Jazz Imperial Complex

JIC 1

The Jazz Imperial Complex (JIC) is the system in which Jazz takes as much territory from western music as possible through two tiers. At the top, jazz musicians uphold their musical traditions and values, while at the bottom, people make and listen to music that’s labeled as jazz but lacks a lot of the traditional elements upheld at the top. This structure can be found in various scenes like masterclasses led by jazz greats, music colleges/conservatories, and social media comment sections. Jazz purists at the top of the JIC will claim that anything that doesn’t follow their rulebook isn’t “real Jazz”, yet there remains a vast amount of musicians that label their own music as Jazz for the sole purpose of marketing.

The purists at the top of the JIC frequently berate everyone at the bottom, and the attacks usually come in the form of untrained musicianship disguised as the preservation of tradition.

• “You played a lot of notes, but did you get the gig?”

• “The new stuff these cats are playing is hip, but where do you think it all came from?”

• “If you wanna be a real cat, you gotta shed the real book like your life depends on it. No one will call you up in a jam if you can’t play the blues”

• “Your playing is cool but you gotta listen to the greats that came before you. I’m talkin Herbie, Miles, Chick…now that’s real jazz”

These are a few of many talking points traditional jazzers use that lock musicians in a box, and increasing the size of that box seems to be their objective.

JIC In Action

The JIC is incredibly easy to catch. If you find a song that contains complex harmony or chords with even one extension, you may see people complimenting the use of “jazzy chords”. Congratulations, you’ve spotted the JIC!

Musicians are not able to use chords with more than four notes without people calling it Jazz, even though they might not want to call it Jazz themselves. The labeling of a song as Jazz can bring it more attention, but it can also sacrifice the identity of both the song and the person who wrote it.

Fizz's Stance

Fizz completely rejects the oppressive nature of the JIC and its effects on the musical landscape. In the Torus of Fizzosophy, one of the 3 axioms is that Everything Matters, which describes the importance of every musical detail down to the microrhythm. That doesn’t hold true for jazz purists that control the JIC because of their disregard for innovation and their inability to move on from the music that came out when they were 12. What year is this, f*cking 1950?