Taylor: Perhaps before we go any further, we better define what jazz is.
Overton: No, I’m not going to get into that…
[Laughter]
Taylor: Why not? Why not? How can we talk about the future of something that we can’t even define? What are we talking about?
Overton: Let me define jazz community. You have to be able to play jazz with someone else. Well if you have four people, that’s a community. If you have three…
Taylor: Well, Haydn played with somebody too. Was he playing jazz?
Overton: No, he played by himself.
Taylor: No, no, no – his chamber work, you know, and his symphony, you know. People played together, does that mean it’s jazz because they played together?
Overton: The idea of a jazz community is that jazz is really based on more than one person playing together, and you have to be able to say, and you have to be able to agree musically.
Taylor: Well what is this thing you’re calling jazz? That’s what I want to know first and now let’s get that that [sic] before we start talking about…
Overton: I think that would be stupid to get into. We could spend all day – you have your ideas, I have mine…
in THE SHAPE OF JAZZ TO COME
