Jazz from 1957 to 1967 was the most definitive.

He may be refering to the introduction around this time of free jazz where the melody was lost in favor of harmonics and free expression. Louis Armstrong would agree. Following free jazz was the begining of pop instrumental masquerading as "light jazz" which to me really is a huge step backwords. It's true alot of great jazz was performed after 1967 but in my opinion it has not advanced stylisticaly since 1965-1967. Using Miles as a measure I would say it peaked with Miles Ahead and Miles Smiles. As an aside the best recordings sound wise were 1959-1965 with 1961 as peak. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a great recording and flipped it over to find 1961. This is jmho of course. - Jim

I'm definately NOT calling 1957-1967 " definitive" in any sense. Newbee, it should be noted that Ellington in his own time was accused of not playing "true" jazz. The head to " take the a train" was criticized for this as were his long format pieces. So much so that Duke exclaimed " what is this thing called jazz that it should take precedence over me". What I AM saying is that for me jazz has not advanced much recently because much of the jazz I love was based on the chord structures of the great american songbook which (let's face it ) has not had a Gershwin or Arlen etc. to move it along much recently. My mind is open to lots of new music and conformity to what I grew up with does not play a part. For the record I don't believe there is one definitive period or style. As to smooth " jazz" it contains no hints of jazz greats past nor does it break any new ground making it exceedingly uninteresting to me. I very much look forward to the next great jazz sound. In the meantime I will go enjoy Wynton M. this weekend in ATL. This is all my OPINION. No offense - Jim

Nicotino: I also think things came to a peak with miles smiles. However, for me I truly understand Ben Websters sadness when his (my) type of music was out of vogue and he didn't get to play with the kind of players he used to. He didn't play with the harmonic intricacy of miles' groups but nobody could touch his tone and most didn't have his "soul". - Jim

Whoa whoa whoa. Bird is the founder of HARD bop ? He with Diz and Coleman Hawkins helped create BOP ( playing with the bridge from Cherokee) but HARD bop ? Foster: I love Miles too. Matter of fact I listen to him A LOT. But I'm with Wynton M. on this one : The three most important figures in jazz (in my OPINION) are Pops, Duke and Bird. Before pops there was no instrumental "solo" as we know it today. He, Buddy Bolden and King Oliver created spontaneous virtuoso solos. Along with this he created the template for modern popular singing. Everyone since owes what they do to him. He called what he did rag time but it isn't what we would call raftime. He was refering to "ragging the tune". Essentially slow blues which was sweaty and dirty and got dirtier as the night went on. Duke added a kind of musical sophistication that might be unmatched by any other individual. He was a terrific song writer and a terribly under rated piano player. Bird helped create the genre of bop. He also was fluent in both the "deep blues" (ala Lester Young) AND the modern harmonics of people like Diz. Very few others were - maybe Dexter Gordon. His improvisation was unmatched. I do love Miles' fostering the cool jazz genre as it brought back some swing to a very undancible bop genre. He then progressed to hard bop,free jazz and fusion. I just don't think on balance it was as important for what came after him as the other three were for what came after them. If I had to pick just one individual it would be Pops. Not because he is my personal favorite but because we would not be having this discussion without him. - Jim

He's not. That was my point.