Most of the conversation/debate above can be summed up by looking at the recording career of Miles Davis, who I believe, over the long run through his contract with Columbia Records, made more money then any other jazz musician in history on recordings. Yet he still was constantly evolving in his music. He considered staying in the same musical comfort zone blasphemy. Eventually he did not even want to call his music jazz anymore. This is evident progressively in all of his years recording.
Starting out when be bop was the in thing he recorded on sessions with Charlie Parker and others. He then went into be bop/ hard bop so you could say he played mostly be bop/hard bop from 1945-1958, when he started to experiment with modality on the title track from the Milestones recording. Kind of Blue was based entirely on modality followed by Sketches of Spain based on Spanish folk music. Constantly evolving you could easily here the freshness of what he played from 1965-68 with Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams. These 4 years saw Miles helping pioneer the post bop genre with more abstract recordings. He then moved into his electric and avant garde recordings In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Continuing forward using predominately electric recordings into a jazz/funk/rock type fusion, which, in my opinion was clearly predominant on the Cellar Door Sessions and Agharta. I had quite the listening session last night with Agharta disks 1 and 2, in which I have imported Japanese pressings and the sound is amazing. The music on Agharta takes you on a hour and forty five minute (both discs) "trip" through some amazing music.
So, IMHO, Miles' career tells us all we need to know about how jazz progresses if the artist wants to whether there is money in it or not as Miles was a wealthy man.
Starting out when be bop was the in thing he recorded on sessions with Charlie Parker and others. He then went into be bop/ hard bop so you could say he played mostly be bop/hard bop from 1945-1958, when he started to experiment with modality on the title track from the Milestones recording. Kind of Blue was based entirely on modality followed by Sketches of Spain based on Spanish folk music. Constantly evolving you could easily here the freshness of what he played from 1965-68 with Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams. These 4 years saw Miles helping pioneer the post bop genre with more abstract recordings. He then moved into his electric and avant garde recordings In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Continuing forward using predominately electric recordings into a jazz/funk/rock type fusion, which, in my opinion was clearly predominant on the Cellar Door Sessions and Agharta. I had quite the listening session last night with Agharta disks 1 and 2, in which I have imported Japanese pressings and the sound is amazing. The music on Agharta takes you on a hour and forty five minute (both discs) "trip" through some amazing music.
So, IMHO, Miles' career tells us all we need to know about how jazz progresses if the artist wants to whether there is money in it or not as Miles was a wealthy man.