Can Michelle Save Jazz? The Daily Beast
Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 12:05PM Shortly after first lady Michelle Obama presided over a “jazz studio” in the White House last Monday, telling everyone that “the understanding and appreciation of jazz is integral to understanding and appreciating American history and culture,” a somewhat-contradictory message was coming from a government agency five blocks away. The audience for what she called “America’s music” is shrinking, fast, according to a study released late that same day by the National Endowment for the Arts.
We’re all used to hearing dire reports that attendance at the ballet, the opera, the legitimate theater is down. But jazz? Since the NEA began studying arts participation in 1982, jazz is the one performing art that had enjoyed steady increases.
Yet sometime during the last six years (when the last count was taken) that trend reversed. The music that drew more than one out of 10 Americans out of their homes to concert or club sessions in 2002 attracted only 7.8 percent of us last year. Worse, jazz, which had always appealed strongly to the 18- to 24-year-old demographic, is now luring an older crowd: The median age of jazz consumers jumped from 29 in 1982 to 46 last year. more
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