Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When you limit the word 'jazz' to one period of history, for the people who love that period, then maybe it can be dead because nobody plays like that anymore. But jazz is progressive music; it always has to progress, and musicians always have to find new landscapes and new ways to speak out, so of course it's always changing.
Jazz is a hard music, and you have to really work hard and also have fun performing; that's the most important thing.
Jazz needs the help. It's the more sophisticated music. All the other music is on the TV, but jazz isn't.
Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it.
Jazz music is America's past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of human achievement, an ultimate value of art.
The history of jazz lets us know that this period in our history is not the only period we've come through together. If we truly understood the history of our national arts, we'd know that we have mutual aspirations, a shared history, in good times and bad.
Jazz is about being in the moment.
Jazz is letting everybody do his or her thing with the music.
Jazz is there and gone. It happens. You have to be present for it. That simple.
The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.
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