The directions that jazz is taking were apparently set out from the beginning -- rather the way that the paths of the stars were set from the instant of the Big Bang, and they're just playing out those initial impulses extended over time, however buffeted by subsequent events.

Not that jazz history is pre-determined. Jazz is an open, absorbing form -- it depends upon assimilating new material or adapting old material in new ways. That material might come from familiar, like neighboring, musics, or exotic musical vocabularies, or from one genius's inspirations, or the conscious constructions of a like-minded school of musicians. But we've seen jazz evolve along those lines from the earliest days of New Orleans to what's happening now in every big city's jazz clubs and musicians dens, around the world.

There's always been collective "free" improvisation in jazz -- improvisation meaning more or less unscripted spontaneous play, "free" meaning relieved of some conventions of musics past -- and also a sophistication about accepted musical traditions, and also Latin, Asian, Jewish tinges to this music born in America, out of the blues, modernism and other mostly urban kinds of entertainments. Those "always's" remain, though I can't predict what they mean, the next great piece is that someone will come up with, or where to look for the next jazz star.

I've been around enough that I know of a lot of musicians who are doing some interesting, fresh things -- I can probably think of someone you haven't heard of that you will in the future -- but I didn't put many of those musicians into Future Jazz; that's not what Future Jazz had to be about. I'm still writing stories for the jazz magazines about these people. I keep my ears open for new ones all the time.

There are elements of the jazz mix that weren't present at the conception, though, which I think will be really significant to jazz's future, that I want to mention: elements around the institutionalization of jazz -- through education, through not-for-profit foundations, corporate and government support, and also through recent ongoing developments in the dissemination of music, beyond key changes in the jazz record business. These topics don't necessarily, or usually, touch on the joys of the music itself -- the sheer pleasure that great jazz brings to listeners -- but if we want to know about "future jazz," we ought to pay them some mind. What is the market share of jazz records? Why has it dropped, and what musics have gained? Is it the industry failing, or are artists failing? Are artists failing to draw audiences to live jazz, or are the audiences, even as they've grown, just not big enough to offset growing costs of live jazz? Who really comes to hear jazz? How do they use the music? Why? Why doesn't it play to other people? Is there anything to be done? What useful examples from other art forms can the jazz world borrow? We need more information. The truth will set us free.

Feel free to discuss all these topics in an open forum on this page.