Every so often, a barrage of articles and blog posts come out claiming that jazz has found the musician or musicians that are going to “save” jazz. More often than not, these musicians are achieving some current commercial success and popularity among a broad audience outside of the typical “jazz head” community.
Recently, bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding and keyboardist Robert Glasper have been deemed the new saviors of jazz. Both are very talented instrumentalists, and it is very likely that neither of them, in their attempt to achieve as much popularity as possible, did it with motivation to save jazz from any sort of demise.