Can standup be saved?

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on August 12th, 2009

We hope we don’t see that headline any time soon.

A similar headline is atop an article by Terry Teachout in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Teachout is WSJ’s drama critic. We’re familiar with him from his frequent guesting on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” His article, “Can Jazz Be Saved?” runs the sad, sad numbers on who is consuming jazz (live and recorded) and the demographic picture is bleak.

Teachout says that the jazz audience is “aging and shrinking at an alarming rate.” He says the numbers are scarily similar to those of (gulp!) classical music, opera and ballet. How did that happen? How did it happen so relatively quickly?

As late as the early ’50s, jazz was still for the most part a genuinely popular music, a utilitarian, song-based idiom to which ordinary people could dance if they felt like it. But by the ’60s, it had evolved into a challenging concert music whose complexities repelled many of the same youngsters who were falling hard for rock and soul.

Emphasis ours.

What does Teachout suggest be done? We’re not sure. In fact, Teachout says he “wouldn’t want to undo the transformation of jazz into a sophisticated art music” even if he had that super power. He rather weakly suggests that jazz artists “have got to start thinking hard about how to pitch it to young listeners– not next month, not next week, but right now.” Not much of a solution.

What does this have to do with standup? Well, we have often marveled at how standup comedy has been, year in and year out and through various ups and downs, a fixture on the entertainment landscape– both live, recorded and on television… even in movies. But we also occasionally sense that there are a lot of folks who would rather see standup evolve into the spoken word equivalent of jazz– a “sophisticated art form,” with challenging complexities. (Perhaps these folks– in entertainment, in the media, in academia– don’t want to see it become that, but they certainly aren’t shy about expressing their displeasure with the state of the standup art as it currently exists.)

We shudder at the prospect of standup “evolving” to the point where the “artists” must subsist on stipends from the government or handouts from charitable foundations. (Which is why we cringe when we hear an emcee praise an audience for “supporting live standup.” Arrgghh! Showing up at a comedy club and spending one’s hard-earned dough to see standup performed live is not “supporting standup.” It’s acknowledging that live standup has rightfully won in the fierce competition for the entertainment dollar. “Support” brings to mind those high-minded patrons of the arts who congratulating themselves for purchasing season tickets to the ballet (while writing off the whole expenditure as a charitable contribution). Would you really want that kind of relationship to your audience?

Of course, this is all the fevered and paranoid speculation of a couple of comedy veterans who’ve seen the business experience highs and lows. We’ve also been on a crusade for a decade, asking questions, taking some folks to task. We’ve always tried to strike a balance between getting respect for standup comics and reminding folks that even the dopiest, least complex standup comedy has a place and an audience. If it swings too wildly in either direction, we’re doomed.

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