been drawn there by lower rents and the presence of other musicians. Many...