I could happily discuss jazz all day, but it never gets past the jazz-funk stage (and seldom goes that far, even) on this page, therefore I think the jazzers are certainly in a tiny minority.
I myself am of a more '50s and '60s persuasion, therefore I'd probably be doing battle with Quinny alone! As for the 'scene', there's a ton of programmed rubbish released in the name of jazz which even its greatest ambassadors (like Blue Note) now trumpet, in a vain attempt to equate sampling jazz with playing it! The 'new jazz' scene (in these parts at least) basically involves 'players' of limited ability noodling over house arrangements of varying tempi. Maybe add a sample or two, or some crappy computerised Fender 'Rhodes and hey, it's jazz, isn't it? BULLSHIT!
As for current, real jazz releases, I have to admit that since the latter '80s, modern technology has not been kind to jazz. Part of the thrill for me is in the recording - this can stamp an identity pretty much in the same way the best players could. But for too long now, we've been washed down a river of super-clean, digital blandness. Cardboard drum kits, screeching altos, puny bass and toy pianos are what I hear, far too often. Ravi Coltrane's 'Mad 6' from last year is a progressive LP struggling to break free of a shitty, flat, haze of a recording. Nothing breathes, it's just...a mess. On the same hand, the most recent Joshua Redman was typical of the sound which basically hasn't changed for years. It's a sound which completely sucks the life out of the music, reducing it to a digital mush which could have been recorded at any time over the past fifteen years, with nothing to distinguish it from the other formula drivel within that timespan.
Jazz died ages ago, for the most part - I truly believe that many of its 'young lions' (with the exceptions of quite a few, the Russell Watsons, James Carters, Donald Harrisons, Cindy Blackmans, Roy Hargroves, etc) don't have a clue about emotion and simply aren't lean and hungry enough in their Playstation worlds. And with those who should know better, forcing it further from its roots in a vain attempt to keep it relevant and profitable to a cloth-eared, sample-driven public (very much to its cost) its true essence will be diluted beyond recognition in the near future.
What would you do without your muesli...where would you be without a bowl?
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