Rock and jazz have ALWAYS had a family kinship -- there would be no guitar solos if jazz musicians on a host of instruments hadn't mastered improvisation as a way to significantly express personality and excitement through motivic variations (for the proof go back to country music progenitors Maybelle Carter and Jimmy Rogers, hokum blues by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom Dorsey, Charlie Christian in Benny Goodman's band, and trace subsequent developments: jazz encouraging extentions of old-timeyness into contemporary, more urban culture). I think the ingredient that most rock devotees miss in jazz is something visceral, though a lot of jazz (even the conventional kind) offers palpable, gutsy thrills to those who understand the language (even the vocabulary that seems conventional). There's a vast range of jazz though, and what one aficionado thinks transcends idiom can easily leave other listeners cold. Here's my attempt at entry point examples of what I've begun to call "jazz beyond jazz" (in my book Miles Ornette Cecil): Miles Davis "In A Silent Way" and "On The Corner"; Ornette's "Science Fiction" album (2 tracks with singer Asha Puhtli), Cecil Taylor's "Air About Mountains" (though it has minimalist associations, comparable to La Mont Young's Well-Tempered Piano"). From this current era I suggest keyboardist Myra Melford's recording of Be Bread, a quintet w/elect guitar, bass and electric trumpet (by Cuong Vu, who makes his own great albums); Dave Fiuczynski & John Medeski, Lunar Crash; the new Maceo Parker, esp. his instrumental funk cd (less the Ray Charles covers), and yes, the Bad Plus. Gotta hit younger people with music happening NOW. Cassandra Wilson's "Belly of the Sun," Scofield's "A Go Go," Frisell's "East/West" Vernon Reid's "Mistaken Identity" and Sun Ra's Saturn albums (esp. in self-produced lp form!) are also great genre-leapers. The jazz-rock fusion movement, despite excesses, was well-intentioned, recognizing and advancing a historical connection; its offspring remain all around us, resisting category.

If you WERE a musician, you'd understand. Your definition is far too limited, no where near the academic, and betrays your lack of knowledge of improvisation. Improvisation is more than "just a twist on it". Maybe if you read a book on harmonization you might begin to understand.

Cole Porter is a standard 12 bar, refrain, turn around. Compare it to "Watermelon Man" with a far more sophisticated structure. We won't even go into the difference between a Cole Porter I-IV-V progression, or the standard "I Got Rhythm" chord progression, and some of the more complex progressions out there. There's a whole world out there, and it doesn't all sound like Cole Porter. Some of it sounds like Black Street.

If you think jazz has to hav a certain "sound", you are just wrong. And multiple professional musicians, Jazz Improv magazine, Keyboard magazine, etc will back my position up. It's far beyond just the "jazz standards". they are standards because the structure makes it easy to improvise around. To leave the "jazz" accompaniment and soar is incredibly hard.

I will say this. You've given the twenty people I forwarded this too a huge laugh. They are gigging musicians, who deal with this kind of parochialism all of the time.

Listen to Ramsay Lewis's "Time Flies". Oh, wait. It doesn't sound like "classical" jazz. But if you tell a professional musician or academic Ramsay Lewis is not jazz, and that's not jazz, they will laugh you out of the house.

Jazz is not as limited as it is presented here.

San Francisco Jazz Collective?! Those guys and girls are hot! Especially the first two albums.

I think one reason for the dubious "rock vs. jazz" controversy is the abundance of rock-music critics in the popular media (such as the Siskel/Ebert type pairing on NPR's "Sound Opinions") who call themselves "rockists," professing to like ONLY rock&roll (and usually a pretty narrow definition of r&r at that) while dismissing all other forms of music - ESPECIALLY jazz!

Just what is it about this proto-rock form of popular music (and in the years immediately preceding the rise of rhythm&blues/rock&roll), it really WAS popular!) that unnerves so many of these critics - as opposed to their readers, who may be downloading or buying a lot of music styles? Why do so many "rockists" feel threatened by jazz, in a way that they don't necessarily feel threatened by classical, country or even dance/disco? (The big rock vs. disco brouhaha of the late 1970's has pretty much dissipated, but perhaps it just morphed into rock vs. jazz.)

Snobbery about any form of fine or pop art is lame, especially when it comes to music. As a previous poster said with reference to the Duke, it's either "good" or "bad" - and he added that if it "sounds" good, it "is" good!

Jazz and Rock'n'Roll are both -- at their cores -- about breaking rules and then inventing new rules in order to break those, too. They share a desire to surprise, even shock. To blaze new trails and get people to think in new ways. In short, both (when done right) are about Rebellion.

Thus endeth the lesson.

If you WERE a musician, you'd understand. Your definition is far too limited, no where near the academic, and betrays your lack of knowledge of improvisation. Improvisation is more than "just a twist on it". Maybe if you read a book on harmonization you might begin to understand.

No I am not a musician.

I can play When The Saints and Silent Night on a harmonica, and that is about it.

But I can whistle, and every time I whistle I improvise on a melody. Maybe it isn't very good and maybe you would not want to transcribe my whistlings to put into arrangements, but then I am not a professional musician.

What great jazz improvisers have is the ability to play on their instuments what they hear in their head and to make it sound good. You think Charlie Parker read a book on harmonization? You think?

I have the original album (Takin' Off) that has Watermelon Man on it, though the version on Headhunters is probably better known. It is OK, but it not a current favorite of mine.

I don't smoke, do drugs, or drink alcohol, but jazz is my daily drug that I get high on, and all I can really report is what gets me high. I am a user, not a grower, so I really don't care what kind of fertilizer or grow lights the producers use, because either I get high on it, or it gives me a headache. If a particular brand of jazz gives me a headache, then I avoid it in the future.

Personally I like the sounds of vibes, guitar, and clarinet, so any band that contains all three is likely to be very addictive for me. Hence although I like Benny Goodman, I prefer him in the company of Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton. For this reason I also swoon over Artie Shaw' last Gramercy Five.

Probably if there is a contemporary band playing these instruments together, I will enjoy their music.

I also like piano, especially as played with the clunky chords of Duke Ellington, rather than the note clusters of Oscar Peterson.

You see, even among the old masters I have my likes and dislikes. I have no doubt that there are modern masters who I would like just as much, but right now I have no need of them, and in my opinion anyone who wants to get into jazz, but doesn't understand it would be better off starting with Louis, and Duke, and Benny, and Ella and working their way forward to Miles and his crew, than trying to jump in at the deep end with crypto jazz works like Santana pop albums that are really jazz if only you were smart enough to know it.

Your musician friends are welcome to play for each other, but as long as no one is listening, what does it matter what they think?

And I don't care if Kenny G. has a diploma from an accredited colllege that entitles him to play out of tune. I still hate it.