Why Doesn't Contemporary Jazz Get Any Respect?


I am a huge fan of Peter White,Kirk Whalum,Dave Koz,Warren Hill,etc.I have never understood why this flavor of music gets no respect.Not only is it musically appealing,but in most cases its very well recorded.Any comparisons to old jazz(Miles Davis etc.) are ludicrous.Its like comparing apples and oranges.Can anyone shed some light on this?Any contemporary(smooth)Jazz out there?I would love to hear from you. Thanks John
krelldog
Clueless, you are right of course, to me you make excellent sense. Tis nothing but the lament of an old man. Cheers,
...sometimes the post becomes a chat where we continue to share and can be redirected by us off the topic which is OK imo. That's what the chat is here for.
Someone said that smooth jazz is good for background music which is complete true. If I'm sitting in the cabaret and having dinner before the party hearing some smooth jazz --that's where I want to hear it -- not rock not classics... I never remember SJ musicians except David Benoit or George Benson.
As an expert on musical experiences I can say that the smooth jazz listeners can "jump" to listen to something more sophisticated later on. It's good that kids listen to the SJ. Maybe later on they'll be listening to Carla Bley or Ornette Coleman with their dads and/or moms.
For NY area 101.9 listeners I strongly recommend from time to time to switch off to 88.3 public jazz radio for REAL jazz.
There was a time when jazz was America's popular music. It was THE music of young people. The tunes were straight forward, easy to listen to with hummable melodies and above all you could dance to them. Bebop essentially destroyed these popular elements of jazz. Less than a decade after bebop, Miles and Gil Evans even tried to take the swing out of jazz. Do I need to remind you of what Chuck Berry said about modern jazz? It's not surprising that right at that time young people starting to listen to rock n' roll. After all, you can dance to rock. I don't know the exact date, but real jazz died along time ago. That stuff played by Dizzy, Parker and Coltrane is okay and it probably sounds good in a concert hall or some other place where you sit down to listen to music, but real jazz was meant for dance halls.
Thinking about this over the past couple of days, I believe one of the problems I have with the general SJ genre is the electric bass. I love electric bass in many contexts, but it's a distraction for me in SJ, particularly that slap-and-tickle style of playing that is so popular. Add to that the cheesy keyboard and synth sounds and, well, include me out.

That said, there are exceptions. Just can't think of any at the moment.