What is Jazz?

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While the term jazz does a have specific historical reference it has evolved into a marketing term of nebulous meaning.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.

Out of all the jazz encyclopedia's I've read, I have never seen such "honest" and accurate descriptions of the word "jazz".

When I combine all of your post's, I have a better definition of jazz, than the musicians who make the music have given me. Someone a long time ago made it "hip" not to attempt to define "jazz", and succeeding musicians have followed in his footsteps.

Whether we realize it or not, this music is a very important part of our lives; and we are also an important part of one another's lives. When I say "we", I mean those of us who attempt honest and positive communications in all forums; especially this one.

Since we are "talking" about "music", why not let the music speak for us through the use of "Youtube". Express your concept of good jazz by selecting the best "youtube" that illustrate's what jazz is to you.

You'll get some interesting opinions in a forum regarding what Jazz is but I would look elsewhere to more traditional sources for more definitive answers.

Or as alluded to above, given the diversity of form and looseness of "Jazz" music in general, I suppose if the record company calls it Jazz, then technically it is Jazz.

Or, consider that there is no rule that says all music must classify to a single genre, nor does it often in practice. Music can have elements that might be considered Jazz mixed with other styles as well.

I find the trend towards more mixing of diverse musical elements in music these days, many of which are increasingly various forms of indigenous "roots" music to be a positive trend that makes for a lot of interesting listens. I've practically given up on even caring about musical genre, although of course there will always be music that cleanly fits into a single one without much problem.

In terms of the "purer" forms of Jazz, these days I much prefer older Jazz from teh 1950s and earlier to the newer forms.

A lot of interesting things happened with Jazz starting in the early 60's with Coltrane, Davis, and others, but unfortunately I think a lasting effect of this was that Jazz largely lost its identity as a genre, although its influences as a whole has been essentially off the charts since its beginnings many years ago.