Blue

Jazz, once a thriving body of innovative and fluid music, is being killed. Corruption via marketing, appropriation by the mainstream, superficial media portrayal, and sheer lack of artistry - all have contributed to the demise of this venerable art form. Do we have a new Thelonious Monk? How about a modern-day Jelly Roll Morton? Nisenson asks these questions and examines the dismal answers. He describes how the entire industry of jazz is being controlled by a select cadre that has a choke hold on the most vital components of jazz itself. Spontaneity, reactions to cultural and social mores, and improvisation have all been sacrificed as the listening culture has changed. The difference that jazz made has disappeared. The seemingly eternal inspiration of jazz has evaporated, leaving little more than sepia-tinted memories and listeners to hum forlorn bars of a bygone era. This is a disturbing, provocative, and likely to be controversial book on a dying art form.