Is Modern Jazz an Oxymoron?

Tomcy
The music you are describing sounds a lot to me like free jazz and there are plenty of really good contemporary straightahead players right now as some have mentioned and I am not really a fan of free jazz either as it sounds too discordant 

Free jazz should be free, they should just give it away to anybody who wants it.

Don Cherry, one of my favorite musicians, went there for a minute or two, and that record I have with his "free jazz" could serve well as a frisbee cause it ain't worth two cents as a record.

I'm not much of a fan of 1970's+ Jazz.

That's when fusion and "Smooth Jazz" took over. Not that  there's anything wrong with it. Anyone that's a SoCal FM listener will remember the great Chuck Niles on KLON. He would talk about his disdain for "Smooth Jazz"

I don't even care much for modern vocalists resurrecting standards. Most fall flat with their attempts IMO. You can't replace Ellla,Billie,Sarah,Dinah etc.

I've been on a Blossom Dearie kick lately. Found a couple of RARE LP's awhile back. Fabulous.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hGjzuXchGg

we who have lived a lot of life and heard a lot of music in our younger more impressionable years are burdened by our memories and our sense of how certain music should sound - that can inhibit our enjoying new forms new creations

btw - the ny times just released a nice list of their top 10 jazz albums of 2020... some old and some new artists... worth checking out

i would also say that to me, the greatest joy of music streaming is its enabling our ability to experience new music

Does everyone define "modern jazz" differently? I listen to I what I consider modern jazz...Boney James, Najee, David Sandborn, Kirk Whalum, Brian Culbertson, Paul Brown, and many more. Some call what I consider modern jazz, "smooth jazz".