Jazz Is Dying

As I grew up, I was never familiar with Jazz music. Very few people recognize Jazz nowadays. 

Jazz was very popular and widely demanding back in the old days. People would buy tickets just to see a jazz band perform.

Lately, I have been bored from listening to R&B, Hip-hop, and rock music. So, I decided to go far back to the old times when people would listen to popular music in their era. That is how I found out jazz.

At first, It seemed weird and very different to me. This is because the soundtracks are mostly instrumental. 

Also, the performers who play musical instruments follow a person’s lead. The band leader's body gesture seemed very weird to me at first. 

Jazz requires a definite number of performers with a variety of instruments. Furthermore, they have to perform within a synchronized complexity which is very intriguing. 

The more I started listening to it the more I started to realize its beauty. The rhythm of this art started to feel soothing to me, That is how jazz has become one of my favorites. 

In my opinion, jazz is a kind of music that should be appreciated more than a form of art. Unfortunately, it is not getting valued like it used to before. As a result, jazz bands are losing their motivation to keep the art alive. 

Nowadays, people tend to listen to other genres, and most of them are spurious. Although I do not mean any disrespect to other genres, I think jazz should be retrieved and listened to frequently so that the next generations can witness it. 

I believe if we can recruit enough jazz teachers to teach the young generations then they will find jazz interesting. This similar approach was illustrated profoundly in the movie ‘Whiplash’. 

In the movie, Fletcher is a jazz band teacher who has quite exceptional methods for teaching. His purpose is to help his students reach their full potential of being excellent jazz musicians through his hardcore teaching techniques. 

Fletcher’s teaching methods are so crucial for students that either students quit or are afraid of quitting his band. According to him, a real artist never quits.

Fletcher’s love for jazz is unexplainable. That is why he tried his best to make some outstanding jazz artists from his students before his retirement so that jazz could be alive. 

There are some universities that offer students to learn jazz with their university jazz band. Below is an image of Pennstate College of Art and Architecture's jazz band.

I think that jazz is dying because we do not have enough jazz enthusiasts like Fletcher. Our older generations almost gave up on jazz. They neither practice nor teach the young generations about jazz. 

The seniors must pass down the jazz culture through the modern generations or else the concept of jazz will remain vague to them resulting in the end of jazz.