Like any pop phenomenon, in addition to the music itself, the Swing thing has a fashion component, and most importantly, a dance component as well.  This music isn’t jazz, yet it is being presented in the pop arena and certainly comes a lot closer to the jazz tree than any other pop and rock music in recent memory.  A cynical industry insider told me, "it’s about as close to jazz as Kenny G," believing that the popularity of nouveau swing wouldn’t do anything to help sell more jazz CDs.

I suspect some listeners who are into Swing music will eventually listen to jazz but have to agree there won’t be any significant cross-over.  However, I think there’s an interesting two-fold lesson here.

First, any kind of music can be marketed to the mass audience who get their information from television (all of the swing bands have music videos in heavy rotation on MTV).  There’s a pretty wide disparity between gangster rap and swing yet both have been thrust successfully in the limelight by the mass media worldwide.  If MTV had an Ornette Coleman video in heavy rotation and one of his songs became the new theme music for McDonald’s commercials, his music would be in great demand. 

And number two, the dance component is key to mass acceptance.  At one time, people were dancing to bebop.  Walter Bishop, Jr. used to remember his gigs with Bird, where people were dancing and listening.  At Charlie Parker’s infamous Rockland Palace dance, a benefit for murdered civil rights activists, Bish recalled a group of people crowded around the stage, standing and listening.  But beyond them, many many more people dancing to something Bish called "The Big Apple."  There was a bebop style and fashion component as well.  If you listen to the music from that night, Bird is absolutely on fire.  Bebop, a complex musical form, was revolutionary in the late 40s and early 50s.  But people were dancing to it.

Just before Bird and Dizzy turned the musical world around, the big bands were king.  The swing bands of Miller and the Dorsey brothers were at the top of the charts.  That was the closet jazz has ever come to mass acceptance.  Dancing was an important part of that.  

Today, listening to jazz is a cerebral experience, almost an intellectual exercise.  I suspect that given the pressures of modern life, when most people listen to music, they seek entertainment, a relief from their stress-filled lives.  They want something interactive, something they can dance to.  

But many people in the jazz community would say, if you can dance to it, the music can’t be taken seriously.  Well my friends, the audience for serious music certainly couldn’t be described as significant.  As previously stated, the current jazz community can no longer support the number of artists seeking to play this music.  It must be expanded.  If people danced to jazz, would that bad?  They danced to Bird and he certainly wasn't compromising anything.