I just visited a blog called AfroChat — which features a particularly energized discussion on the question, “Why Don’t Black Folks Listen to Jazz?” The question is worth asking, certainly. And I admire the vehemence of the responders, although I cannot share some of their racial assumptions. I should point out that I am technically Caucasian. And perhaps the whole question is elusive — why should I, as a teenager in 1965, have found Louis Armstrong more “my music” than the Beatles, even though the latter were what the media and my peers said I was supposed to be listening to?
What if art — unlike the people who discourse on it — IS genuinely color-blind, and the race or ethnicity of an artist has nothing to do with the race or ethnicity of his or her audience?
And a post titled “Why Don’t Black Folks Listen to Bessie Smith?” would be wrongly restrictive: these days, it should be “Why Don’t People Listen to Bessie Smith?” Although I am sure someone will write in to say proudly that (s)he hears Bessie just fine, thank you. And I wonder how many people actually listened to Bessie Smith when she was alive and at the height of her popularity. I am now of the opinion that even with the big bands of the Swing Era, jazz was never truly the dominant popular music of this country. In 1940, to pick a year at random, a listener had a far better chance of going to see jazz live, hearing it on the radio, easily finding jazz records as well as people who were aware of it . . . but for every Billie Holiday record there were a dozen records without a dash or a pinch of jazz. Alas, but it’s easy to prove. And Louis Armstrong himself admired the music of Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, I should point out.
The posting — and the discussion — are well worth reading. Check them out at http://www.afrochat.net/forums/music/21186-why-dont-black-folks-listen-jazz.html
I bought a jazz CD this morning. For anyone who knows me or has intuited something about my life from this blog, that should hardly be worthy of comment. 
