Raising the profile of jazz is not always that intuitive an activity.
Put it another way: conventional methods driven by perceived industry wisdom do not always work. Traditional PR on a corporate level, yes really, does not reap much benefit; big labels scorn investment for lack of return; sponsorship is limited.
Even the biggest jazz stars need their profile maintaining, raised even. There isn't much point being a legend in your own lifetime if the gigs are thin on the ground, the last time your records sold was too long back to readily recall.
Lobbying seems to work more for the bigger firms, on the UK scene that exists via awards and in a two-way path between promoters and their potential funders mainly involving the bigger festivals and event firms yet their success hinges on the continuance of ongoing events and the renewal of funding streams. Profile here is about survival, self-justification and developing new projects to sustain an organisation and build a business plan.
Beyond the practicalities of running projects whether a club, a festival, a label, a band, a recording date, the profile to provide a platform to the public is less clear cut. Beyond the conduit of specialist media often a trickle there is a void and that is only partially plugged by DIY social media profile raising or crowdfunding which beyond raising funds also raises publicity.
The ‘philosopher’s stone’ of maximum profile if you like is an impossible dream yet from time to time the profile of jazz as an entity is boosted and promises much at least in the short term. Yes that may well be still within the jazz bubble (eg a rare million selling record that seems to invent the genre to an unsuspecting public all over again, a hugely successful artist, a film with a jazz theme that captures imaginations) and works only for a short time merely within a limited cyclical ecosystem yet realistically that is all that can be achieved and ought not be disparaged. A surge of interest that advocates may hope retains some following when the fair weather friends and new adopters fall away as they inevitably will is adrenalin, often a life force that can ricochet into new creative corners.
Profile day to day needs energetic cheerleaders working in support organisations. They are vital but often get side tracked, eg in protecting their own jobs and interests as their cherished people get caught up in too much administration and all the hard grind of being professional. That all comes at a cost and the goal of actually raising the profile of jazz if that indeed is the aim can get obscured by the day to day demands the organisations face.
The tipping point is when a community is formed often beyond official state or private jazz companies or networks, perhaps through the fans of a band or the volunteers at a club who are inspired to act and develop their interests beyond the mere sum of the parts. Call this the collective impetus built on goodwill and a sense of practical purpose and enterprise. What it can build are drawn from the extra ingredients that we all like about jazz, the way it makes you think, applies music to other art forms and the world around us, makes us change and challenge our preconceptions and improve on often ill conceived thoughts about the world and test them under the microscope, all this and the sheer thrill of the music itself.
Surely that is the kind of profile raising we need, not some sort of self satisfied or ‘needs must’ attitudes that mean the genre shrinks into policy discussions rather than grows freely or fails to regenerate itself other than pave the way for the next generation who may even face the same challenges that their predecessors have tried to smash through. SG
Striking profile: Archie Shepp, photo above