[Gregg Sartiano]

I think what gets me is the lack of greatness in between the mediocrity.

Or maybe it's the fact that the torch has not been passed. It's over.

400 years of western music appreciation making a consistent climb -- and a generation and a half later, kids CAN'T and WON'T "get" it if your record has extended harmony. Music is now a) relegated to ever-simplified pop forms, or b) passed along like some heirloom for the curio cabinet. (And, jeez, a lot of people got pissed off seeing "Johnny B. Goode" in the same LP collections with John Coltrane!)

Yes, I'll take it THAT far. Play a kid Steely Dan -- or the Beatles doing "Till There Was You" -- or Frank doing "Embraceable You" -- or go further back...Tchaikovsky...Chopin...Beethoven...
Mozart...Haydn...Bach. Wow, I really like THIS time machine!

But no, seriously. The "great" composers were (and are) national heroes. Jazz is possibly America's great cultural contribution to the world. These things USED to be a relevant part of everyday life. But like any language, you have to understand the LANGUAGE to "get" the literature. And "music appreciation" classes don't cut it. The culture has to be STEEPED in it, especially when you're talking about "elevated" forms, which could exist alongside "visceral" forms in one happy popular (in the larger sense) musical universe, but, thanks to modern marketing, they DON'T -- and never will.

Dylan said we're fighting over table scraps from the 60's. Sting said modern rock musicians are "allowed" to not "evolve past Zeppelin" (Zep is great, but it doesn't end there!). Now we've got kids who grew up on dessert and never KNEW there was a main course. THAT, my friends, represents a unique moment in history -- a sign of the times.