Defining Jazz

If my list of NZ jazz artists seems to be a little eclectic then I make no apology. I believe that this is both the nature of jazz and a limiting factor of definitions. There have been countless efforts to define jazz from critics, historians, musicians and educators, that have resulted in artists being omitted from the historical record. Luckily there are as many of those listed who seek to create spaces where jazz can be diverse, eclectic and indefinable. So as I went through and tried to create a list of websites for people to access my only criteria for selection was that jazz was used in a descriptor of the artists music.
My firm belief is that outside of the classroom jazz is an orientation and a way of musicking. For a definition of musicking seek the work of Christopher Small - another ex-pat Kiwi who has written extensively on the nature of musicking. The difficulty is that classroom jazz must operate within the confines of twentieth century educational pedagogies and curriculum concepts. For jazz to be taught within schools, universities and other post-secondary settings, jazz needs to be broken down into assessable and manageable chunks, with defined and prescribed canons. And for this very reason jazz education, with its prescriptive formulas, has a tendency to act like a factory, turning out technically proficient clones of the faculty.
These criticisms of jazz education are worldwide so I am not aiming them at NZ jazz education providers in particular. I do think that NZ jazz educators have had and in some cases taken up the opportunity to think beyond these restrictions and I will seek to elaborate more on this in future postings. However, jazz oriented and influenced musicians have existed in NZ for a lot longer than jazz education has. They have created a unique body of work and a diverse industry. It is pleasing to note that NZ jazz musicians are making the most of new technologies and are working with and beyond the recording industry to create new markets for their work. But there are also long traditions of dance musicians who are often forgotten in archives who created the foundations of the industry on which these new talents stand. Therefore I will not discriminate against anyone who is playing jazz within their lounge bar piano repertoire or against fusion artists who owe more of their sound to hip hop than jazz. If there are others out there who believe they belong on my list please send me your information for inclusion.