New York-based Terry Teachout, once the jazz writer for The Kansas City Star, has established himself as a prominent music critic, not only in the jazz world, but in other musical fields as well. At the same time, I don't think there's any such thing as forward movement in art. More than a few musicians of the '40s, Coleman Hawkins famously among them, really did think the music they were playing was not merely different from the jazz of the '20s, but better. Art isn't science. It doesn't progress, it evolves.
Great art remains great, no matter what comes after it.
One of the things that interests me about the contemporary jazz scene is the willingness of so many younger musicians to draw freely on the jazz styles of the past, believing that they are all equally valid and available for use. I'm not interested in attempts to literally reproduce those styles, which is why I'm a bit skeptical about the jazz repertory movement, and about the uncreative conservatism of such players as Wynton Marsalis. I like the idea of a historically conscious jazz, and I think that may be where the creative action is to be found right now. But that's only a guess, no more. All rights reserved.