This weekend, I’m going to the national jazz music festival at Wangaratta for about the 10^th time.  But I’m going with a sense of foreboding.  The audience for the ‘national’ festival will be quite small, with fewer than 200 people at most performances, mostly over 60s, less than in earlier days.   Classical music’s situation seems similar.  Yet other forms of live music seem to be booming, attracting large crowds across the age spectrum.

I like lots of different types of music, from Handel to the Hilltop Hoods, Madonna to Miles Davis, Paul Kelly to Kasey Chambers, Rhianna, the Four Seasons and much more. I like live music too, not just recorded.  But ‘serious’ live jazz seems to have lost its way as entertainment.  Why?Read More »