The Jazz Wars Part 1: This came into my Facebook feed from a very successful straight-ahead musician for whom I have a lot of respect.
What do you get when you play free jazz backwards? Free jazz.
I just heard the term JNI for the first time. It stands for Jazz Nerds International. Apparently it refers to musicians who play jazz that does not “swing” in the traditional sense.
People, are we really still having this argument about what is genre is valid and what genre is not? There’s great free jazz, good free jazz and mediocre free jazz. There’s great mainstream jazz, good mainstream jazz and mediocre mainstream jazz.
No matter what the genre, most music is mediocre; some of it is good; and a microscopic proportion is great.
To be continued.