Yes ! Once I picked up on poly I crossed the line thus causing drummers to have fits , well modern drummers anyhow. Laugh !

Yes it's true , but I don't know where appreciation begins. The culture has gone over to fast food , fast music...anything easy , nothing complex.

I can't listen to Connick , he's off all the time it seems to my ear . I would gladly be chopped up by Muslims rather than listen to the Dixie chicks. Miles Davis and the Monk fall into the literal definition of progressive , if I am not mistaken. But they taught me a little about composition too , despite their politics. Ella Fitzgerald , old school all the way was not fond of folks wandering off into cacaphony and disharmony. Just stop that nonsense , she said. But then she and her instrument were about as good as it gets.
I take my Jazz seriously , something happened in the forties after "Big Band" meant "Jazz." It was good at first. Miles Davis wrote beautiful things for a while , then cacaphony walked in the door. I don't know what happened. Be bop , from swing I think and after be pop , nothing.
Louis Armstrong was so great a Jazz man , he spawned dozens of players and writers of every color. Then Rockabilly appeared in the music halls , then rock , then noise.
Jazz just faded away.
It's odd , I have heard from guys playing Japan that you can hear a pin drop in a Jazz concert. Or that used to be the case.
These days I wonder what will be defined as Jazz next , the Milwaukee Jazz festival seems to include everything from straight ahead to pure rock. All under the title Jazz , I stopped going because all it seemed to be was dope smokers , wino's and the can't stop yapping crowd.

Are you defining progressive literally ? I mean the movement of change from the forties through the fifties ? It's surely true that some performers went over to the dark side , but then again , Miles Davis more than anyone brought me into Jazz back in the fifties and he was a racist bigot (if the books are true.} Rockers did more for communism than any music movement , I would not miss them at all. I shall have to read on Mingus , The Monk too , although I do listen to them.
I think the problem with current audiences is that they really don't "get it," people have asked me "what's it for ? " The idea of multiple consonant chords , harmony , turn arounds , changes and such just don't do it for them. Then if a lyricist is involved who in his/her song does not repeat the same phrase and asks for attention , The whole world collapses for the liberal duffers.

Jazz musicians are not gone , we are ignored . It's not "gone," it has been forced out of the way.

Yes , this it true here , go to a concert ( Jazz or classical ) and they yap all the way through it. ( Milwaukee )

That's the sweetest piano I have heard in a while. I have learned not to talk Jazz nor mention Jazz amongst folks regarding themselves as conservative , for reasons I don't understand Jazz is despised. My 34' th year in the states and Jazz moves further and further away from its home.

Thanks for sharing the weirdo mail , the racism card never seems to go away.
Also..
(Please don't hold fried pickles against Wisconsin , they mean well in Brookfield , it's just they will fry anything given the chance.)

As the man said above , the Zombie voters will get in the way. The task is to wake/sober up the zombies in time for the election else we are stuck with socialism for ever. Even Putin sees the errors we have made , but MSM and co. are fellow travellers , they will blinker the voters yet more. Remember , most , the majority of the voters are addicted to their television and cannot think straight for more than a few seconds at a time , we are not out of the fog yet. I have no idea how to wake a zombie up , they are by definition , stupid.

Well for goodness sakes boys and girls. How many Saudi dollars prop up the machine ? MSM is owned . The only way this can be turned around is by other faiths joining together against the Muslim cutthroats. Nothing has changed but Everything has changed , the MSM are no longer the ONLY provider of tainted news and opinion.
By forums such as this the truth can be spread.