Is jazz Dead?

I awoke a few days ago asking myself the question why I did not seem to have a feeling of familiarity with my surroundings.  I looked around my room, and then the idea suddenly popped into my head.  I had spent many years of my life studying and playing jazz music, more specifically on the piano and the trumpet.  Jazz piano.  Then it dawned on me the feeling inherent in most jazz music was what was eluding me. Upon reflection it has been on the decline and most recently absent from most American music.  Is this what happens when jazz dies in the bottom of a liquor bottle?  I carried a torch for this music, until my wisdom said it no longer was prudent to waste my time trying to be a professional jazz pianist.  Of course I have been.  I have made a living from playing music in many styles including jazz, Afro-Cuban, R&B, Hip Hop, and Beach music.  It always has been in one's best interest to do more than one thing, as it is more likely you will gain employment from a variety of musical options.  Over the years jazz seems to have disappeared from my offerings.  Thus the feeling that accompanies jazz music has been absent.  Like any prudent person I merely have regrouped and persevered with very few questions why I had lost such an opportunity.  When I awoke on this particular day, I realized I personally did not want to lose this feeling.  It was a feeling I had had the majority of my life, and it had provided a feeling of comfort and familiarity in my surroundings.  As I think about where I am now, I realize there is zero reinforcement of the aesthetic of jazz music anywhere near me.  I do not see jazz on television like I once did.  When I turn on the local "jazz" radio station what I hear is pop fodder.  Then I asked myself why jazz piano provided this feeling.  Lately I have been pursuing the publishing of my own piano music but in a contemporary classic style.  I decided while working on ships that writing music that could be read and understood by any classically trained pianist was a more prudent option for its discovery than music holding a torch for an improvising group in a style that seems to have become dormant in America.  With jazz music one needs musicians that are trained in this highly specific artistic music.  It requires many skills which are developed over decades rather than years.  With contemporary classical music all of it can be read and understood by most any reading pianist.  It is this upon which I have become focused over the years discarding jazz and it accompanying feeling.  I realized on this particular day I did not have to lose the feeling of jazz, because America no longer seemed to be supporting it.  Then I asked myself the question how does jazz music need to be preserved and thus continually presented to America for its enjoyment.  Then I thought of regular classical music of course which itself is a misnomer.  What the populace calls classical music really is music from many different stylistic periods mostly from Europe and Russia.  They include the Baroque, Classic and High Classic, Romantic, and Twentieth Century among others.  Rarely do we get to hear music from the Medieval Period or the Renaissance.  Also rarely do we get to hear "New" music.  It became clear to me that this music has maintained the test of time because it professionally composed, professionally published, and professionally performed.  Above all it is supported by a populace which highly values it.  Then I asked myself why jazz does not have the same support.  Primarily it was because to perform jazz music, a unique skill set is necessary that is unrelated to the realization of classical music.  Often in our academic institutions which teach music, jazz and classical curriculums are separate because of this and this separation always has been a point of contention in music education.  I always felt it was exaggerated, because I myself was trained in classical piano but later became a jazz pianist.  There is room for both.  The grift is it takes many years to master both.  I am lucky I had spent the years necessary to study jazz performance including composition, arranging, and improvisation.  These things are second nature to me, but they now are dormant because I am not using them.  When I do indulge in the jazz process, now it seems very unsettling to me.  I feel like my inner most vulnerabilities are exposed to an untrusting environment.  Ironically when I play through the very piano music I am focusing upon now, the feelings I have expressed in it also seem extremely vulnerable.  Between these two musical aesthetics why do they both feel uncomfortable and inappropriate?  As a composer and artist my prudence immediately would say it is because it is time to move on to the next thing.  This would equate to a composer's next style period.  All prudent musicians and composers recognize this is necessary.  You constantly must be on the move to develop and expand.  My problem is why should I have to discard two extremely relevant forms of music which have become part of my soul?  It is because they are not being reinforced in my immediate environment.  Not only is jazz music and its representative feeling not being reinforced in America, my personal music, an expression of my thoughts and feelings also is not being represented.  It would seem I am up the creek without a paddle.  If I indulge in the music of my past, it seems discarded by America.  It I indulge in the music I have created to reinforce myself, it also is unsupported.  In other words America does not seem to "get" either one and their representative feelings.  What?  When faced with the choice I turn back to classical music, because it is being reinforced somewhere.  The great masterworks of the past still seem to be revered and played somewhere either on FM radio or in concert halls.  Jazz music on the other hand has fallen by the wayside, probably because the musicians needed to perform it affectively no longer exist.  I have seen the seminal jazz musicians die off one at a time, and it always has been painful to me.  With the passing of each inherently I knew America would be losing a particular jazz aesthetic, since our academic institutions no longer seem to be supporting them.  Instead another kind of music has thrived.  It should be called folk music, although that would be a disservice to the traditional category of folk music that once was an extremely communicative and viable art form in America.  This newer folk music rather would be defined as, "Being able to be performed by the folk, folk meaning uneducated musically."  Accessible.  Basic. Not inspired.  America's once viable commercial music market has been transformed from one of art to one of folk.  Like karaoke it has begun to indulge the listener's ego rather than his affective and intellectual side.  I cannot upon reflection understand how this has happened other than to see America for what it has become.  Capitalist.  I realized on that day I awoke jazz piano immediately is satisfying.  Unlike some classical music the listener almost immediately can feel something the construct of jazz music.  The earthy sound of an old piano, an acoustic bass, a breathy tenor saxophone, and a very specialized jazz trap set have the unique ability to move listeners almost with its timbres alone.  Put America's Popular Songbook upon it and you have a viable music force with which to be reckoned.  The problem is corporate America does not want this.  They also do not want this power to move listeners and therefore minds and souls to be invested in Rock 'n' Roll.  They want to be able to produce music and control it themselves.  This has proven to be an iconic failure of America's founding institutions, and it will continue until something changes. Corporate America does not want the music industry to possess the power to change minds.  My solution has been to hunker down and continue on my musical path incognito.  I do and will do musically what is necessary to me without the recognition of corporate America or the listening public.  It feels strange and uncomfortable waking up without the comfort I have had my entire life.  Go figure.