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I took a good amount of formal music lessons as a kid and young adult. Much of the syllabus of instruction back in the 80s/90s for this was classical, marches, and jazz. Acedemic Jazz is a thing, and when its all you have experienced you have to take other people's word for it that jazz is cool, or maybe that it used to be cool? Then one day when I was 18 I got hired by a friend of my father's to take over for their recently departed drummer, mostly jazz standards and Great American Songbook stuff. Still pretty 'square', but some of these guys played in other jazz groups too, who performed at bars, who had drug and alcohol problems. Real Musicians. Thats when I learned that Jazz is a conversation. It has a huge history with a smaller present day, but the conversation has never stopped. An improvisational jazz performance, if the musicians are good enough and know about the history of the conversation, about the muscial past and present of jazz, is itself a small new addition and a reflection on that shared past. There are inside jokes, touching tributes to passed away friends, challenges and submissions, all expressed entirely through their instrument, wordlessly. There's an entire other world in there, as wide as it is deep, if you can speak the language.
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