Is Modern Jazz an Oxymoron?

First, want to plug Jazzcast.ca for running a fairly modern Internet radio station.

Next, well, this is such a broad statement. I could consider both Coltrane and Keith Jarrett modern jazz artists, and yet I definitely have one I can listen to and be entranced by and one I cannot.

Go to Bandcamp and there are tons of new jazz artists making killer music.  Also realize jazz (like it has always done) has grown to embrace other music such as, but not limited to, hip hop.  There is a great scene of what I will call British afro-jazz, with heavy influences of afrobeat.  Sons of Kemet would an example.  Someone also mentioned Kamasi Washington, another example of creating jazz in a decidedly modern vein.  I picked up an album by a bassist named Junius Paul that just slams.  

I love Mingus and Monk as much as the next guy but you gotta seek in order to find.

Note that modern jazz...whatever it is...is relatively unpopular and always has been, and it's 95% of what I listen to. It rates just below children's music and maybe above polka. Luckily I have managed to find a LOT of "newer" stuff that is astonishing, from Vijay Iyer and Bill Frisell to Ingrid Laubrock and too many others to even try to mention. I refuse to listen to polka...I just do...

Here's music that I have on my playlist and in the car; it never gets old, maybe that's because it's the "undisputed" high priest of modern jazz; Charles "Yardbird" Parker, his "Bird With Strings" never gets old.


          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7E0K4IMqo


         

Check out singer Gregory Porter's release All Rise! In the same class as Nat King and Freddie Cole! A superb vocalist!