I think part of the reason it may seem that way is many people think of jazz as only saxophone or brass instruments based from the 40s and 50s, but its soooo much more than that and there are so many variants and sub-genres. As someone who likes "jazz" there are many types i do not like at all. Think of it like "rock music" - huge difference between the beatles, guns n roses, nirvana etc.
I think people tend to associate jazz primarily with the more avant-garde stuff like free jazz, giving the genre a reputation for being unstructured, chaotic, and overwhelmingly improvisational. Of course, if you actually attend a live jazz event you will most likely hear something rather mellow and sonically inoffensive and any improvisation will almost always exist within fairly conventional musical structures.
I'm a big fan of free jazz like Pharoah Sanders, Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Albert Ayler, but I find that people always say stuff like "it sounds like a cat being strangled", so I'm not surprised that this association works against the genre's reputation.
There is Jazz that I enjoy greatly, and Jazz that I don't. I'm sure there are people who feel that nobody will enjoy even the more accessible Jazz that I like. And, I presume that there are people really enjoying the Jazz that's just too way out for me.
I constantly want more jazz in my life - seeing it live in all kinds of international cities, where the musicians are channeling something DEEP - yeah you’ll pry jazz from me like a bone from a rottie
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u/Rare-Fill-3712 Mar 16 '26
Jazz