COVID and the New York Music Scene

New York might have lost “it” for musicians. Not just from COVID either. “It” might have gone away a while ago. But this particular time gives us and other artists the breathing room to figure out what the next move is. Creating function is better than analyzing dysfunction in my opinion.  So for me the question on the table is not, “why is this happening and who is responsible?” But “how can we adapt and plan based on what we guess the new reality might look like?” So maybe I should amend my first statement to be forward looking: New York is likely to lose “it” if it hasn’t already, and by “it”, I mean the reputation of nourishing and nurturing the best young jazz musicians, of generating a scene of innovators and leaders in jazz, of being the Mecca of #BAM.

Many instrumental musicians of my generation felt like opportunities disappeared when we hit the scene. In 2009/2010 Jazz was at a nadir in the popular imagination, RnB and Pop tours stopped recruiting musicians from New York, recording studios closed down, Older musicians passed away, the maturation of 4 major university jazz programs in New York City created a glut of students who could play well enough to push prices down but not well enough to push the art form up, and the music industry was in shambles due to the great recession and the growth of streaming. The advent of Revive the Live, Dizzy’s, and a small but growing network in gentrified Brooklyn brought some life to the scene in the 2010s and provided artistic growth for many fantastic young musicians who arrived around 2012-and later. This was buttressed by the elevation of jazz in mainstream culture due to the achievements of artists like Esperanza Spaulding, Robert Glasper, and Jon Batiste. Still, pay stagnated as expenses increased, promotional and financing infrastructure diminished, and competition from the outside, due to Youtube, Instagram, and other streaming services intensified, making it harder to survive in a traditional way. Artist development, wage security, and the vision of a career path all became shaky in a way that musicians of an older generation claimed not to have experienced as drastically. Many of us took it in stride and sacrificed to keep the dream alive by doing non artistic work, cutting back financially, and deferring serious investment in things like health care, savings, assets, relationships etc. We actively took on the challenge of building a new kind of career in a new kind of environment, even though few of us actually knew what that would look like, and fewer had the ability to slow down and figure it out.

Enter COVID. I think many musicians are faced with clarity impossible to achieve previously with so many moving parts, like the chess teacher wiping all the pieces off the board in Searching for Bobby Fischer. There are no gigs left we are left to question whether live music will function in the way that it did before the virus. Will clubs be able to stay open or host the same number of people? Will people feel safe coming together again? Will municipal or state policy allow for congregation in the same way? Will people have the disposable income to maintain demand for live music? Will festivals and summer tours, a staple for many in the New York scene, return? Will corporations and couples still feel that a high priced event band for their company party or wedding is a good investment? Will Broadway rebound quickly enough that the pit musicians can afford to stick around? Will traveling to foreign countries to play be as headache-free as it was before the virus? I don’t know. I’ve heard good arguments for either side at a structural level. On an individual level, the answer depends on circumstances like one’s risk appetite, professional network, and social and financial support systems.

But most of these questions were preposterous to consider as recently as February 2020. As New York musicians, we are faced with possibility that what many of us have worked for our whole lives may be fundamentally gone. Rather than despair, I think the slowness of the times allows us to think deeply about how we pivot or press on. Assuming that things are weird for a while, some of us have been pursuing a few different options. Many are going to the internet, pushing their Instagram or Youtube accounts and adding video production and editing to their skill set. Some are moving out of New York. Where that used to feel like a gesture of failure in 2019, now the ideas of returning to family, bringing the New York Ô experience back home, adopting a slower pace of life, paying a more forgiving number in expenses, and being away from the virus epicenter all feel welcome and sensible. Plus, plane tickets for overseas work don’t need to originate in New York. Some are making entire career pivots diversifying their income streams away from music performance.

What all these movements have in common is that they were available to us before COVID and are not dependent on the health and stability of the New York music scene, which calls into question whether the scene was indeed worth it for the majority of people in it. It has been a while since New York was the primary place to get discovered, create and promote a hit record, build a loyal fanbase, or even max out your playing ability. It hasn’t been a home of artist development, new ideas, or promotional infrastructure needed to build a career. We probably have the most compelling “straight ahead” scene. But, while that music is rich, deep, and uniquely satisfying to play, the culture around it isn’t moving forward with the times in a way that protects its’ market value or creates truly novel opportunities for young musicians, from what I can tell.

That being said, New York is the home of a century old tradition of jazz, a hard won culture born in New Orleans and raised here, for which many of our mentors lived and many of our heroes died. Musicians here, regardless of wealth or fame, feel responsible for carrying that torch. This is extraordinarily important, and the efforts of those who have kept the scene swingin’, despite the structural issues and regardless of commercial success or failure, deserve a high honor. Their energy is the source of the inimitable grittiness and rawness possessed by New York musicians and recognized worldwide. From this perspective, it is understandable that people tough it out regardless of circumstance, and that giving up on New York would feel like giving up on the music itself. Living with a conviction to press on invites consideration of different possibilities for future opportunities on the scene and reasons to stay. Perhaps, as people move out and would be college students opt to go elsewhere, we hit a sweet spot in supply of musicians and demand for live music. We have Broadway, which is likely to bounce back after a time, and can be an income stream that allows musicians to still participate on the scene. New York is also not as likely to lose its classes of wealthy arts patrons, smart and innovative people in more lucrative industries, or international travelers for business and leisure. Having a strong internet game, a passion and expertise in swing, and access to the physical network here, when things re-open, seems like a powerful position to hold.

New York, and America in general, don’t do much to protect its artists or its art. We know that. The question is how to adapt to a Post lockdown scene with perhaps fewer venues, fewer musicians, restrictive policies and attitudes on gathering, a more robust “scene” online, ever-climbing rents and prices, and a premium physical network. One nice thing about COVID is that we all have the gift time, and the privilege to choose how we approach this set of changes.