ABSTRACT
Jazz in the 2000s and recent years continued to include many diverse substyles. Other than the fact that women will continue to have more of an impact in jazz, one can only blindly predict the lasting effects of the many new trends.
Although not as popular as in the 1930s and 1940s, new big bands (and a few existing ones) came to the forefront, fueled by great soloists and outstanding composer/arrangers. The 2005 Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider, one of the most original in this new group, leads an excellent band far different from 1940s swing bands.
At the other end of the spectrum, performers such as Kenny G perform a more easy-listening, simplistic, “smooth jazz,” aimed at the mass market and frequently used as background or mood music in stores, restaurants, doctors’ offices, and elevators.
A new generation of adventuresome postmodernists like Jason Moran and Chris Potter, along with some who bring non-Western and European influences, are reinventing jazz as a collaborative, improvised music, not bound by well-established traditions but informed by them. It is anyone's guess what tomorrow will bring, and only one thing can be certain—jazz will continue to be renewed, becoming even more surprising, global, and different than it was yesterday.
