Why Doesn't Contemporary Jazz Get Any Respect?

"The short answer is, we are protective of the word jazz- it's that simple.”

And that makes perfect sense. When a “word" defining a specific level of excellence broadens to encompass other levels, less excellent, those who do credit to the original standard are diminished.

jazz (jaz) noun 1.)foolishness; nonsense. 2.) wildly exciting or energetic.

Would that make smooth jazz: 1.)kinda foolish 2.)mildly exciting or lethargic?

Doesn't matter to me. I still like it. I don't think rap gets much respect, either. But I respect it for what it is. I don't care for it, but I have ninety 12 inch singles I play from time to time just because it's different. I'd bet the hardcore jazz fans would have a fit if rap was called something like urban jazz, just because of the word association.

Some rap shows a lot of vocal agility, comes from a real place / displays some originality ... and delivers impressively tight, complex clusters of syllables. I don't have much of an appetite for the stuff, but I respect it way more than most of the swill that's tagged as smooth jazz. As stated earlier there's a lot of music out there that functions very well as wallpaper without carrying around a load of stale corny cliches.

Phil - I started reading this thread out of morbid curiosity (the subject was a frequent topic with my high school friends growing up).  I was pleasantly surprised by the different perspectives and mostly lack of flaming.

But Phil, I could not agree any more strongly with your points.  The title of the thread reads why doesn't contemporary jazz get any respect...  It does by fans of the idiom.  It may or may not get respect from those with real knowledge of the jazz tradition (be they players or listeners), but it is an entirely illogical premise in that smooth jazz is a completely separate category of music.  Yes, great jazz musicians have performed in the idiom, some quite well, but jazz musicians can do that in most styles of music (Ala Brecker playing his ass off on a James Taylor album, Herbie Hancock recording a Ravel piano concerto, even the guy trying to sound like Freddie on the Us3 cataloop).  The moniker of Smooth Jazz was absolutely a term devised by a marketing exec to piggy back off the prestige and image of the Jazz art form.  Today, it is so bastardized that people who see jazz being advertised in a local club really have no idea what they are going to find if they go (jazz, smooth r&b, show tunes, funk, etc...).   No wonder audiences are confused and sometimes give up... 

And Phil, while I will probably never get to hit with Elliot Zigmund or some of the other cats you play with, you are not the only full time jazz musician on the thread!  We exist...

Greg
Piano
Washington DC

Though I find a lot of contemporary Jazz interesting and beautifully recorded, nothing pulls at my heart strings like a good swing pulse. Seemed more transparent to me as well.