The phrase acid jazz was the first jazz term to be coined by a disc jockey rather than by a musician. It is much more a marketing phenomenon than a coherent musical style, even more so than tradition and as with traditional.
Acid jazz is very much the commer- cialization of a revival movement.
Just like earlier revivals, it was inspired initially by listening to records rather than to live musicians. The sort of music that wasn't heavy enough to be free jazz or early fusion but was more jazz-oriented than the average soul record. At the time, this found a ready response among black listeners and a few white aficionados. After the usual twenty-year gap, a new generation of fans succeeded in promoting the music to a much wider crossover audience. Most of the creative musicians who have flirted with the acid-jazz market have found it too restricting and have moved on, exactly as with other revivals.