Keep Jazz the most popular music to the present day

What would it take for this to happen?
Would saving Glenn Miller be enough, or would a larger cultural change be necessary?

Perhaps no suburbs, which reduces youth culture, which was based around Rock and roll?
 
Miller wasn't jazz as such, his thing was swing, and he was no where near the biggest star in the US, so he living makes little to no difference
 
Culture, fashion, music, these are the hardest of things for me to predict within an alt-timeline, broadly one can discern the trends, but how precisely we evolve this backdrop as other events morph just doesn't leap out at me. That said I think Jazz is part of the ongoing evolution in music that leaves it purer forms behind as new forms move on differently. In my own musings on an altered Great War, most easily summed as the USA sits it out, I ponder the effect of no, or watered down, Prohibition, no great exhuberance post-war in the USA, the speakeasy and then "youth" culture taking such root. Pull away at the threads of Blues and then Jazz as focused through the 1920s, warp the Depression and its effects on Gospel, Bluegrass and Country, butterfly WW2 and the reach of American culture, keep the British less American-philic, keep Germans more obvious in American culture as well as a competing global culture, does this preserve the Big Band sound, the brassy elements, a certain folksiness? Without a 1950s Beat generation will we have angst in art, cool alternative to fun, classical and boisterous music? The butterflies seem small, erratic and hard to predict for me. In the 50 year span I gave myself, vaguely 1918 to 1968, I can talk myself into a lot of culture and art marching on, parallelism if you prefer, but then I would be disappointed if art, music here, simply fails to echo how differently the world has become. That said, is Glenn Miller enough, might he still be "fated" to die in an airplane crash like so many artists on the go, can his popularity alone keep tastes consuming Jazz, prevent another generation from hearing a new resonant tune? If you show me how better to guess at that then I would love to know, re=dressing the scenery of art is one area I tend to blur so as to ignore the imprecision of my own historical tinkering.
 
As early as the February 1939 issue of Downbeat, Duke Ellington warned that swing was becoming "stagnant" and added that "It is the repetition and monotony of the present Swing arrangements which bode ill for the future. Once again it is proven that when the artistic point of view gains commercial standing, artistry itself bows out, leaving inspiration to die a slow death. The present dearth of creative and original music is not, I'm convinced, due to a lack of talent." https://books.google.com/books?id=Zc4Lh9KC2MIC&pg=PA23

The swing bands were certainly the closest thing to jazz-as-popular-music America has ever known. (Though one should remember that they--especially the white bands--did a lot more pop than really "jazz" material. And even Ellington sold a lot more records with, say "Sophisticated Lady" or "Satin Doll" than with the jazz masterpieces that wowed the critics, like "Ko Ko."
) Their decline is due to various reasons. James C. Petrillo's recording bans, especially the first (1942-44) one, are often blamed. I have some reservations about that theory, as I once posted here:

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Suppose Petrillo had taken Selvin's advice and not called the strike. Or suppose the record companies had been less confident they could outlast the union, and had agreed to Petrillo's demands in July 1942. Here are some of the real and alleged results of the strike which might have been avoided:

(1) The most tragic result of the ban was of course all the great recordings that were never made. Just to mention the 1942-43 Earl Hines band with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie (and the band's new "girl singer", Sarah Vaughan) should be sufficient to make that point.

(2) The real winners were the small independent labels which settled with the union before the majors did. In fact, Capitol Records, a relative newcomer, achieved major status in this way.

(3) It is sometimes argued that the strike resulted in the downfall of the big bands and the rise of singers (who, as noted, were not subject to the ban). IMO this simply accelerated a trend that would have taken place anyway. Already before the ban it was notable that singers like Sinatra were becoming more popular than the bands (e.g., Tommy Dorsey's) with which they sang. Not only were big bands becoming too expensive, but there was a growing market for other forms of popular music--rhythm and blues (among urban blacks) and country music (among southern whites). (The development of country and r & b was enouraged by BMI's breaking ASCAP's near-monopoly on music publishing--I'll get to that in another post someday...) Furthermore, the younger jazz musicians found the big bands too restrictive a framework for improvisation, and developed the bebop style which was essentially (despite Dizzy Gillespie's big band) a small combo music.

(4) Gunther Schuller, in The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930-1945, p. 847, arguing against those who suggest that "the recording ban broke the momentum of jazz's progress" has claimed that in some ways the ban actually helped jazz. In part, this is because he thinks the big bands were largely becoming stagnant, so their displacement by singers in pop music, and by small combos (which were free to pursue more adventurous music) in jazz was not ultimately a bad thing. Furthermore, he argues that:

(a) The new bebop style may have been fortunate in not having to contend in its formative years with a booming record industry, "which surely would have rejected it or tried to muzzle it creatively. It was not until new small record companies sprang up in the mid-1940s, companies either willing to take some risks or actually supportive of the new jazz, that bop found a friendly haven in the recording field. And by then bop was strong and ready for its unrestrained diffusion."

(b) Record companies began to reissue their older recordings, "which was not only a boon to jazz record collectors but created an awareness among many music lovers that jazz did have a venerable history to be taken seriously and appreciated, at the same time reminding listeners of the deeper values in the pre-Swing Era jazz, values which had been in many cases dissipated and abandoned." Indeed, there was a revival of interest in traditional jazz around this time, and the ban may have played a role in encouraging it.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-no-petrillo-recording-bans.451057/

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All in all, I think it was inevitable that the younger and more adventurous jazz musicians would turn to more complex music--but there was obviously a price that had to be paid for that in terms of popularity. And if they had just gone on playing as they had in the late 1930's, the public would have gotten tired of it anyway--there is always a public desire for something at least superficially "new" (as long as it is sufficiently in the old groove to be easily understandable).
 
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Most treads like this narrow it down too much, to black band leaders for some reason. Yes there were good, yes they sold loads of stuff, but not as much as those like Dorsey Brothers, Benny Goodman let alone Bing Crosby. And they were nothing compared to the man you out sold them all, Bob Wills!
To keep 'jazz' two things would have had to happen, cut down the costs of touring or introduce high power amps sooner
 
I mean, the biggest jazz singer of the 50s and 60s was Frank Sinatra, right? The first wave of rock and roll didn't kill jazz as the most popular genre, it lived on in the form of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole and all that. I'd wager vocal jazz definitely held its own against rock and roll in those days, at least as a commercial form of pop music.

No, the British Invasion really killed jazz's dominance. If you didn't have the Beatles, the Stones and all that, you likely wouldn't have had the massive amount of pop and rock bands they spawned in their wake. Even if they hadn't come about, you likely would have had folkies like Bob Dylan and psychedelic bands like the Byrds taking their place at the top anyway. Additionally, Sinatra's career tapered off towards the end of the 60s, and Nat King Cole died in 1965, so it's not like they could pivot to Steely Dan-esque jazz-rock or vocal jazz fusion or whatever.

So okay. Let's say Nat King Cole doesn't fall ill and lives another thirty years. He gets sick of traditional jazz towards the end of the 60s, but he can't think of what to do instead. But then he hears, say, In A Silent Way or Hot Rats, and he realises: this is what I've been looking for! I mean, this fusion stuff is a bit too harsh for me, and something like this wouldn't go down well on the charts, but what if I made it more mellow?

So he forms a small band to play what we'd call jazz-rock, and the first album he releases with that band is huge. Like, it defines the sound of MOR radio in the early 1970s, and it's able to appeal to an older generation of jazz fans that can't really get into modern rock and roll, but find fusion too hard for them. ITTL Sinatra releases an album in this style too the next year that becomes a massive hit, and in 1972 (assuming they haven't been butterflied away) Steely Dan becomes the biggest band in the world.

Jazz remains part of the popular consciousness leading into the 1980s, but I feel like synthesisers still come into vogue ITTL if disco is still a thing and 'I Feel Love' comes about in the same form. I mean, Steely Dan probably shifts to more of a synth-based sound ITTL, as Gaucho IOTL has a much more electronic sound to it, but there's too many butterflies to know for sure. Therefore, with the whole Reagan boom going on, I feel like jazz singers in the 80s will shift towards an increasingly popular form of jazz pop from Japan: City Pop. I mean, listen to 'Plastic Love' and tell me there's not a shitton of jazz in there:

After that, idk really. I guess the swing revival in the 90s is a lot bigger, but other than that, the butterflies become pretty damn huge.
 
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Grew up in the 40s and 50s, and Jazz always struck me as an "acquired taste" that the vast majority of the country never acquired. Guess I wasn't paying attention.
 
The best you can probably do long-term is have more jazz instruments and influence on later rock/pop music.
 
Responding to The Ventriloquist, I would argue that a different British Invasion might work, one that reworked jazz rather than blues. Eric Clapton and Keith Richards will have to pick up the trumpet or saxophone instead of the guitar. I can imagine Mick Jagger with a trumpet. Can't quite imagine The Beatles, even Paul, with these instruments, though.
 
Grew up in the 40s and 50s, and Jazz always struck me as an "acquired taste" that the vast majority of the country never acquired. Guess I wasn't paying attention.
That the Beatniks liked Jazz as much as poetry didn't help. Rock&Roll at least had Teenie-Boppers as a fan base at that time.

Not nearly as 'Un-American' as the Beats
 
My hot take is that it would require black communities to stick with jazz, because most of the twentieth century in popular music is a story of white people adapting black musical trends.
 
Responding to The Ventriloquist, I would argue that a different British Invasion might work, one that reworked jazz rather than blues. Eric Clapton and Keith Richards will have to pick up the trumpet or saxophone instead of the guitar. I can imagine Mick Jagger with a trumpet. Can't quite imagine The Beatles, even Paul, with these instruments, though.

Wes Montgomery? T Bone Walker (yes more blues than jazz)? Charlie Christian? Billy Byrd? Joe Pass!?
 
British Invasion depends onhow the whole Mods vs Rockers turns out in the UK, Jazz wasn't as important as Blues or Ska to the Mods.

Jazz, more Trad jazz was massive in the UK in the mid to late 50's. Pop music was only played on the BBC for around two hours a week. The BBC was the only radio you could get.
 
Jazz, more Trad jazz was massive in the UK in the mid to late 50's. Pop music was only played on the BBC for around two hours a week. The BBC was the only radio you could get.
The Kids found other avenues
LINK
At the dawn of the 1960s, Britain still bobbed to the rhythms of a vanished age. With the exception of one commercial TV network, the airwaves were owned by the British Broadcasting Corp. — known semi-affectionately as "Auntie."


The BBC favored a bland if nourishing diet of news, information, light entertainments and children's programs. In other words, the rock 'n' roll revolution that was spreading like wildfire in the United States had been all but banished from the British airwaves.


But for a group of rebellious, rock-loving disc jockeys, such restrictions were merely a hurdle. Many of them took to the seas, hunkering down on old fishing ships anchored off the Eastern coast of England; from there, they broadcast programs built around the illicit tunes of bands like The Hollies and The Rolling Stones.

Richard Curtis, director of the new film Pirate Radio, which is based on these events, was an 8-year-old boy confined to a posh boarding school when he first heard the broadcasts. While he wasn't allowed to listen to music during the day, he remembers hiding a radio under his covers at night .


"And what I heard were these extraordinary pirate-radio stations," says Curtis. "These fantastic guys floating out in the middle of the ocean, pumping rock 'n' roll into my private school all night."


The pirates' off-coast locations strategically put them in international waters — and thus out of British authorities' legal reach. When they began broadcasting in the mid-'60s, their signals reached as many as 20 million Brits — nearly half of a population that had been permitted a diet of only six hours of "pop music" a week. And the pirates' playlists were largely lifted from American Top 40 stations, which during the '60s were dominated by the era's British bands. Radio Caroline, which broadcast from the ship Mi Amigo, became one of the most popular stations.


"It was bizarre" says Dave Cash, a former Radio Caroline DJ, "because you had no real idea of what you were doing until you came ashore. And there'd be 3,000 people waiting for us.
"
 
The problem with Jazz is that it is an improvisation that lives in the moment. So it is pretty much a spectator sport.thatbtrives in bars and clubs. No two sets are completely alike and while there might be days that a particular musician is in rare too form, there are also days where he is just 'off' and only lays down a lackluster performance. For recording, even for live broadcasting a show, this is a logistical nightmare. So for jazz to remain popular, you have to find a way to keep people going out to get their music. Not just staying at home and listening to the stereo. And even then, you need a public that understands that a show may be fantastic, ornit may just bomb. There is some certainty that the overall show will be good, by no absolute guàrantee.

But most important, keep jazz from becoming all academic, most sets today are way too often played by conservatory musicians for conservatory musicians. Instead of going all out on technical proficiency, get more danceable stuff.
 
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The last real Jazz top 40 hits of the '60s was _In Crowd_ and _Take Five_ , that I recall.

and most of the Jazz out there at that time, was nothing like those two pieces.

And some some consider Herb Alpert a Jazz artist, but I don't: no real improve with TJB
 
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