Mars (1967). John Coltrane /classic jazz?/

Jack Reilly posts about improvisation, composition, learning and teaching. In the middle of all that, he says:

What is the jazz? It is a twentieth century American phenomenon. Jazz stopped evolving after 1963. From that date to the present we have witnessed nothing more than a synthesis. What is left to teach is what has already been done.

I haven't listened to enough jazz in the last twenty years to say if this is true or not. If I hadn't heard Matthew Shipp in the last year, I nonetheless might have been inclined to agree. I'd also quibble about the cutoff being 1963 as it ignores late Coltrane, early electric Miles etc.

Maybe this explains how I ended up following contemporary classical music but not contemporary jazz.

Comments

[Hucbald]

Schillinger described the difference between jazz and classical music in terms of evolutionary velocity, which I found both fascinating and true. Classical music had a very slow evolutionary velocity - because composers of it were primarily musical conservatives, and they won the day - while jazz had a very rapid evolutionary velocity - because it's composers were primarily avant garde, and they carried the day.

Then, the roles were reversed: For classical music that happened a decade or so before the middle of the last century, and for jazz, a decade or so after: Many "classical" composers are now more daring than modern jazz guys are.

Though we may be too close to the events historically to make an objective judgement yet, for me Coltrane was the last major advance in jazz, so I'd have to agree with Mr. Reilly on that point.

It seems all that is left is synthesis of style now, which suits me just fine.