"Nowadays it seems to me nobody takes trouble about anything, especially writing songs"
About this Quote
There is a jazz musician’s impatience tucked into that “nowadays,” a small word doing big generational work. Marian McPartland isn’t just scolding “kids these days”; she’s pointing at a shift in how craft gets valued when speed, branding, and constant output become the currency. “Takes trouble” is the tell. It’s not about talent or inspiration, but about the unglamorous labor: revisions, harmonic curiosity, melodic discipline, the hours of listening that teach you what not to play. For a player who built a life inside standards and deep songbooks, the complaint lands as a defense of songwriting as architecture, not vibe.
The line “especially writing songs” sharpens the target. In jazz, songs are both raw material and test. A flimsy tune doesn’t hold up under improvisation; it collapses when you reharmonize it, stretch it, live in it night after night. McPartland’s subtext is that too much contemporary writing is designed to survive one pass-through: a hook for the chart, an algorithm-friendly chorus, a lyric optimized for relatability rather than specificity.
Context matters here: McPartland came up in an era where musicians learned by immersion and apprenticeship, when recordings were fewer, takes were costly, and mistakes had consequences. “Nobody takes trouble” is nostalgia with teeth, but also a warning: when convenience replaces care, you don’t just lose “quality.” You lose songs that can travel - across bands, decades, and interpretations - the very thing that made American popular music a shared language in the first place.
The line “especially writing songs” sharpens the target. In jazz, songs are both raw material and test. A flimsy tune doesn’t hold up under improvisation; it collapses when you reharmonize it, stretch it, live in it night after night. McPartland’s subtext is that too much contemporary writing is designed to survive one pass-through: a hook for the chart, an algorithm-friendly chorus, a lyric optimized for relatability rather than specificity.
Context matters here: McPartland came up in an era where musicians learned by immersion and apprenticeship, when recordings were fewer, takes were costly, and mistakes had consequences. “Nobody takes trouble” is nostalgia with teeth, but also a warning: when convenience replaces care, you don’t just lose “quality.” You lose songs that can travel - across bands, decades, and interpretations - the very thing that made American popular music a shared language in the first place.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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