Everywhere you look in the popular music scene, there's this dialogue, and to me that's tremendously exciting.
I saw a third trend that I thought was absolutely critical: Jazz seems to be returning to a dialogue with popular culture, to a degree that I had hardly believed possible when I wrote the previous edition of the History of Jazz. Look at all the popular musicians who have embraced jazz: David Bowie, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar. Everywhere you look in the popular music scene, there's this dialogue, and to me that's tremendously exciting. Some of it might seem superficial, like with these Hollywood movies about jazz. I know jazz people make fun of Whiplash and La La Land, but with the Miles Davis movie, the Chet Baker movie, the Ma Rainey movie, Soul — everywhere you look in pop culture, jazz is used as a touchstone for excellence. We, as jazz musicians and jazz people, should be proud of that.