A lot of great things about this article. I especially related to the author's writing that jazz became the soundtrack to his adult love life. As a teenager, all the music I knew was pop/rock, but as I entered adulthood, I found myself increasingly tired of petty concerns represented by the idiom. That is, so much of pop/rock is about seeming young, cool, and trendy (ie, a fad). Jazz has filled my desire for music that is hot and moving, but it has done so with music that is written by adults for adults, music that is meant to be timeless.

Maybe it also had something to do with living in New Orleans, where jazz remains a living, vital form. The music there is not high culture; it is a participatory experience. To be at Vaughn's at 3 a.m. doing the Palm Court Strut to Kermit Ruffins' playing with a packed house doing the same, that is to participate in a ritual that is at the very center of jazz, the city's culture, and therefore the nation's culture. I've been to Birdland and the Blue Note, and they're great. But walk down Frenchmen Street (not Bourbon) almost any night of the week, and you can find a club that's jumping.

The good news is no matter where you are, you can plug in to this culture. Go to http://www.wwoz.org and listen to New Orleans' community-owned jazz and heritage station. WWOZ is at the center of all that I described.

Anything where excellence is defined by difficulty is going to be inaccessible, and the jazz you describe is exactly that.

I don't know a lot about jazz, but I do know that much of what you describe is there in a lot of rock - Randy Rhodes is an example, as someone pointed out - but you don't have to appreciate it or even really hear it to enjoy the music. And if you do have to appreciate and understand the difficulty in music, the musician probably isn't playing for you anyway.

A lot of rock's appeal is that people listen to it and think "I can do that", even when there is no way on God's green earth they ever could. Somehow seeing Steve Vai play Paganini's 5th Caprice can inspire thousands of kids to pick up a guitar and try (without the benefit of decades of classical training and including that truly impossible harmonic last note), but jazz simply doesn't have that affect on most people.

Think of it in terms of cars. There are people who buy a Porsche because they want to drive as fast as a Porsche will let them. There are people who buy one because it's a technical masterpiece, one that can provide endless hours of enjoyment just looking at how it was designed and put together. If Porsche only tried to reach those 2 groups, which is the equivalent of what jazz has been doing all this time, they'd be a very small company. But they have managed to reach a 3rd group, one which turned them into an automotive icon/status symbol, and can be defined by Eddy Murphy who said "It's a red Porsche. Women will see it and want to fuck me."

When jazz reaches that third group, your cousin will be able to quit his day job.

Thanks for a terrific article, one of the best pieces on listening to music that I've read in quite a while. My own taste and experience is similar, grew up as a rock 'n' roll fan in the sixties and later expanded my listening into jazz. I'm still more of rock listener, as someone else mentioned, I'm generally more tuned into the song than the artist. That means, of course, that for me the Beatles still set the standard, but there's no denying the artistry and passion in a good jazz solo.

The one band that I don't think has been mentioned yet, who manages to straddle both forms is NRBQ. It was there right from the beginning of their career. Their first eponymous album, released in 1969, opens with a cover of Eddie Cochrane's "C'mon Everybody" that is followed by "Rocket Number 9", a wild jazz piece written for them by Sun Ra. That combination, from rockabilly to experimental jazz, both defined their approach and limited their audience to people who could appreciate both. But man, if you ever saw them, they were one of the best live bands ever. Terry Adams plays piano like some crazed combination of Thelonius Monk, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chico Marx, while the drummer, Tommy Ardolino, has a backbeat that swings like nobody's business.

If anyone's interested in checking them out here's a youtube clip that highlights Terry's piano playing: http://youtube.com/watch?v=h-s8JFTt-vo

Fidel Castro has officially stepped down. I declare a day of revolutionary mourning. Gary, we need you to slash out a paen.

Thanks for this excellent column AND commentaries. This is the first mention of jazz I can recall in Salon. Would it kill Salon's editors to do one less of the endless presidential horserace or TV-show columns and do more of these every now and then? A column centering on music and musicians? A two-minute clip or two of music samples?

there is something music school will never teach you. most people hate soloing. when jazz concentrates on the form and melody first (like on the herbie album), people respond. i studied jazz for years and woke up one day to realize how much i hated a bunch of technically proficient middle-aged men taking turns soloing on schmaltzy old tunes. i walked away and joined a metal band (www.theglasspack.com). 8 years later, i couldn't have made a better decision.

The problem with most "Jazz for Dummies" lists is that they're often actually for dummies. That is, they're often over-loaded with music that's super-easy on the palate. I want to hear good recommendations for the challenging stuff, that offer a bit of insight on a given artist/album/piece is so sublime.

Anyway....anybody have any jazz recommendations?

Oh, don't get me started. But I don't think you can just jump into the "good stuff" because the good stuff is just where your head is and this is like asking for a one page synopsis of world religions, so that you can become a good person without wasting a lot of time on the pursuit of truth.

Here goes:

Ted Heath: The Instruments of the Dance Orchestra. (This is an educational introduction to jazz instruments, but a lot of fun to listen to.)

Duke Ellington:

Masterpieces by Ellington

This One's For Blanton

Louis Armstrong: Let's Do It--best of the Verve years.

Johnny Hodges: Side by Side (with Duke Ellington).

Tal Farlow: The Swinging Guitar of Tal Farlow

Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus

Stephane Grappelli:

Stephane Grappelli meets Barney Kessel

Compact Jazz

Ray Brown: The Big Three

Artie Shaw: Artie Shaw and His Orchestra 1949

Coleman Hawkins: Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster

Gerry Mulligan: Compact Jazz

Stan Getz: Getz/Gilberto

Sarah Vaughan: Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown

Miles Davis:

Kind of Blue

Steamin'

Ernie Wilkins: The Everest Years

Woody Herman: The Everest Years

Michel Legrand: Legrand Jazz (1956 album features Miles Davis, John Coltrane etc.

Ella Fitzgerald: The Best of the Songbooks

Rosemary Clooney: The Best of the Concord Years.

Peggy Lee: Black Coffee.

Toots Thielemans: Man Bites Harmonica

All of these recordings are musically accessible to the average listener and don't require a degree in music appreciation. Once you become familiar with large chunks of the standard jazz repertoire, then you may be ready to listen to musicians who distort the melodies more. Personally I cannot stand John Coltrane honking and squawking on My Favorite Things or Chim-Chim-Cheree, but maybe I have not yet seen the light. Don't think I ever will. But I do like some of Sun Ra's music.

There are great bargains to be had in jazz as many of the finest recordings are now out of copyright in Europe after 50 years and imported sets are available at absurdly low prices. It is actually the deal of the century and may help to bring about a resurgence of interest in jazz.

For all-round bargains in classic jazz you can also search on Am**zon for Quadromania. These are 4-CD sets of music by many of the jazz greats that are of excellent quality and can be had for under $10 including shipping.

Sun Ra: That one album.....something about aliens. Every track on it is as weird as all get-out. I can't believe I didn't hear more about his works earlier. I should have been listening to his stuff when I was first in college, it's crazy-great.

Yes, but being crazy is not necessarily indicative of good music.

Sun Ra (born on planet Saturn, 1914 and teleported into the body of one Herman Poole Blount) started out as a dance band leader in Alabama. Some of his earier albums like Sun Sound Pleasure are relatively conventional, though always a little quirky and on them you can find delights like I Could Have Danced All Night, played in cha-cha-cha time. His two masterpiece albums are Jazz in Silhouette and Super-Sonic Jazz. Both are highly listenable, but the second one is a bit more abstract.

Personally I do not care for his extreme avante garde stuff like Heliocentric Worlds and the many albums from outer space which he made around the era of acid rock when he was playing on the college circuit. To me it is just jerking off to please a naive audience with weird sounds, but what do I know?

Jazz philosopher Duke Ellington said: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing and I am inclined to agree.

Sun Ra is a great American figure, a black man who grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama and became world famous on his own without any help from the music or recording business. He recorded scores of albums on his own label.

On May 30th 1993 Sun Ra departed this planet.

If death is the absence of life,

then death's death is life

Sun Ra

There is a good biography called Space is the Place.

Contemporary jazz musicians? I don't have much to say. I quite like Martin Taylor's solo albums, and listen to a bit of Diana Krall. The trouble is that no one is writing great tunes these days, so it is all retro or avante garde.