Jazz is Dead?
Jazz music has been highly criticized in recent years as being a dying art form with little relevance in popular culture... Those are the same critics that suggest that Windsor/Essex is a dead zone with little to no musical culture; the same critics to which we dedicate this project, in hopes to alter preconceptions and increase support for local music.
JAZZ, An outdated term crippled by over-association created by decades of progressive artists branching-off and creating new "sub-genres." The stigma surrounding the word is nothing new, and still affects its reception in different cities around the world, but...
JAZZ IS FAR FROM DEAD. Musicians all around the world are still playing, learning, and teaching this music, taking it to new heights and fostering creativity. A strong community is essential to the survival of jazz in any city, and Windsor is no exception.
THE JAZZ SCENE IN WINDSOR, supported and housed by many fantastic and unique venues over the years, is the culmination of decades of networking, promotion, and the passing down of knowledge (and enthusiasm about the music) from generation to generatation - all of which are documented in detail on the following pages of this exhibit in concert programs, tickets, recordings, Photographs of live shows, etc.
THIS EXHIBIT includes information on the groups and musicians who have been performing jazz music in Windsor/Essex for more than 40 years. Certain groups from the past have been included because of their profound influence on the jazz community, either with the music they played, the audience they helped create, or the young musicians they inspired. A greater emphasis is placed on those groups and musicians keeping the music alive today in order to show the vibrancy of Windsor's musical culture.
Jazz in Windsor is very much alive... People just don't know where to look for it.