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Looper's Delight
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sucks having to work when this thread is going on . . .
free range music . . . that's what i've heard arto lindsay call it - - and it seems to fit.
i've gotta say that most of the people that i play with are pretty open to playing all sorts of different stuff. most don't really think about it being "jazz" in a purist sense - - we steal from everything! in many ways this is the "curse" of playing/composing music at the end of the 20th/beginning of the 21st century - - there is no real "purity" involved. (we can't be charlie parker because we've heard rock and roll, etc.)
i think that the reason many people lump a lot of the type of music we're talking about into the category of "jazz" is that it "fits" there somewhat better than in other places:
classical music for the most part doesn't harbor improvisation in any sort of free sense. when improv does happen in "new" classical music; it is usually pretty tightly controlled by the composer (aleatoric section, etc. - - notice that they don't call it "improv"?). and in general, many composers look down on improv.
rock/country/pop/funk/etc. music tends to be too song/word-oriented to really deal with improv on any *lengthy* basis. there have been many exceptions, but generally those engender a backlash that leads back to the 3-minute pop tunes. many songwriters are all about the song - - no noodling allowed!
new age - - if the improv gets too hairy, people not be able to hang.
since jazz has had a real improv tradition, it can accomodate more investigative improv (unless you're mr. marsalis, i suppose). (someone mentioned how jazz and classical have had more than a nodding acquaintance for a while; and bands like the allman bros and steely dan were borrowing jazz influences for quite a while.) depending on the age and the demeanor, "jazz" musicians may or may not be able to incorporate other sources/styles.
that being said, there are whole legions of people who are appropriating different aspects of music into their aesthetics in all different strains of music. i like to think of music as being like a biological entity made up of a number closely linked sacs with permeable membranes that pass information back and forth - - or something like that.
i think that people have been touching on one basic thing - - most of this stuff is about being slightly underground (in a relative sense) and it's just creeping out through the culture - - sorta like water creeping through concrete until it makes it disintegrate . . .
stig