ABSTRACT
In 1997, the New York Times Magazine observed that in large part because of Wynton Marsalis's efforts, jazz has been widely celebrated as an essential element of the African-American cultural heritage and white practitioners have been seen increasingly as interlopers. Marsalis's aesthetic of jazz, shaped by how the music was acknowledged during its golden years, a period of indisputable African American exceptionalism in jazz, was then applied to contemporary jazz. By the mid-1980s, Marsalis felt he had to make a choice of continuing his classical concerts or concentrating entirely on jazz. Certainly, when music is new and fresh, the music community to whom it is addressed will judge it in relationship to their immediate context, and how the conventions of the music fulfil their expectations, needs, and desires. But history has made it clear certain universal responses to music are shared by different musical communities who are unaware of any social or ritualistic functions the music may have originally fulfilled.
