Jazz is funny cuz 1) change is necessary for the style to stay modern, but interesting, the perception of modern to some people might be (a very traditional sounding jazz)...ie people will be catching up to free jazz for the end of time...it never became mainstream in anyway besides popular amongst a handful of hardcore avantgarde loving cats. "change is necessary" point is important for any style of music to move beyond the initial relevance the genre once held (when it was fresh). language is limiting in that if say...a stereotyped idm artist tries new things to make a new sound that springs from, the press will try and hole the music down with
either the old slogan (idm) or slap a new name on it. either way, it's limiting.

2) jazz is truly amazing being that people that really claim to be jazz musicians (which
are a rare breed) respect the tradition so much that they want to either:::a) honor the heritage
& old sounds/imitate, b) honor the heritage and respectively add to the vocabulary in pieces,
small doses, as to be called modern, but not pulling too far from the term jazz(as we know it),
or c) honor the style so much that you want to destroy it, take some of the old vocabulary and
canon, but dive into deep lake of new sounds, where people will inadvertatly question whether
it's really jazz anymore, or a new form of jazz...noise versus jazz thing that cameup in the 60's.

this is what i love about jazz. you start with a and go down to c, and the number of artists
near the later dimish to almost a crawl. as in...who's really setting the page for innovative jazz
these days, without sounding too rooted in the tradition, but still having some of the devices of
the general genre? not many for sure!

far more cats imitating the masters, and becoming masters of imitation. The B guys are the
ones that do something real and new, but are entwined with the tradition, as to not move forward too much, but enough to feel modern. vandermark, zorn, pilc, matthew shipp, etc.

And as for the "C" guys...all we have do is look back in history to see how few there are out
there. just a few to mention:::arker, coleman, miles davis (fusion stuff), coltrane

those that define a new sound, because it is them. those are the cats i seekout whether we're
talking about jazz, techno, metal, rock, etc.

In other words, it seems there's a CRAPLOAD of imitators out there. and a good sized middle
ground of movers and shakers, but few spearheaders...where are the john coltranes out there?
show yourself!

no one on this one heh? hmm, looks like i suck a big one with this big tanker of
a thread...people looked at it, but no one touched.

wondering what's up...

Maybe this thread would jump start if you just keep it simple....jazz is dead!

Jazz as we know it, with african roots (syncopation, call & response, field hollers, blues), may be getting played out. The tip of the spear just keeps getting whittled down with fewer nooks and crannies to explore. 'C' catagory improvization will move toward more souless inner space (not that that is a bad thing).

There was an article in my newspaper about a locally based big band. It's been around off and on, for years. The jist of the story is that the gigs are getting fewer, the players older and the days numbered for this style of dance jazz. It still sounds good but it is moribund. The tip of the big band spear has pretty well worn down to a few iconoclasts probing the limits.

Within a generation or so, jazz, as we describe it, will be blended (morphed) with so many different elements that the Coltrane/Parker/Mingus (well maybe not Mingus ) stuff that rocked the house in the late 20th century will be ghettoized to the level that the big bands are today. Jazz will not be a catagory unto itself anymore.

I'm sure this topic has been beaten about plenty, but let's beat it again!

Just tryin' to get my facts straight, spiz. Are you complaining that the record companies don't promote the music or that it's not out there?

mpittman, well...kindof really avoiding that question you're posing. seems most
of the threads in this nature either applaud a/o bitch about the record labels.
I'm really saying, to truly anwer your question...that i think it's out there, it's
just not really seeing the light of day. the jazz camp has its head so far up its
arse that it wouldn't even smell a movement if it was FEDex'd to Bluenote itself,
claiming it was the new messiah.

truth is, i believe that the record industry isn't really looking for true innovative
talent at all. it's too worried about sales. and in some way, i don't blame them. this is a business too, not just music. as far as smaller labels, there are the EPS's of today, i'm sure. i just haven't found many of em yet. i think it likes it delivered to it, through the filters of time, connections, and whatever other networked devices people need to climb the musical ladder.

no one wants or cares for a revolution nowadays. think about the 20something
generation, and a bit below and above that range...socially, very opinionated on
a whole...active in marking real change? to be questioned...all the things we are
living through and their effects, they have profound effect on how we deliver our
inspiration. musically, there's soooo much out there...i find tons everyday on
myspace or wherever...jazzwise?

the best modern scenes of jazz i've found in the last 10 years? 1) chicago freejazz scene, where i actually moved to, to be closer to all the action, meet the cats, perform in the scene,
2) nyc, between Tonic, Zorn, Vijay Iyer, lower manhattan&brooklynn scenes, izzy's live dnb
scene, 3) my hometown, baltimore...late 90's/early 00's---huge underground live breakbeat jazz scene happening there.

otherwise, you tell me. much of the good stuff i hear about, doesn't really ever come to see the light of day...just the beginning of the day's sunrise at best.