Scott Johnson: "Composers like Ravel, Milhaud, or Stravinsky who participated in the spread of jazz-influenced pieces during the 1920s and 30s didn't get their jazz at all right, but then again they weren't trying in any serious sense, because that would have required improvisation. They were only making a picture of their surroundings"
Later, "the 20th century [is] filled with messages sent between the European classical tradition and jazz, as populist as Ellington or Bernstein, or as arcane as Gunther Schuller or Anthony Braxton. But jazz and classical practice have rarely fused in equal parts"
NYC improvisers and European improvisers both "relate to jazz, but only occasionally follow its forms, while frequently referring both to 20th century avant-gardism and popular music"
"Given that both jazz and the post-classical traditions are themselves composed of many interleavings of invention and borrowing, why has the territory between them, which has been explored so many times from so many angles, been so difficult to establish permanent settlements in?"