Tom assumes that critics like me don't believe in tradition and that we don't believe musicians should have to learn how to play their instruments well. In fact I praise Wynton Marsalis in my book for getting musicians interested in earlier forms of jazz. Generations of jazz musicians are usually interested only in the preceding generation but don't look all the way back. I believe that musicians must be grounded in tradition. Marsalis has been instrumental in indoctrinating young jazz musicians with this attitude.
Jazz is so hard to define.
And because jazz is still evolving and changing, creating a definition that embraces jazz in all of its aspects is really impossible. Jazz is like a great musical mansion, with all its myriad rooms and its expansive ability to embrace such a wide range of sensibilities, and a mansion still under construction, not a one-room hut. The ability to live with an understanding of tradition that can give meaning to the present is necessary not just in jazz but in all the arts, as it is in life. The alternative is to pretend that one can live free of any influence. Many reviewers imply that an artist should have such freedom even though they know it's impossible.