Aficionados of New Orleans Jazz don t see the scene as having fizzled in the Sixties, as suggested in Ken Burn s PBS documentary of this year, Jazz. They contend it was all over with by the Twenties. With the passing of Buddy Bolden probably the first to blend church music with that of the devil and the demise of Storyville the impossibly jumpin red-light and music district on the edge of The French Quarter also passed Jazz s era of reckless sexuality and defiant carnal indulgence. From there it got co-opted by Glenn Miller and the promoters of the Catskills resorts and USO clubs. It was then relegated to fodder for anthropology dissertations.
Nobody just blows a horn anymore.
They re too self-conscious about breaking new ground . Today s Jazz pioneers rely on ridiculously over-stylized sounds. They run guitars and violins through more processes than a pompadour, with chorus pedals, delay effects, etc. In New Orleans clubs, you can watch youngish, Caucasian alumni of local university music programs take the stage, praying nobody in the house owns a John Coltrane record. No, they discuss only whether or not a certain musician can play measuring them against some technical standard.