Jazz died a long time ago, but there was never an official announcement, until now.   It has come in the form of McDonald’s new “McCafe” commercials, which have finalized the zombification of a once vital and truly American art form.   In a spectral nowhere lounge, a Jazzbot 100 Parody Unit intones an alliterative, product oriented intro for inoffensive soul stylist Dwele, who performs five seconds of smooth nothingness for an audience of smug, tastefully urban, mocha-sippping androids.

This is the point of advertising, of course, and it’s always a sad day when you hear a song you like used to sell vacuum cleaner bags, etc etc, but we’re all sophisticated and past the idea of anything being sacred and to complain about corporate soul rape is to be preachy and sentimental and weak-minded.   I’m as dead inside as anyone else, so it’s amazing when a commercial is so brazenly false and cynical it actually registers in my consciousness, and actually makes me feel something beyond my own smug indifference.  The new McDonald ads make me feel sad, deeply, deeply sad! I’m not even a big jazz fan.  I’ve got a few records and I’ve got a little book with all the old Blue Note album covers, which are the mid-century American equivalent to the illuminated manuscript.  So mainly I’m sad for the true blue jazzbo, if such a thing actually exist.  It’s more likely that this person is a pimply high school math teacher in Wisconsin, than some heroin-crazed vibes player in Harlem, but I want to believe that someone, somewhere, is keeping the flame alive.