I Blame Jan Garbarek

When I was a student overseas, I performed regularly as a jazz pianist. And I got lots of respect—like a Mafia don showing up at the Copa. I’d like to think this was due to my musicianship, but there was something else going on.

In jazz circles, I was an obvious American. And everybody knew that great jazz came from the US—just like fancy watches come from Switzerland and stinky cheese comes from France. I was bona fide by my place of origin, and obvious Yankee accent. And this gave me some distinction on the jazz scene overseas.

I dug every minute of it.

So I got hired and hired again. Everybody smiled at me. When they introduced the band, the announcer always made sure to say: “Please welcome on piano—all the way from Los Angeles, California—Ted Gioia!”

They clapped a little harder at that. Everybody loved LA back then, not just Randy Newman. Okay, maybe I wasn’t a Hollywood star, but I got a tiny taste of what La La Land glamor was all about.

But when I returned a few years later, it had all stopped.

I didn’t get that tender loving care anymore. Nobody even bother to mention my LA origin—they didn’t care a whit about it. It was like discovering that stinky cheese really is stinky.

Something had changed in European jazz. Musicians there didn’t give a wise owl’s hoot about what was happening in LA or NY. Not anymore. Instead they just talked about their own exciting jazz scene and homegrown musicians.

And they had lots to talk about.

Euro jazz had come of age, and they didn’t envy us Americans anymore. Poor Ted was shut out in the cold.

And I knew who to blame. It was that damned Norwegian Jan Garbarek.

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Sure there were others to blame—he didn’t do it alone. But Garbarek was the ringleader and role model. He showed what proud and confident European jazz looked like—unapologetic and independent of US-driven trends and expectations. And after Garbarek, there was no going back. I would never enjoy that taste of Yankee glamor again.

But I probably shouldn’t blame Garbarek and (in his wake) these other strutting Euros. He was great—and, even more than great, he had created a formidable sound all his own, liberated from US influences. The upshot