But what was up with the reference to how "everything changed in the eighties with the way people had to dress". Can anyone explain what was up with that?
The NY jazz quickly changed into everyone wearing suits and ties, playing standards and very much sounding like a previous era.
But not really. Wynton came and did his thing, and it had a large following of young guys wanting to get back to the roots of jazz. Which was understandable because things had drifted into many different terrains (many that I love), but also the music BIZ was enjoying more sales with funk/jazz, Al Jarreu type jazz. Dave sanborn etc. (which much of was also frigin great).
What record labels realized was that they made far more money off of the old catalog vs new artists.
More profit in selling even more copies of Kind of Blue instead of funding new cats.
So they signed young guys that sounded like old guys (again- not really true as many of those young cats could slam some funk too, and had a huge diverse range of styles in their souls) but the labels really wanted traditional sounding records because they could "bookend" the new artist release with a bunch of classic records. For every new Wynton record on the shelf - it would be surrounded by Basie, Miles, Armstrong etc. And naturally people would buy the Wynton record PLUS a bunch of old recordings that they may have once had on vinyl but not have on "new REMASTERED, alternate takes, CD). Label profits went through the roof.
This created a huge incentive to record more traditional jazz sounding records.
Some feel this also stifled the creative side of jazz for the next few decades.
Pat personally took a huge backlash right on the chin by critics, but his following was built not from marketing but by those experiencing the concerts so while "Jazz" looked backwards, Pat toured the world filling stadiums. Literally filling stadiums. Which led to more blowback.
The part everyone seems to miss is that "jazz" was always under the influence of outside forces.
The big band era didn't end because people didn't dig it anymore - the economics changed. Real estate was cheap in NYC and clubs opened up. Musicians could play more adventurous stuff for smaller audiences and still pay the rent. So we get Bebop and Monk etc.
The 70's open culture to adventurous music let Weather Report and PMG play stadiums and tour the world like rock stars. Even that era ended but Pats thing was so strong it lasted all the way to "the way up" tour in '05. Lyle retiring at that point seemed to be in some part to that realization. But Pat, as always, Plows on. Dude is going to be playing small clubs in his 80's and he'll still be digging it.
Economics has always influenced art. Politics is always a part of art.
Pat is just referencing an interesting moment in time that was a tsunami to many artists. When the trad jazz "young lions" marketing machine (pushed by labels) got going, bands like Steps Ahead stopped touring, Weather Report lost momentum, Chick Corea Electric Band faded a bit.
Pat didn't change at all. Same shirt, same jeans, doing his thing in spite in the face of a strong current pushing the other way. Totally understand why it still sticks with him.
40 years later - Jazz as course corrected to an interesting middle place. Closer to traditional, but super advanced and adventurous but not averse to Pats vibe thing either.
Young cats are doing it strong. Musicians roll on in spite of all obstacles and outside forces.