Is Japanese jazz authentic?
The most common question people ask me as a jazz writer is whether I think Japanese jazz is authentic or not. The answer, of course, depends on what “authentic” means. Authenticity is the most common of a critic’s tools, and the most common source for players’ anxiety. Players and critics base their evaluations on this idea, but have a hard time defining it. Authenticity derives from a vast complex of characteristics, many of which are unconscious in their workings and effects, making it difficult to define clearly.
As I see it, “authentic” could have one of several meanings. Authentic could mean coming out of the same roots and core experiences that originally inspired and shaped jazz. Authentic might also mean having the same artistic forms and patterns. And finally, authentic could also mean expressing a similar outlook or viewpoint that results in a particular emotional effect. In fact, authentic means all three: original authenticity, formal authenticity, and emotional authenticity.
Obviously, Japanese jazz is not authentic in any original sense. No Japanese players experienced the discrimination, working conditions, jam sessions, or life situations of the jazz originators. But neither have the current generation of American players, most of whom learned jazz from recordings and direct instruction. Personal experience should not be confused with ability or power of expression. Jazz is an American art form in origin, but in the future, its development will continue to become freer and freer from the moorings of its birthplace.
Japanese players, though, have clearly captured formal authenticity. No one would think to question whether Japanese films or novels are authentic or not. Neither of these artistic forms originated in Japan, but they’ve been accepted. Jazz has also imported its formal aspects. Nearly all Japanese jazz players have an excellent sense of jazz form. They are able to capture the nuances of structure, and incorporate large and small forms into their basic musical vocabulary with startling clarity.
It is about the third type of authenticity--whether players have the emotional impact and spiritual essence to produce “real” jazz--that is hardest to answer. But this is where generalizing terms fail. Some players genuinely do have an emotional authenticity in their music, regardless of the form of jazz they play, and others do not. But, this is the essence of all artistic conflict, the difficulty of deciding whether what was intended was truly expressed, or not. Jazz authenticity most often comes in brief, usually unrecorded solos. A great, “authentic” solo, and even a whole set, is quickly left, or lost, in memory. To ask the question about authenticity right after a solo may just be possible, but to ask it in general may be pointless.
It’s these moments of fleeting authenticity that are at the core of jazz’s unique nature. So, to ask about authenticity is as difficult as asking, “What is jazz?” If it’s telling your own story in music, then, there are plenty of stories left to tell. The language of jazz translates. If anything, the question itself is problematic. Authenticity is an idea that has positive motivation by focusing attention on quality and sincerity, but can be destructive by undermining confidence and the energetic attitude which jazz demands. In that sense, the best answer to the question might just be, “Listen for yourself.”
September 22, 2007