Young music fans discover jazz-pop classics

Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 08:49:18 +0900
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
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Here's an encouraging story - someone has figured out how to sell jazz to
people under 40 years old.
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http://www.charleston.net/stories/052403/wor_24croon.shtml
The Post & Courier
24 May 2003
Young music fans discover jazz-pop classics from the new crooners
BY DAVE FERMAN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Not long ago, 19-year-old crooner/pianist Peter Cincotti was in a quandary:
He loved the old jazz standard "Ain't Misbehavin" and wanted to put it on
his debut CD.
But, he thought, hasn't it been done over and over? Maybe a little too
often?
In the end, his love of Fats Waller won out. He put the song on the CD and
quickly had evidence it was the right move. A few days after giving a copy
to his little sister, she reported that one of her friends was raving about
the song.
"She told my sister, 'I really like that song your brother wrote -- I can't
quit humming it,' " says Cincotti, who is balancing attending Columbia
University with frequent club gigs around the country. "It made me think,
'What am I worried about? It's not new music, but it is to them.' "
"Them" being the thousands of young music fans who are embracing a growing
handful of young performers who, like Cincotti, trade in such classic
jazz-pop ballads as "Summer Wind" and "Fever."
Crooners like Cincotti, Michael Buble and Brian Evans are throwbacks to an
era of cool, sophisticated singing, artful arrangements and honest,
understated live presentation. And people are listening: Cincotti's debut
CD, for example, has vaulted to the No. 3 spot on the national jazz albums
chart.
The trend, however, is larger: Witness the platinum success of Rod Stewart's
"It Had To Be You ... The Great American Songbook," or the positive reviews
for "But Beautiful," Boz Scaggs' recent collection of standards. Even
bluesman B.B. King is about to get into the act with his upcoming CD of
standards.
And all of this, let's not forget, is in addition to Norah Jones'
6-million-selling "Come Away With Me," which introduced a new generation to
smoky, jazzy balladry.
Crooning, again, is cool -- not just to folks in their 30s and to the older
set who grew up with guys like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett on their
stereo, but to kids.
This is a pleasant surprise to Evans and Cincotti, who both say that they
felt like fish out of water in high school because of their musical tastes.
"This was the music I grew up with," says Evans, 30, "but I didn't think
anyone else did, as my upbringing in high school proved. Kids hated it. ...
I figured everyone but me disliked it."
Now, they say, younger listeners are far more appreciative.
"My audiences range from kids with earrings in everything one could fit an
earring in," says Evans, "to older folks who are happy to see someone
keeping the style and tradition going.
Not all old folks are there just to hear the past -- some of them simply
like that it's the future, too."
That kids like the music is a surprise to many older fans, but DownBeat
magazine editor Jason Koransky says it's easy to understand why today's
youngsters like crooners. "People in their 20s love this -- definitely," he
says. "It's easy to feel abandoned by the record industry at large today. It
seems like everything is geared toward the teen audience, and there's a
backlash -- and crooners are part of it. It's a good backlash."
Indeed, for people in their 20s, a well-sung version of "Fever" or "Summer
Wind" has a lot going for it: It isn't bling-obsessed hip-hop, or too-sugary
teen-pop, or angst-ridden, grinding metal, or cookie-cutter country.
Well-written and full of intelligent lyrics and charming melodies, songs
from the '40s and '50s evoke a timeless cool and a permanence often lacking
in modern pop music.
"If this music is a fad," says Evans, "it's the longest fad in history. It's
the other styles that are the fad. ... (People) knew who Ella Fitzgerald was
(in the 1940s) and they still do."
Today's young crooners have, at least on paper, long careers ahead of them
because they appeal to various generations.
Older fans have memories and a longstanding appreciation, and that includes
guys such as Scaggs, 56, who grew up with the music in the house.
"If you're an old dog like myself, you don't try to keep up with trends," he
says. "The last few decades have been dominated by individual styles -- it's
just natural that people now gravitate back to the classic styles. Some of
these aspects, such as melody and chord complexity and complex rhythms, they
haven't been dominant in pop music for a while, and it's comforting to hear
them now."
Folks in their 30s and 40s may not have grown up with that classic style,
but rock and pop artists of their generation often aligned themselves with
such iconic artists as Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. So even if
you grew up listening to U2, Elvis Costello or Talking Heads, it's not that
much of a leap to enjoying jazz standards.
Think of Bono singing with Sinatra or Linda Ronstadt's stabs at swing in the
'80s. Think, too, of the Harry Connick Jr. craze in the '90s, the highly
successful Tony Bennett/k.d. lang duets, and our brief -- if intense --
infatuations with lounge and swing music in recent years. All have helped
give the music of the '40s and '50s a certain luster for people who find
today's rock 'n' roll and pop lacking.
And think, of course, of the success of Jones and Diana Krall, who also
evoke an adult, charming cool -- and have sold millions. A twenty-something
can appreciate Sinatra because he's Sinatra, but Jones speaks to them
because she's their age. Until Jones came along last year, they simply
didn't have anyone of their generation performing such grown-up music.
"I think she knocked down a lot of walls and opened up a lot of eyes to the
fact that as an industry we're very compartmentalized," says Glen Barros,
president of Cincotti's label, Concord Records. "She's everywhere, and she
made people realize there's an audience that's not being served, and this
kind of music will identify with them."
Compare all that cool and history with Justin Timberlake and Christina
Aguilera, and the latter two can look, even to a music fan between 18 and
25, pretty childish. And that's where the younger generation comes in.
"Good music is good music, and this music is timeless," says Cincotti, who
still lives at home with his mom in New York. "(Pop) music today depends on
everything but the music, whether it's clothes or explosions onstage -- this
has substance."
But the trick is getting it to the younger fans. Barros says that building a
younger fan base is helped by the Internet, but he also notes that the label
has gone out of its way to court young fans, querying the teen press and
college radio station programmers. This has resulted in an article on
Cincotti in Teen Vogue and airplay on college radio stations.
Barros also notes that RCA, Buble's label, has been smart in getting him on
the soundtrack to "Down With Love," a mainstream movie that stars Renee
Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. Buble sings a duet with Holly Palmer on the
title track and does two other songs.
Cincotti, too, is due to be in movies, possibly both on the soundtrack and
on the screen.
"A couple studios have approached us," says Barros. "They like the music and
Peter's image, and they want to work him into the film. I know he'd love to
act."
Also, Barros says, there are talks about a multiact bill -- Can we call this
Croonerpalooza? -- going out to play larger venues. No firm lineup or dates
have been set up, he says, but "we've talked to agents and promoters about
putting something together. It's a phenomenal idea, and we're pursuing it."
Chances are, experts say, he has some time: Because nobody expects crooner
records to do Timberlake's numbers, a CD can be worked as effectively six
months after its release as a week after.
"We're going to be doing ads for Boz's record this Christmas," says Harold
Sulman, president of Scaggs' label, Mailboat Records. "It's not going to go
away.
The CD and this type of music aren't tied to airplay or first-week sales.
You can work these records forever because the music has longevity."
Koransky, too, says that the next several years should see even more
appreciation for classic ballads and the youngsters that sing them.
"The albums keep selling. I can't foresee a major end to this," he says.
"Obviously, things go in peaks and valleys, but I definitely see for the
next five to seven years labels keep trying to find nice singers."