[Dixielandjazz] Why Jazz isn't cool anymore

[Marek Boym]

>
> IMO Payton makes a lot of sense that jazz died circa 1959. (give or take a
> few years).
>
> Basically because since that time, there are too many people, taking much
> too much time, trying to define what jazz is . . . or isn't. And who plays
> it, or doesn't.

To the best of my knowledge, this started with the REvival of
traditional jazz.  The traddies did not consider anything other than
traditional jazz, perhaps including early big bands (pity Ellington
abandoned jazz after the Washingtonians - remember?).  Others actually
often endorsed it then: Parker said that "be bop was no love child of
jazz," while others spoke of jazz, swing and be-bop as separate
fields.  As late as the 1980's, the father of a friend of mine (in his
days, he had been an usher in an American theatre which featured Gene
Krupa, among others), when she told him that she liked jazz and
proceeded to speak of Goodman, interrupted: "but it is not jazz - it's
swing."
Thus, the 1959 date seems highly irrelevant.


>
> "Jazz"? Who the hell can accurately define "jazz" these days? Other than as
>  the name of a musical form that existed from 1916 to 1959.

And who could in those days?  To me, "cool" is not jazz, but I am not
going into this discussion again, merely pointing out that trying to
define jazz goes much farther back than 1959.


Cheers
>