Why Men Pretend to Like Jazz
If you’re a man, you’re probably on record as loving Miles Davis. You probably even call him “Miles.” You have a collection of Cds by Coltrane, Mingus, and Charlie Parker. You get all wistful when you discuss how great Chet Baker was.
If you’re a women, you’re really sick of this shit, but you’ve learned to tolerate it, in exchange for sex and security. But deep in your heart, you know he’s just pretending. He doesn’t really love jazz: no one could! It’s awful!
Men like to explain how you haven’t learned to “appreciate” jazz, and that’s why you don’t get it like he does. After all it’s so complex, and women tend to be simpletons, as least where music is concerned. When a woman hears Coltrane’s version of “My Favorite Things”,she is so ignorant that it just sounds like a horrible, excruciating racket. She will long for ear plugs, whereas the man who proudly put on “A Love Supreme” will adopt an expression of perfect rapture.
Men who are musicians are the worst, of course. They will be even more condescending than a civilian man when discussing the merits of jazz. It’s mathematical! You just don’t understand it! If only you weren’t a moron, you could grasp the genius of Thelonius Monk!
Jazz is a prop that affords men a posture of superiority. Nah nah, ladies, you might be gaining authority in other areas of life, but you don’t get jazz! Yet some women still buy into this fiction, like the people who declare that Jackson Pollack is as good a painter as Rembrandt. I think the time has come for women to let men off the hook, by revealing their fraud and allowing them to start making amends. Wait, I mean start listening to good music.
The tragedy is, for some men, that years of pretending have tricked them into believing they actually do like and enjoy jazz. Even when they’re alone, these men will listen to Dave Brubeck or study the history of Blue Note records. It’s kind of like the Stockholm Syndrome, but without the kidnappers.
Studies have suggested that men who pretend to love jazz have higher levels of testosterone than those who admit they either don’t like it or aren’t familiar with it. This holds true even for deaf men. In other words, the mere pretense has a masculinizing effect. Other studies have illustrated that when men talk about jazz, they tend to rate their own intelligence at least twenty points higher than when they talk about cars. Finally, recent research findings at both Oxford University and MIT imply that jazz is intolerable to all cultures where males are still allowed to beat women and set them on fire when honor demands it.
Don’t feel too badly about yourself if you are a man who “loves jazz.” Come out of the closet and celebrate your freedom to listen to punk, rhythm & blues, classic rock and death metal. You can still reads maps better than girls, if you need something to feel superior about.
January 10th, 2007 at 8:30 am
He’s never been one for Brubeck but yes, my husband “loves jazz” as do all of his friends…….me, I’m told I listen to “silly music” by feminist neo-folk songers.
Charlie has is dad’s taste but I’m the only one who likes to use an iPod.
January 13th, 2007 at 11:13 am
…you mean there are still cultures where you can set women on fire!?
I hate jazz but the anger arson sounds somewhat delightful. My sense of honor demands that you mark my map as to the location of these fire worshiping cultures!
January 13th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
my first love, Bob, when i was 20ish and still easily swayed, “turned me on” to the local jazz station. we even went to a kenny G concert together. my mom had his number though. she hated him. mom has her faults, but her eyes burn through men like x-ray lasers. interestingly, she loves John, and John hates jazz. we present a united front. together we hate jazz, the blue man group, and generally most popular music produced after 1980.
January 13th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
G, I believe the place for you is India, and possibly Pakistan as well. Sorry to hear that your wife dishonored you.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
India! I’m off…and thank you. If I could cry…well…
December 27th, 2008 at 7:36 am
I used to get ticked when people dissed jazz. Then I realized that the kind of jazz I like – the really old, ricky ticky crap with the clarinets and stuff – is no longer even on anybody’s radar, so no one was dissing my music.
Then I realized no one was dissing it because even KNOWING about it makes you a social lame-o. Honestly, the only people who like my kind of jazz are Jewish women over 65 in New York and New Jersey who aren’t intelligent enough to read good books.
Hey, maybe I could score some slightly stale ruggalah out of this. There’s always a bright side…
February 15th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
This article makes me sad. I myself am a jazz musician who is struggling in part because I’m dealing with an audience that is indifferent. Why do you find the need to attack a music that accounts for only 3% of all sales? You like to kick people when they are down? Why not attack rap for its violent and misogynistic lyrics?
I don’t walk around putting down women who don’t like jazz. At least I don’t call them idiots. Also, I don’t criticize their taste in music. The best I can do is say open your mind and give it a chance. I can try to explain to you as best I can, as a musician, how the music works. The rest is up to you. Maybe some men pretend to like jazz and think they are hip, but not this guy. I truly love it, it is my life and passion. Some women like jazz too you know?
Jazz is exciting and spontaneous. It is based on improvizing to a set melody and chord changes. It is like a long drawn out rock guitar solo, yet people can’t seem to make this connection. I feel that many people can’t understand improvized music because they are used to pop music that is performed to prerecorded tracks and computerized drum beats. Also, since people don’t like change, they want the song to sound the same everytime. Why can’t people break out of their routine and try something new every now and then?
Anyway, I could go on forever, but in the end, it is up to the listener to make the effort to understand. Ultimately, you can choose to like it or dislike it. This is after all a free country. However, I find it curious that you feel the need to attack and criticize so vehemently when a simple “this music is not my cup of tea” and move on would have sufficed. Are you threatened by this music or something? Why feel threatened by something you don’t understand? I don’t understand physics yet I am neither threatened or feel the need to criticize it. Similarly, I don’t attack another culture just because it is different from my experience. I simply choose to try and understand it and then make a better informed and educated decision.
Finally, I am quite puzzled by these alleged studies that state that men who love jazz have higher level of testosterone. I quite frankly do not see the connection and you don’t list any sources. Sounds very unscientific to me. Also, you mention that countries where men are allowed to set women on fire are most intolerant of jazz. This factoid, if true, actually makes a total mockery of your arguments. It seems to suggest that if you live in a primitive, backwards and human rights suppressing culture you will “hate” jazz. So are you trying to say that you hate jazz just like the men who abuse women? Doesn’t make you look very good. By contrast, cultures that are more educated, enlightened and respectful of human rights would seem to produce more jazz lovers. Sounds to me like a good argument to like jazz rather than the opposite.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Bird Lives!
October 1st, 2012 at 6:50 am
I get it that you don’t like Jazz, but do take note of this, some of your favourite musicians in whatever genres you listen to, they listen to jazz themselves, you probably won’t recognize their ideas and influences borrowed from jazz or even rock fusion musicians within their music. And vice versa jazz musicians get their ideas and influences from other genres. Accept and appreciate the richness and variety of music world, you’ll be a happier person
October 18th, 2012 at 4:27 am
Dammit, and there I was thinking that Americans can’t do irony.
Oh you meant it? How depressing you are. Gabriel has it about right. You, on the other hand, have it 100% wrong.
Oh and Elena, if you’re going to live in a land that excludes jazz music, can you take kenny G with you please? Jazz doesn’t want him either.
March 4th, 2013 at 10:26 pm
Your statement that no one could like jazz is untrue, and based off of your opinion. You do not jazz, probably because it confuses you and you are an amateur musician. Jazz is a beautiful art. It comes from the soul, and men don’t listen to it to seem smarter, at least I don’t. I listen to it because it speaks to me, and I play it because I can channel my feelings at the current time into a solo. I often get made fun of because of my interest, and I would not pretend to like jazz so I could have a less successful social life. I genuinely love jazz, and so do the other musicians I play with. Stop hating on other people’s tastes in music, and show some open mindedness.
April 26th, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Your argument is unfalsifiable, which makes it a weak one:anyone who truly does like jazz, will say:”you just don’t get jazz, it’s complex, and I really like it” and you’ll say that you covered exactly that in your text.For example:any woman who fakes an orgasm will make the exact sounds as a woman that does have an actual orgasm, and thus one might, after reading such an argument like that of your own making, believe, that any girl with whom he or she has sex with, fakes that orgasm, and when promply saying that to her face she, because she had an actual orgasm will say:”no, but I really did have an orgasm, you rocked my world etc etc” and it is true, but he or she, will have no choice but to say:”every woman that fakes an orgasm says that”.Just like “you’re insane” “no, I’m not for Christ’s sake!” “God that’s such a crazy thing to say, you don’t even see how crazy you are!” or “Detective,I’m not guilty” “Only a guilty man would say that!”
April 26th, 2013 at 2:52 pm
I pretended to like Jazz for 7 years. My boyfriend was a drummer in a jazz band. When they played live I used to have to watch other people and pretend to clap and whoop and Holler when I was supposed too. Exhausting!!
I should have known then that it was just not right.
He used to make really weird faces whilst drumming. No one would make those embarrassing faces if faking. No. For him it was real. For me, totally fake.
May 1st, 2013 at 12:10 am
It sounds to me like an article that was created to illicit a negative response, and that was not designed to enlighten the reader. Anyone who claims to have been in a relationship where they felt the need to “pretend” to like something when they in fact did not at all but pretended to do so for a period of seven years just to maintain the appearance of a being a loving partner is a bitch. Who’s the fake in that situation?
May 6th, 2013 at 12:03 pm
you can go and fuck yourself.
May 17th, 2013 at 11:01 am
You are a silly bitch if you really think that no one in the world “really” loves jazz. It exists for a reason, and continues to exist because good music will always resonate with good people.