Saturday, June 25, 2011

What's new in instrumental jazz these days?

The smooth jazz scene is vibrant with a steady stream of innovative
new music being lead by a handful of prolific musicians/recording
artists including Brian Culbertson, Chris Standring, Mindi Abair,
Boney James, Euge Groove and a few others. In comparison the
traditional jazz scene seems pretty dead. There's always new jazz
coming out but from what I can tell 98% of it is very generic
by-the-book stuff with weak or non-existent identifiable melodies and
non-distinguishable sound.

Taylor Eigsti has a handful of decent songs and Brian Bromberg put out
a couple of traditional jazz albums a while back. Trombone Shorty puts
an interesting rock twist on New Orleans jazz. What else is happening
in instrumental jazz that stands out amongst a sea of generic music?

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