Pop Talk by George Varga

Jazz has always relied on fresh, new ideas and bold, young artists to innovate and take the music forward. But is jazz itself attracting young, new audiences here and nationally? Or is the music long hailed as America's greatest artistic contribution to the world struggling to draw a new generation of listeners?

"Without question, a lot more young people listen to jazz now than 30 years ago," said Pulitzer Prize-winning trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis. "There's much more interest, from a national standpoint. The first line of our mission statement is to grow and inspire audiences for jazz."

But the results of a controversial National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survey, which were released last month, show a decline in attendance at jazz concerts over the past six years.

According to the NEA's Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, 10.8 percent of adult Americans attended at least one jazz concert in 2002, but only 7.8 percent did so last year. The median age of adults attending jazz concerts went up, from 29 in 1982 and 42 in 2002, to 46 last year. The survey also indicates a similar decline in attendance for classical music, opera, ballet and nonmusical plays.

"The audience for classical music has dwindled, but that's not an argument against the music," said Marsalis, 47, who has won Grammy Awards for both his jazz and classical recordings. "When I see surveys that people have stopped reading, does that mean reading is no longer important? Education is the main thing."

Some music industry veterans have reacted to the NEA survey's results as proof that jazz is in dire commercial straits. Others dismiss the results as contradictory to broad anecdotal evidence and blame the survey's murky wording and failure to define jazz, a diverse music that has long transcended easy categorization.

"If George Gershwin couldn't define jazz, I don't think the NEA can," said acclaimed cutting-edge musician George Lewis, 57, the head of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University.

"In the 1960s, people were talking about how jazz 'needed to reach the youth.' Well, jazz has had a youth strategy going for as long as I can remember. In Europe, they treat jazz like health care — you have to have it. That's not the case here."

For more than 50 years, American jazz artists have been accorded greater respect — and drawn larger and more appreciative audiences — abroad than here in their homeland. Yet, at a time when the national recession in this country is battering all of the arts, there is evidence jazz is making inroads with younger listeners.

Witness the debut of a well-attended jazz stage at last year's Bonnaroo rock festival and the popularity of jazz trios like The Bad Plus and Medeski, Martin & Wood on the jam-band circuit.

Then there's Rhode Island's Newport Jazz Festival, which celebrated its 55th anniversary last month. The landmark event was cause for concern, because festival founder George Wein's longtime corporate sponsor, JVC, pulled out following a financial crisis at Festival Network, the company that bought Wein's Festival Productions in 2007.

Wein obtained a new sponsorship deal with CareFusion, a medical technology company. And the 2009 Newport festival drew a record number of young fans, thanks to a mix of legends like pianist Dave Brubeck, 88, and such rising stars as bassist-singer Esperanza Spalding, 24.

"We had people in their 20s and 30s, and some older fans, at Newport. The feeling of togetherness the audience had is something I've not experienced before in the festival's 55 years," Wein, 83, said from his New York home.

"I made tickets available to students for $15. Kids here and in San Diego would love to go to jazz concerts, but they can't afford $50 or $60 tickets. You have to figure out how to reach out to them with lower prices and by using all the major social networking websites."

Attracting young people to jazz is also a major quest for jazz piano prodigy Eldar.

"Showcasing this music for young people is a topic I think about every day of my life," Eldar, 22, said from a recent concert stop in Indianapolis.

"There are so many younger people in jazz doing amazing things, so the music is very healthy. The challenge is exposure, which is the case with any music that's an art form, not a commodity. It's a funny time, because so much of pop culture has been dumbed down and the youth is the trick to make these art forms thrive. The Internet won't make or break jazz, but I use it as often as I can to make my music available free for people to hear."

Marsalis is also embracing the Internet to reach new listeners. He agrees with Eldar that exposure is key.

"My oldest sons, who are 21 and 19, were resistant to anything cultural, not just jazz, but reading and going to museums," Marsalis said.

"Over time, they got into it. But I never tried to keep them from the type of stuff they did like. You can't do anything about that, although you wish you could. A lot of what they listened to made me laugh, because it was so stupid. But it's their culture and you can't make them not be a part of their culture. I just tried to present them with an alternative and let them choose."

To find out more about George Varga and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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