Trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Payton’s name is on the lips of many in the jazz community. But it’s not because of the glowing reviews for his new album, B*tches, or because, as Payton himself says, “there is no living soul who can walk on a bandstand anywhere in the world and play more horn than me.”

Payton has put himself at the centre of a debate about the state of jazz music with a blog post declaring the music isn’t cool anymore and the word jazz itself is harmful.

The post, On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore, and several followups say that 1959 was jazz’s coolest year and also the year it died. It had “separated itself from American popular music.” Payton has even taken a 90-day hiatus from saying the word jazz that will end on March 7.

The response has been overwhelming, divided between support from artists like Cassandra Wilson and others who gathered to discuss the topic in New York City, and some heavy, sometimes vicious, criticism.

“There are whole chat rooms full of vitriolic comments,” Payton says in an interview with CBC Music. “Just Google it.”

But Payton says the problem isn’t with what he’s saying, it’s with jazz itself and what people have come to expect from it. As a category of music, he says, it has become a second-class citizen.

Payton points to the surprise win by Esperanza Spalding, who performs on a track on Payton’s new album, at last year’s Grammys. The bass player beat Drake and Justin Bieber for best new artist but she didn’t perform during the broadcast, and her win didn’t make waves in popular music. Payton thinks her music is burned by the jazz brand. When something is called jazz, he says, it’s segregated from popular music and carries the assumption it won’t have a broad appeal.

“It just carries too much of a negative history,” he says. “You know like, it’s OK if you don’t sell that many records. It’s OK if there are very few people in the club. “

The first recording called jazz (or jass) was by the Original Dixieland Jass Band.

“That music was basically a white caricature of the great black music of Louis Armstrong, and King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton and the like,” Payton says. “A lot of animal calls and whistles and a very hokey form of expression. Basically a blackface version of music.”

Payton also points to Paul Whiteman, known in his day as the king of jazz.

“His idea was to mix it with the European classical tradition to make it more legitimate,” he says. “But our music was legitimate on its own. It didn’t need to be whitewashed, so to speak.”

Payton says he’s not alone in his opinion on the effects of the jazz label.

“There’s a longstanding history from Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus,” he says. “So many artists have had a problem with that word.”

Despite the controversy he’s stirred up, Payton says he’s sticking to his guns.

“It would be easier for me to play my horn and be quiet and not make waves,” he says. “I’m doing this because I'm trying to try to save a music that I see as at risk of extinction because it’s become too insular.”

Read our second article on Nicholas Payton, where he tells why he thinks using a new name, BAM, can save jazz music. What do you think of Payton’s argument? Let us know in the comment section or email us at jazz@cbc.ca.

Related links:

Listen to Nicholas Payton's new ablum B*itches
A is for Armstrong
When jazz meets hip-hop
Grammy categories may be cut, but the music remains

posted by Mike Miner on Feb 16, 2012