So I'm a compulsive channel surfer who often lingers too long on really bad, disjointed shows. Not just lately, but several times over the past few months I've caught myself stopping on BET (that's Black Entertainment Television) not for their standup comedy but for BET Jazz, which has got to be the cheapest program on the damn planet.
The production values are horrific — it's like somebody taped these things with one of those clunky handheld recorders that holds the big tapes, you know what I'm talking about. Of course, when most of the programs were taped, this might have been all that was available. A lot of people on these programs seem to be wearing 80s clothes — bright colors in bold graphic prints with big shoulders and retro silhouettes.
Not that I have anything against retro silhouettes, but to pull one off it must be a pomo interpretation thing; there must be some sort of irony involved. BET Jazz is oh so devoid of irony (unless you count the fact that it leads in with B&W clips from the swing era, replete with Ella, Duke, Louis and other lights and then presents Kenny G wannabes). There are also a contingent of people in some unchanging style — unreconstructed hippy is popular as is kente daishiki explosion.
The instruments are even upsettingly retro. One of the stars of BET Jazz, an Asian chick whose name escapes me (and is oddly not listed on BET's Jazz pages) plays the keytar. Seriously. She swings her bedazzled ponytail around and cranks out the lite chord progressions on a keytar as well as a piano/synthesizer. I have no idea why she's not listed on the BET Jazz shows because inevitably, it's her I see, not Wynton Marsalis.
If the lite, formless pseudojazz is upsetting, even more upsetting is the fact that the musicians seem really, really into it. They have stoner smiles a mile wide and they aren't afraid to pass those smiles to each other with a wink or nod as if to say, "man, we are cranking out the jams now!" Someone put them out of their misery.
I can't believe it is the 21st Century and no one has put together a credible competitor to BET. It wouldn't take much to be better than this. It would, however, have to cost a little more. Say $25 or so than BET's current budget.
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