Thanks for that. Payton surely raises some valid thoughts.

 

Well, I'm sorry, but it's not really clear to me what he's trying to say. I mean, he makes a lot of statements that one can't really argue about, but what if anything is he proposing? That we all conclude that "jazz" (however defined, and he seems to dance into using the word and then dance away from it) is a music that as a creative art had a defined lifetime which is now over? OK, that's something we can argue about. But even amongst those who agree with that proposition, what actions if any come out of it? I play music in styles that were new and creative at times from 300 years ago to 30 years ago, but generally are no longer considered new and creative. Should I stop? May I continue, even though I know that playing trad-jazz tunes in a style derivative of the period 1925-1940 is no longer a cuttting-edge activity? How about if I play Mozart?

And he devotes a considerable amount of space to decrying the shabby working conditions, poor pay, and racism afflicting "jazz musicians" both past and present - well, that's hardly news, is it? I mean, being against those things - wishing that improvising musicians could make good money in decent working conditions free of racism - that's about like coming out in favor of motherhood and apple pie.

I don't think Nicholas Payton is on the brink of retiring and no longer playing music. Does he believe that the music he's making now is relevantly breaking new ground, or does he believe that he's making music in a long tradition where true innovation has largely expended itself? If it's the former, is it the label "jazz" he's objecting to, the low pay shabby working conditions and racism, or what? Or is it the latter? And if so, does he mean to say that it's still an honorable profession (as I believe) even though it's not the cutting edge of artistic work that it was 75 years ago?

I'm happy to call Mr. Payton's current music whatever he would like it to be called, although pretty much everyone's going to keep calling it "jazz". Is he tired of people wanting him to play like Miles did 60 years ago? OK, I can dig that.

Anyway, I come back to: it's not clear to me what he's trying to say.,

 

Well, I'm sorry, but it's not really clear to me what he's trying to say. I mean, he makes a lot of statements that one can't really argue about, but what if anything is he proposing? That we all conclude that "jazz" (however defined, and he seems to dance into using the word and then dance away from it) is a music that as a creative art had a defined lifetime which is now over? OK, that's something we can argue about. But even amongst those who agree with that proposition, what actions if any come out of it? I play music in styles that were new and creative at times from 300 years ago to 30 years ago, but generally are no longer considered new and creative. Should I stop? May I continue, even though I know that playing trad-jazz tunes in a style derivative of the period 1925-1940 is no longer a cuttting-edge activity? How about if I play Mozart?

And he devotes a considerable amount of space to decrying the shabby working conditions, poor pay, and racism afflicting "jazz musicians" both past and present - well, that's hardly news, is it? I mean, being against those things - wishing that improvising musicians could make good money in decent working conditions free of racism - that's about like coming out in favor of motherhood and apple pie.

I don't think Nicholas Payton is on the brink of retiring and no longer playing music. Does he believe that the music he's making now is relevantly breaking new ground, or does he believe that he's making music in a long tradition where true innovation has largely expended itself? If it's the former, is it the label "jazz" he's objecting to, the low pay shabby working conditions and racism, or what? Or is it the latter? And if so, does he mean to say that it's still an honorable profession (as I believe) even though it's not the cutting edge of artistic work that it was 75 years ago?

I'm happy to call Mr. Payton's current music whatever he would like it to be called, although pretty much everyone's going to keep calling it "jazz". Is he tired of people wanting him to play like Miles did 60 years ago? OK, I can dig that.

Anyway, I come back to: it's not clear to me what he's trying to say.,

I feel confused after reading whole NP article... but separatly many statements click right to me...

and sure it is not new about vitality of jazz...

here is nice discussion (read a bit, just too much of the same...)

Is jazz dying? - Quora

 

It's hardly just jazz musicians that don't make money. Music in general is a precarious field, with many "pros" making more teaching than performing. The industry is deeply exploitative all though as well. How many rappers are working day jobs while trying to get their new music into people's hands? How many electronica artists go to their day jobs dreaming of what they're going to put together when they get home?

To do it you have to believe in it. And it's okay to do the traditional stuff. We are all participating in a tradition. It's also okay to step out or away or do something different.

I think he's slightly off base in saying 1959 though. Weather Report and Return to Forever and other groups were playing for thousands in the 1970s. Sorry, was that not jazz? What about Keith Jarrett playing unique solo improvisations in packed halls? Also just not jazz I suppose. I keep forgetting we've erased so much of the real history. If you forget your history, you're gonna get caught in the trap of thinking it's dead.

I see a tradition from Louis Armstrong to Kamasi Washington and stretching over oceans to players like Shabaka Hutchings. I don't accept that it ever died, just because some want to erase the history as it happened.

It's niche, well, that is what it is. As to "life", people can tell you life is doing anything. It's just what you do between dust and dust. What meaning it has is up to you. I know music isn't the only thing to do but having done other things as well they are not any more fulfilling and for me much less. If you question why I put effort into it, it's because I find it a good thing to spend time on in my short stay here on the planet. Don't tell me I need to "live" when that's what I'm doing.

 

One of the things he's sort of trying to get at, and he's right about it, is that you have to be careful how you use categories, that a bad category can stultify your art. Other people call a category a "label" but that's missing the point. The problem isn't in the word itself, the problem is in how you group things, in how you understand what makes them a whole (and whether that group should actually be considered as a whole, whether that grouping is based on fundamental similarities and differences).

The irony is that bad categories are very common in our culture, and Payton's got so many of them that he is groping half-blind to make the valid point, and in the meantime he's getting a bunch of things wrong because he's trying to think with bad categories. Just to be clear, I think his idea of categorizing varieties of New Orleans music sounds plausible and worth thinking about. But they don't make his case that Jazz "died" in 1959. Rather they make the case that Jazz is not a very useful category outside of making very gross distinctions.

 

Reads like a first-year writing student who just discovered Kerouac.

"Jazz" died in '59? Louis Armstrong topped the BEATLES in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!". Getz/Gilberto cleaned house at the '65 Grammy's. Herb Albert & The Tijuana Brass Band outsold the Beatles throughout '66. Chuck Mangione topped the charts throughout the '70s. Kenny G is a household name (and popular meme).

This piece comes across as the bitter ramblings of a "Postmodern New Orleans musician" who's upset that most people are more familiar with David Sanborn than Nicholas Payton.

Jazz as a popular music IS dead. And jazz musicians (starting in the early/mid-'60s) and people like Nicholas Payton killed it.

 

This guy said it all

 

I think part of what he's saying is that "jazz" is a label used to pigeonhole and limit both the music and musicians. Not that the music was bad after 1959, but that (in his opinion) the label became too restrictive.

One can see this in the expectations people have: the ways that people argue about whether some new musical form is or is not jazz. And in the stereotypes that the larger culture has about jazz musicians and the limited opportunities for them. It still seems pretty common to encounter the assumptions that jazz musicians are tragic figures, addicts, intuitive artists rather than trained composers, who don't really deserve full access to cultural institutions (universities, orchestra halls, composition prizes, jobs with salaries or health insurance). I feel most people wouldn't say that outright any more, but it's still expressed in assumptions.

 

It still seems pretty common to encounter the assumptions that jazz musicians are tragic figures, addicts, intuitive artists rather than trained composers, who don't really deserve full access to cultural institutions (universities, orchestra halls, composition prizes, jobs with salaries or health insurance). I feel most people wouldn't say that outright any more, but it's still expressed in assumptions.

On the rare occasion anyone tells me they're a "jazz musician," I assume they're a barista. Who out there even knows a jazz musician much less makes assumptions about them?

Jazz doesn't, by default, "deserve access to cultural institutions." Part of the problem is that jazz never created its own cultural institutions and relied too much on approval and acceptance from existing (predominantly white, predominantly classical-based) institutions. Such is the circular reasoning that undergirds Payton's piece and makes it so frustrating: jazz is dead because it was denied access to the cultural institutions that jazz actively eschewed as part of its ethos.

And, accepting the premise for a moment, from what cultural institutions - exactly - was jazz excluded? It doesn't get much more "classical white music establishment" than Carnegie Hall, and it welcomed Benny Goodman (and a -gasp- integrated(!) band) in 1938. The first "jazz" degree was offered in 1947. The American military had jazz bands very early-on and continues to do so. I'd say jazz was accepted by cultural institutions way more quickly than rock music.

And then there are the real hepcats who regard 1938 Carnegie Hall as the commercialization of jazz for white people and the offering of a jazz degree as capitalistic sell-out. shrug

 

So... there was a musician I respect a whole lot who told a long time ago... he said, "there are only four types of music; good music played well, good music played poorly, bad music played well and, bad music played poorly."

 

Not trying to be derisive, but what Nicholas wrote strikes me as much as free verse poetry as it does a statement about jazz. The repeated phrases, the rhythm of the words, the stream of consciousness thought process have that feel to me in places.

 

That's not being derisive. It's a spot on analysis. For me, Payton's piece is caught halfway between a prose poem and a diatribe, which makes it problematic, but I like it nonetheless. I don't sense that he's upset about anything in his personal experience but rather thinks it's artistically and culturally stifling to create, market and judge music based on a label ("jazz") that has become overwrought with complicated, racially charged connotations. It's a compelling if not quite cogent argument. My concern is that given the dearth of music being performed live, period, and the increasing irrelevance of genre labels in the age of music streaming, he's taking up an outdated cause. I don't think even Wynton Marsalis is fighting about the meaning of "jazz" anymore. I see that as an 80's and 90's Stanley Crouch liner notes thing.

Addendum: While I was writing my post, Dirty was writing his more thorough and informed one. So his is the one to read! Maybe my 2 cents have some value, as well.

 

@Frank D It is poetry; that is obvious but, that doesn't mean it is void of meaning.

 

I had to chuckle at the bit at the part where he says something like "if you're mad at this, it's because you know jazz is dead." Classic causal fallacy. At the very least, Payton did one thing right: he got people talking. I have very mixed feelings about what I perceive to be his message. It seems to me that he's arguing (or at least, one of the things he's arguing) that the label "jazz" is for music from a previous time, and applying it to modern music is actively harming the propagation of that music. Well, ok. That may be true. When I was in college, asking my friends to come to my concert, they'd hear me say "jazz" and say "oh, maybe...." Many people today think of jazz as an eccentric, unrelatable genre to be shied away from. So yeah, I suppose that label would make it hard to reach modern listeners with modern "jazz."

But the flip side of the coin is this - why wouldn't we continue to call some modern music jazz? It was born out of the jazz from previous decades, it's more clearly related to it than classical or pop, so... seems like a reasonable label to me. That brings up another point: "pop" music has obviously changed a lot over the decades, but I don't hear anybody whining about the label "pop." If anything, I'd just say we've created more sub-genres of jazz and pop.

The more I think about Payton's rant there, the more I think it was just a rant of frustration. Frustration may be justified, but it doesn't make the words true.

 

I'd say this is an expressive and impassioned piece of writing, not a structured persuasive essay for a music history class or a book on the subject. I obviously don't know Nick Payton's intentions for sure, since I am not in his head, but it seems to me like something meant to challenge and, in doing so, provoke discussion of and engagement with these questions about music, history, and the cultural context in which it exists. Not to say that he didn't mean every word he said.

I think it is fairly easy to place this in the broader context of Nick Payton's writing and music, as well. Given that this is one blog post among many, not a standalone book, I'd say it's reasonable to want it in that broader context.

I won't say I've read every single thing he's posted (or even most of it), but I used to follow him on social media and have spent some time reading his essays because I think he is a good player and an insightful thinker with a great breadth of knowledge backing up strong opinions. Whether I agree with any given point he is making or not, I have always found his perspectives and writing (and playing!) to be worth my time to consider and evaluate. I have definitely reconsidered some of my own views on music thanks to ideas put forth in his writing.

Since the concept of ever acknowledging a change in one's viewpoint has become such a conversational third rail in recent years, let me emphasize that I'm not talking about a wholesale replacement of my viewpoints with his, but more an opportunity to reflect, rethink and reframe with the added context of his perspective. Can't believe I feel the need to clarify that, but here we are.

His writing that has stuck most with me looks at the premise that labels play a major role in defining the cultural context in which our actions and, often, our selves, exist. In a musical context, terms like "jazz" that are often used to define a style can end up drawing boundaries and imposing values more than giving a helpful cultural reference point. My interpretation is that, in the case of jazz, this can sometimes manifest as a separation of history and present. This piece expresses that, to me, but in a way meant to express the experience of living as an artist feeling bound by a label, not to debate the merits of feeling that way.

In reading some of his other pieces I really like his concept of looking not at the limited view of "jazz", but rather at the organic development of the Black American musical tradition. He suggests the more stylistically inclusive term Black American Music (BAM) throughout his writing and I really like that. I think it puts the focus on the origins without limiting the future possibilities.

What I read in his writing is an impassioned idea that we can hold within ourselves a deep appreciation of and respect for Black American Music and its diasporic roots, its multitude of branches and the huge variety of roles it plays in our lives while putting our artistic focus not on fitting into predefined boundaries, but on continuing and maintaining the spirit of a unique and powerful tradition.

And, to preempt the argument I've seen put forward that the "Black" part of "Black American Music" makes it non-inclusive, this is what he had to say about that (and I agree):

I'm Not Black, Where Do I Fit In Black American Music?

You should feel no more disconnected from Black American music than non-Cubans feel about playing Cuban music or non-Brazilians about Brazilian music. The term Black American Music just acknowledges the culture from which it sprung forth. You don't have to be Black to appreciate and play it anymore than you have to be Chinese to cook and eat noodles.

I know I have certainly seen him give props to a number of artists, Black and non-Black, American and non-American in the context of his #BAM hashtag and it seems always intended as (and received as) a term of respect and appreciation.

also:

The Black American Music Movement doesn't seek to take Jazz away from you. It's your choice. There are certainly artists and musics that deserve the JAZZ title, but there is a growing number of artists who wish to shake the stigma of cultural colonialism.

Quotes taken from this blog post.

Please note that the above is my attempt to synthesize what I remember of reading a number of his blog posts, social media posts, etc. over the years and is my interpretation, not gospel truth. The source material is all there if you want to read it and form your own opinions.

Overall, though, I'd say this piece is an expression of what he was feeling, not intended as a fully-annotated argument in a larger debate. He's done that elsewhere.

Also check out his albums, since he's a dope player.

 

Frank Zappa said it best; "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny."

As far as Nick Peyton goes, He tries to be controversial to make himself relevant.

 

I have always loathed that quote.

 

FZ was a lot more relevant, and a lot more controversial, than Peyton.
He makes it easy to ignore his scattered rant.

 

Worth noting it was written in 2011, so thats a while back now...to me it seems to be as, other have said a stream of consiousness, poetry kind of thing...

Here's him playing with Emmet Cohen a few days ago, at 1:10:00 he sings a song with lyrics "Jazz in a four letter word" but doesn't expand on it much though...Nicholas Payton with Emmet Cohen

Some pretty great grooves, forsure.

 

Time is funny. That wasn't a few days ago, it was less than 24 hours ago. And look how much we are all talking about Mr. Payton! Seems like we've been talking for days!!!!

I guess he can play then . I've got Gumbo Nouveau on right now. Still sounds fresh, and I got that album when it came out. I've been talking about him at work, and three other ppl said they watched last evening's live stream. What a mark to leave on our hearts...

 

I'd really encourage anyone who is put off by Nicholas Payton's (Payton not Peyton) comments to listen to him speak. He's an even keeled guy which doesn't come across in his writings all the time. It's always important to hear other people's perspective, especially if they're from a marginalised community as important to music as the one he's from

Some things about him are undeniable: he's an absolutely world class player, an individual thinker, and extremely knowledgeable about the history in all sorts of black music.

 

Concepts are like apps. Some are incredibly useful. Some are marginal. Some will damage the process. Learn how to measure the connection to reality of your concepts, and judge the ones you use, or you are no better than an infant picking up a random thing off the floor and eating it because you have a hand and a mouth and it is there.

 

Not much in this article I disagree with. The way jazz is too often taught is referencing back to the 1950s. Why? Life and the arts move ahead. If you're creative and moving forward what's the point of learning and being stuck in a 1950s style? It's good to appreciate and recognize the history. It's even better to move forward and create new music. Our job as musicians/entertainers is to be in the present and giving audiences an experience they can relate to. Play and enjoy what you want for yourself, but don't complain when the public isn't interested in those who are stuck in the past.

 

....don't complain when the public isn't interested in those who are stuck in the past.

You've got it exactly backward: those complaining do so because the public, largely, isn't interested in hearing their "Postmodern New Orleans music" and prefer "old" (pre-1960) jazz.

"Man, I lost my winery/restaurant/lounge gig because my playing just isn't modern enough" simply does not happen.

 

Could not agree more with the essay (or is it a poem?). When any art locks itself behind gates it starts to die. It becomes the dead possession of those who always try to own things.

Just try saying The Rolling Stones are a jazz band (legit, and blues, and other genre) and the jazz gatekeepers come out waving their anxious arms. When it would benefit everyone to remain calm about categories and get excited by sound.

Music is so much more interesting when creativity leads revolution. After revolution, the bourgeoisie return with all their petty hoarding regulations.

 

[ ... ]
Music is so much more interesting when creativity leads revolution. After revolution, the bourgeoisie return with all their petty hoarding regulations.

Do revolutionaries not create petty hoarding regulations? It's the problem with categories again. Petty regulations come from people who don't understand the human life process and those come in many different flavors including revolutionaries (history is brimming with examples) as well as some of the bourgeois. But the bourgeois also includes innovators who need (and seek) a free environment in which to innovate. If your only categories are "revolutionaries" and "bourgeoisie" you are in the same position as a person whose only tools are a hammer and pliers when presented with a screw: you can't respond to the situation appropriately. Concepts (categories) are the tools of thought, if you don't have the right ones you can't do the job.

 

Really loved to read all opinions here...
IMHO, don't think that the JAZZ is "dying" more than classical music.
For the last 25 years I watched many Jazz stars and Classical soloists (World Class Stars).
Often jazz concerts were in the same Maison Symphonique de Montreal. In 90% jazz concerts "attracted" full or about full concert hall,
when classical performances barely half +/- ... what does it mean? It was always my visual note...

I think that with "todays" music, it's methods of distribution and etc, young generation simply skip the notion of classical or jazz music in general.
Somewhere until 2007 I never went to the jazz concerts of young musicians. Because during 10 days of our yearly jazz fest there were for sure 3 Super-Stars.
I started to watch "young" jazz with Hiromi Uehara... I always felt that the young jazzmen simply not provide me a feeling of Real Jazz. I felt it's more artificial (well, well studied).

In 2018 I met Emmet Cohen with his trio that accompanied Benny Golson. Absolutely loved him. Bought his CDs. Listened more.
And watch what happened (to me ). Now for more than a year I watched so many extremely talanted and most of the time unique young people at Emmet's Place.

Personally, I think the Jazz is absolutely alive. Different? Sure. Like a TV from 50th to today.

 

If "Jazz is Dead" because there's a tradition within which people learn to play, then I assume you know... Beethovens music is utterly irrelevant. Dead as a doorknob. And that Mozart guy? Waste of space.

 

Exactly! When you are recreating something of the past your audience becomes extremely limited. Not necessarily dead, but strictly for people who like that period/style or aficionados who listen for nuances of the performer. Everybody should play and listen to what they like. Just don't expect that your efforts in learning that style and all the work you put into it will guarantee you an audience... or a living.

Alan, you may have been trying to be sarcastic, yet like many here fail to recognize being stuck in 1950s time warp. The music business is about entertaining people. If playing music is just a pastime, no matter. If you're studying to be a pro and fuylly emersed in the academic world of jazz teaching, then you're not headed in a direction that's likely to make you a living. Some may think that a rigorous jazz study prepares you for playing anything, but it's just not true. We are what we practice and play. Genres that may not be as technically difficult still require understanding the style and developing the phrasing and rhythmic patterns which fit. Jazz did move forward with fusion, acid jazz, ECM styles, etc. How they are named doesn't matter. The point is that playing standards (tunes that few people under 70 know) for the purpose of showing off your chops in a technical manner, just isn't appealing to the vast majority.

There's already been a lot of discussion about how and why academics adopted 1950s jazz as a model to teach. It takes a lot of work and practice; it's amenable to formulation (through analysis of what those players did), so can be graded on a basis of confirmation to those principles. Unfortunately creativity and taking the music further don't seem to come into it as those are subjective areas which academic shy away from (not easily graded). So the teaching, and thus students, are stuck in a 1950s rut.

Old saying: When you're digging a hole and find that you can't get back out the first thing to do is "stop digging".

 

Payton's got a huge axe to grind. Doesn't mean he's not provocative, or even smart. Just means.... what are you really getting from his writings? How has it helped you personally? (Right, I didn't think so...)

 

This is a SAXOPHONE forum....with forays off into clarinet, flute and related instruments.

Saxophone.

What's popular to the vast majority of people? Oh...Taylor Swift. Rihanna. Name popular musicians, names that "most people" people would recognize...they're all singers. At least since about 1950, they're all singers. The vanishingly few instrumentalists are all guitarists. Nobody knows who the bass player and the drummer are, and NOBODY knows who is laying down all those synthesizer lines that fill everything out.

Think of the biggest saxophone "popular hits' of the past 40 years....The solo on "Baker Street" is an example. You and I might know who played that solo, but who else does? In popular music, the saxophone is an 8 -12 measure instrumental break, added by the engineer to the mix for variety...that's it. Maybe the only exception to that was Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen.

You know the popular TV and internet show "The Voice"? Why is there no show called "The Saxophone"?

There's a video game called "Guitar Hero"...there is no "Saxophone Hero".

Even in church, I know that people want to hear singers. They want to hear the human voice. As a clarinetist and saxophone player, "it's nice" if I play for special occasions to add a little color, but while I've written quite a few tunes for offertories and so on, NOT ONE TIME has anybody waxed rhapsodic about a tune I've written, or a harmonization I've done, but boy oh boy have I gotten kudos for some of my lyrics.

If the main concern here is to "be relevant to the greatest number of people in this modern age" then put down your saxophone and take singing lessons. Alternatively, learn pentatonic blues scales on electric guitar. That's it. for about 85% of the western world, and North America, for sure....there is nothing else musical and contemporary that matters.

I'd say, if you want to play saxophone, play it because you love it.

 

Definitely not arguing with you, but how is this news? The point is that it's possible to be a professional sax player, but not playing "standards" in a 1950s style. The sax isn't replacing pop singers or guitarists in the past, present, or future. How is that relevant? What's relevant is if you want to have a shot at being a professional you have little/no chance as a 1950s jazzer, and yet that's what's taught. That's a disconnect with reality. Jan Garbarek (not playing standards) was able to sell out the Albert Hall (5,900 seats). Kenny G (like or hate him) cries all the way to the bank when he reads how much we "dis" his style. I find heaps of opportunities to play with DJs as the only soloist and well appreciated by the dancers. The opportunities are there to be relevant and in the present tense.

No problem if you just want to play 1950s stuff. You can take a turn at the Jazz nite open mike and compete for "fastest sax sax in the west". Not many other public places to play unless you busk.

 

Despite my apparently impassioned writing in the above post, in fact I don't think about this much any more and it doesn't upset me. It used to....I got over it. Folks like what they like; I like what I like. If those two data sets don't overlap much, then shrug...no biggie.

 

I agree with others that have said this is sort of a rambling diatribe with a cursory effort to make it poetic. Personally, I find it incoherent and lacking in depth. A few of the statements stir the pot a bit, but he doesn't elaborate or offer any real insights so it's hard to take much from any of it. The knowledge that he's a "jazz" musician or even a "post-modern New Orleans musician" doesn't add much; this could have been written by anyone. Jazz may be dead or uncool depending on how one defines all of those terms, but nothing in his post convinces me of that.

In fairness, it's hard to know how much thought really went into his post. But he did post it for the world to see and 10 years on hasn't removed it so we can only assume he's happy with it as is. In that case, it's hard for me to take it very seriously as a commentary on "jazz".

Just to point out a few things that haven't been mentioned yet...

The statement "With all due respect to the masters, they were victims of a colonialist mentality." is hard to understand and he doesn't elaborate, but it sounds pretty dismissive and I would guess many of those masters would take offense to it. I don't think they would accept being characterized as anyone's victim. They knowingly chose a tough path in jazz because of what it meant to them personally. What they were doing at the time was truly innovative, not "traditional". It's only viewed as traditional now by some because of what people who came after them did or didn't do.

Another thing that would be interesting to know, since Payton said in 2011 he's not the same person he was 14 years earlier, does he now think he's same person he was in 2011? Again, he's left this post up so does that mean he's stopped evolving too?

I admit I haven't listened to all of his music but he clearly has great ability. That said, a lot of what I have heard seems very much "in the tradition", and not entirely memorable. This is in conflict with his implied rejection of tradition, as is his chosen label of "New Orleans" music. If you're rejecting tradition and labels, why chose any label at all? Let alone one (New Orleans) that literally defines the beginning of the tradition.

This all reminds me of when I heard Sam Rivers say it was a misconception that he and his avant garde contemporaries rejected what came before them. He said it was the opposite, they had so much respect for what came before them they knew they had to try something different. He gave the example that he studied Dexter Gordon and knew there was no use in him trying to recreate or improve on that. Sam's message seems much more clear and respectful, and I would argue few have blazed a more innovative trail than Sam Rivers.

 

Though his rant lies on the other side of the fence,Payton out-Marsalised Ellis, Wynton, Branford, and Jason with his abrasive pontification. I wonder if he can out-play any of them.