What is Jazz?



As a self proclaimed expert and "aficionado", I should know the answer to that question; but I don't, because the answer is too complex.

As one example; Inna posted that he didn't like jazz, and in his next post he raved about a piece of music that I considered to be jazz. In Inna's case I understood the contradiction, he doesn't like "hard bop".

On the other hand, Rok2id's definition of jazz is so narrow that many of my jazz records and CD's, would be considered to be something other than "jazz".

What is "jazz" to you and can you define it?
orpheus10
I don't have much to add other than this was a great question with some excellent and thoughtful responses. Gives me hope in the future of the forums and its contributors. A nice change from "what is the best..." or Thing X vs Thing y
Everyone has their own definition of Jazz. There is probably some overlap in all definitions of Jazz but no two people's definitions are the same.

Jazz is a genre of music in which personalization and evolution are considered requirements of playing it, so we'll probably never be able to put an absolute definition on it.
Jazz is a word.
What people think it means varies so much that it's not hard to see why Duke Ellington and Miles Davis wouldn't touch it. One guy would say there's two kinds of music. The other thought the word jazz had become useless, (not worth using at all). There's a big difference between the process of developing musical awareness and the exercise of attempting to define a word like jazz.
It's all folk music because donkeys don't make music. I think Ray Charles said something along those lines.

While the term jazz does a have specific historical reference it has evolved into a marketing term of nebulous meaning. Record sellers have learned that music is more readily consumed when divided into neat little genres.