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Diversity is the word for today's Jazz. Various aspects of freedom have been pursued by the many gifted musicians connected with the AACM

(American Association for Creative Musicians), a collective formed in

1965 under the guidance of the pianist-composer Richard Muhal Abrams

(b. 1930). Among the groups that have emerged, directly and indirectly, from the AACM are the Art Ensemble of Chicago and The World

Saxophone Quartet, and notable musicians of this lineage include trumpeter Lester Bowie (b. 1941), reedmen Anthony Braxton (b.1945),

Joseph Jarman, Julius Hemphill, Roscoe Mitchell and David Murray, and violinist Leroy Jenkins, Ornette Coleman has continued to go his own way, introducing a unique fusion band, Prime Time, collaborating with guitarist Pat Metheny (b. 1954), and celebrating occasional reunions with his original quartet.

Quite unexpectedly, but with neat historical symmetry, a new wave of gifted young jazz players has emerged from New Orleans, spearheaded by the brilliant trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961), who joined Art
Blakey's

Jazz Messengers--a bastion of the bebop tradition--in 1979. Also an accomplished classical virtuoso, Marsalis was soon signed by Columbia

Records and became the most visible new Jazz artist in many years.

Articulate and outspoken, he has rejected fusion and stressed the continuity of the Jazz tradition. His slightly older brother, Branford

Marsalis (b. 1960), who plays tenor and soprano sax, was a member of

Wynton's quintet until he joined with rock icon Sting's band for a year. He has since led his own straight-ahead jazz quartet. As his replacement with

Blakey, Wynton recommended fellow New Orleanian Terence Blanchard

(b. 1962), who later formed a group with altoist Donald Harrison also from New Orleans, as co-leader.

Many other gifted players have emerged during the present decade -- too many to list here. Many have affirmed their roots in bebop, and some have reached even further back to mainstream swing (such as tenorist Scott

Hamilton (b. 1954), and trumpeter Warren Vache, Jr. [b. 1951]), but almost all, even when choosing experimentation and innovation, operate within the established language of jazz. As in the other arts, Jazz seems to have arrived at a postmodern stage.

We ought not to overlook the increasingly important role being played by women instrumentalists, among them Carla Bley, JoAnne Brackeen, Jane

Ira Bloom, Amina Claudine Myers, Emely Remler and Janice Robinson.

The durability of the Jazz tradition has been symbolically affirmed by two events: the Academy Award nomination of Dexter Gordon, the seminal bebop tenor saxophonist, for his leading role in the film Round
Midnight, and the widely acclaimed appearances of Benny Carter, approaching his

90th birthday, at the helm of the American Jazz Orchestra (an ensemble formed in 1986 to perform the best in Jazz, past and present) both as a player and composer.

And one may also take heart at the qualitative as well as quantitative growth of Jazz education in this country, and the active involvement of so many fine performing artist in this process.

SUMMING UP

No one can presume to guess what form the next development in Jazz will take. What we do know is that the music today presents a rich panorama of sounds and styles.

Thelonious Monk, that uncompromising original who went from the obscurity of the pre-bop jam sessions in Harlem to the cover of TIME and worldwide acclaim without ever diluting his music, once defined jazz in his unique way:

"Jazz and freedom," Monk said, "go hand in hand. That explains it.
There isn't anymore to add to it. If I do add to it, it gets complicated.
That's something for you to think about. You think about it and dig it. You dig it."

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