I think jazz is like motorcycle racing: thrilling for participants, but often dull for spectators. That's been my experience, at least. In high school, I played some jazz (at the 11th- and 12th-grade levels,) and it was fun while it lasted. I never listen to any, though, because it says nothing to me about my life. Neither does most of the classic rock that we're all supposed to like.

I'm not a music fan as much as I am a *songs* fan. I grew up actively disliking most kinds of music. I eventually started listening to music because Michael Stipe and Billy Corgan and Morrissey and so many others were singing songs that spoke to me. I could relate to it. I had found guys (and gals) that sounded like me.

I could go on for a while, but I'll just dispute Amerigo's assertions about musical mortality: People break down in tears at rock (not pop) shows because they connect so powerfully with the songs. That sort of thing ought to be immortal... but what did people like me do before the 1970s or thereabouts?

I think I'll use the racing analogy when I speak to my bass guitar teacher tomorrow.

I listened to Bill Evans play this original dedicated to his father at the Village Vanguard in 1964 during a period in my life when I was trying to close the book on my first great love, and accompanied by my own father, a truly strange arrangement. I didn't "know" anything, didn't "hear" anything, I simply experienced something so great, so intense, and so perfect that I momentarily lost my fear of death, loss, aloneness and every other horror which reflects having a body. In fact, I think I left my body for a while.

Something similar happened the first time I'd heard Little Richard perform "Tutti Fruiti" quite a few years before, and so before I'd become afraid of loss (though death had already climbed through the window). The difference, I believe, was in the dimension, the speed, as though Little Richard was a human explosion, while Evans was an explosion experienced in deep space or an orgone chamber or quite possibly under water.

Jazz vs. rock isn't a valid proposition. They are points along the same arc, the same spectrum. One might have a problem placing, say, Rashaan Roland Kirk alongside Alan Parsons, but the similarities are really greater than the differences. It is music, and where the two met was at The Crossroads, in the body of the blues. They are all the devil's music and they all lead us, if we let them, to Heaven and Hell simultaneously.

What frightens me now, what actually sounds like death to me, is "light jazz" and parking lot pop. Everything else -- hip hop, hard rock, blues, mountain music, roots rock, third stream music, classical -- it is all arms of the same goddess.

The first time ever I heard, again in 1964, Van Morrison (as front man for Them), sing "Gloria", I recognized at once that I was listening to an orgasmic hymn, a perfect combination of rock, jazz, blues and sacred music.

Incredible article, Gary. Thank you so much for making an attempt to explain the musical quandary that is "A Love Supreme." It just is.

This was a thought-provoking article. I especially like the question "Do the two genres have anything to say to each other?" because so much of jazz is about a dialogue with predecessors, in a Bakhtinian (and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) way. But I guess the question is: Does rock say anything to jazz? (post-Bitches Brew era.)

I am going to post this comment anonymously because I am making some observations that--on the off chance that someone who knows me encounters this--would give away my identity, and I have reasons for maintaining my privacy (plus, I am really tired and I'm not sure how coherent my post will be by the time I finish typing). One place to start if searching for a link between jazz and rock is with hard rock and heavy metal, especially live performances. Listen to Randy Rhoads improvise (before his tragic death) with Ozzy Osbourne's band in the early 1980s, for example on the song "Mr. Crowley." His two solos rely quite a bit on the circle of fifths and some Bach-like sequential patterns, and in my classes I always play this to show my students who are heavy metal fans that Baroque idioms have survived in different guises. They love it! But this can also be used as an example of a connection between rock and jazz because of the improvisatory nature of Rhoads' solo. He falls into these patterns the way that a jazz musician might ease into licks that he/she mastered during the early years of training when famous solos are memorized and perfected in hopes that the student will one day find his/her own "voice." And, of course, there have been many comparisons between Baroque improvisation and jazz.

Another place where the ideas of jazz have appeared in popular music is with rap/hip hop. Obviously freestyle rapping relates to musical improvisation, but for a more specific example, listen to OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album. I love the way the song "Love Hater" combines big band vamps and choruses, a bebop piano part (with some Bill Evans harmonies), modern meter changes, André 3000's hilarious lyrics, etc., etc.

As for the popularity of jazz music, Europe--especially Eastern Europe--and India treated jazz musicians like huge celebrities, as another poster mentioned with Louis Armstrong. A lot of this was due to Willis Conover's jazz show on the Voice of America, and then there were a number of jazz festivals in countries like Hungary and Poland during the 1960s, 70s, and more recently. Conover used to say that "Jazz was freedom," which was a subtle comment about oppressive Communist regimes. The book Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union gives a good history of the impact of jazz in Communist Russia.

One reason that jazz music has limited appeal for many of today's listeners is that so much of it is instrumental. I spend a lot of time trying to get students to start talking about the actual music, rather than the lyrics of the music that they personally love. It's a real challenge, not because the students are lacking but because we have become accustomed to music critiques that include vague descriptions of music. One time we took a year-end "favorite music" review by Stephen King and tried to think of all the different types of music that he could have been describing other than the specific songs that he listed.

For those who are interested in cultivating an appreciation (if not merely tolerance) of jazz, I suggest picking something and listening to it over and over again for a month or so. Once it becomes familiar, you will start to notice all sorts of things that didn't seem apparent on first listening. Don't worry about the lydian scale or other technical terms. Just listen. Then sing along with it. After you really know it, pick things other than the most prominent element, and follow it, as if you are driving down an unfamiliar road. Notice everything that you can pick up on, even if you don't know how to describe it in words. Then take a break from the music before listening to it again while you do something else, like dusting. You'll find that you remember what is going to happen next, and then you might even start to imagine little things that aren't even in the actual performance. Most likely, you will find that familiarity generates enjoyment. If not, well, there is nothing wrong with that either--we all have our own personal musical tastes, but at least you have given jazz a fair shot.

One thing that I've noticed with jazz fans is that they tend to bob their heads up and down while listening. I think this helps to internalize the music and make it part of the listener. Also, with rhythm being so important for jazz, it makes sense.

Where to start? Several posters have named some great music. Even though it's "old" now, Duke Ellington is usually an easy (and enjoyable) place to begin, especially something like "Take the A Train." Or if you want to listen to one of the most exciting performances in the entire history of recorded music, check out his band's 1956 Newport Jazz performance of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue." Wow! It will change your opinion about all music...