Sitting here with my own music, and yes I am still thinking about this subject. In fact, this whole thread bugs me. I asked my wife, "Why am I the kind of person who seeks a debate on the internet?" Maybe because I'm just a stubborn fool. Maybe because I care about certain ideas.

Keyplr, you present a topic labeled, "Anyone dig jazz?" What I probably should have done was just answer "yes." A cheerleading squad. Is that what you were looking for? But I was actually interested in an idea you presented.

And I challenged the statement. Why? Because I think it's the kind of statement that creates barriers. It's more than one sentence. It's a very big concept that is designed to separate jazz from everything else. But it also turns people off to the music. Look at how a few other people responded to the post. I am an educator and a musician. It appears you are as well. Are you interested in testing your ideas or are you already the "definitive" author? The 'statement' you made is a fairly global statement, and I personally think it's a faulty one. It bothers me that you might pass your prejudice down to your students.

You site "collective improvisation" as the defining characteristic of jazz that is/was unique. I found an example to dispute that claim. Is it all that awful that I should be interested enough in your claim that I do a little research? If it is truly the defining characteristic of your music, then I would hope you would find it's use in other music more interesting. But maybe not? Instead you defend your claim with some statement from the 1960s and rant on about me wasting my time. Why defend? How is learning more about music a waste of time? Why not just look into the possiblity that there was something you didn't know? You might learn something new. Imagine that.

But you also made a statemtent that placed Native American culture in the realm of "the lands of prehistoric cultures." This did set me off a bit because it's a statement based on ignorance and probably prejudice. It is just plain insulting. Native American culture is not prehistoric at all. In fact, all Native American art is unique to America. Most of it precedes African, Asian, and European immigration to America, but it has also continued to grow and change - even during our history as a nation. It's not prehistoric in any way at all. Prejudice and ignorance? Did those things have any impact on jazz and jazz musicians? Gee...

The really disturbing thing about your statement is how it mirrors the attitudes of many of my music professors when I was in college. The one difference was that their prejudice was directed at jazz. Many of these "authorities" on the subject simply wrote jazz off as some sort of lesser music. They already had their own gods and nothing was going to open their eyes to anything else. It turned me off to what they had to say at the time. I wonder why?

I'm tired of people who declare themselves the definitive authority. You can hit the exclamation point as hard as you like. "period!" It doesn't do anything for me.

Very disappointing thread.

Chuck