Seriously. Sanabria gets downright chatty and thoughtful about the history and future of jazz in this interview with (who else?) Jazz.com. Choice excerpt:
…[J]azz was still a viable force to a certain extent and even had a small kind of resurgence in the late sixties, early seventies with the fusion movement, which to me, was an incredibly creative time period. You had certain groups opening up for rock bands, like John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra opening up for Aerosmith. People like Larry Coryell, the Eleventh House, etc. Of course, Miles Davis became the darling of the rock set. Everybody from Crosby Stills and Nash to the Grateful Dead were into Miles Davis after the Bitches Brew album. But slowly but surely the mainstream ties that jazz used to have to mainstream audiences disappeared….This all relates to politics. When Ronald Reagan deregulated the FCC, all of a sudden all of these radio stations were up for sale and Viacom and Clear Channel bought up all them. They made them into pop, rock and MOR stations, over a thousand radio stations. Most of them were jazz and black oriented music stations. That really killed jazz.
Or maybe just put its head in the noose. Luckily, though, the hangman has been too busy listening to Sanabria and these other dudes to tighten the rope: