Music Mondays: La La Land saves Jazz! Or not! Or maybe jazz saves La La Land?

The newish hit movie La La Land is creating quite the tempest in a teapot in the jazz world these days, and even a few ripples of jazz-related commentary out side of it. The prospects for an awards bonanza are quite strong, starting with the recent Golden Globes and perhaps continuing to the Oscars. Which would be quite the feat for a musical/romantic comedy.

Personally, I haven't seen the movie yet and possibly never will. My record for jazz flicks is inconsistent to say the least. I saw the recent Chet Baker biopic but not the Miles Davis one or even the La La Land director's previous jazzy outing, Whiplash. (Of the ones I've not seen, the Don Cheadle Miles Davis is the one I most want to catch up to.)

What I have been doing is reading an awful lot about La La Land, especially as relates to the state of modern jazz.

So I thought I'd share some of that reading. Enjoy!

More like this

The fallout of the Great Sonny Rollins Jazz Satire Blowup of 2014 is still reverberating through the jazz community, prompting new uproars and bouncing off a surprising number of new jazz eruptions in the wider culture. Definitely interesting times to be a jazz fan, if not always for the right…
Like with La La Land a few months back, here we have a jazz-themed documentary that I haven't seen yet but have read an awful lot about. Unlike La La Land, I actually intend to see Chasing Trane and actually have tickets to see an upcoming showing at a Toronto theatre. The reviews seem fantastic,…
Why music ownership matters Forgetting What I’ve Heard: Why I Miss Buying Music Henry Rollins: Will I Be Able to Finish Listening to All My Records Before I Die? Beyond Jazz’s Boys Club The Forgotten Architects of Jazz — And the New York Women Bringing Them Back Beyond the boys club: Striving for…
Finally, New Jersey tax payers are investing time and money to discern birds' preference in popular music. Elizabeth Demaray and John Walsh at Rutgers University are conducting an exhibition, featuring four ten-foot tall red perches. On each perch a different style of music will be played on repeat…

You should watch Whiplash. It's the best movie of the past 20 years.

I think the most appropriate thing you can say about La La Land (which I think is very good, but not great) based on the links you have, is that it's the movie that people are most likely to project their own opinions/biases/motivations onto.

By Chris Funkhouser (not verified) on 18 Jan 2017 #permalink