Learsfool (and others), I was playing a disc the other night and I though of you - not your horn but I'm sort of indiscriminate (so I'm told). Andre Previn and Thomas Stevens play a classic american songbook on DRG. This may not be more than some beautiful dinner jazz, but for me anyway that's enough.
Makes me think more about the evolution of jazz and its 'apparent' demise to many after Miles Davis came along and did his thing. I didn't really gain interest in jazz until the late 80's. My interest then was an intellectual thing . I really didn't have a musical connection to the jazz of the 50's and 60's. When I investigated the recommendations from jazz enthusiasts most of the music was from the 50's and 60's and, to me anyway, much was inaccessible. A lot of disconnected notes. Like Berg and Schoenberg in modern classical music, aka just 'noise'. Getting into this jazz was hard work! Almost too hard.
I didn't start to appreciate jazz after until I heard the 'dinner jazz' (a softer jazz perhaps) of musicians such as Previn, Person, Ron Carter, Byrd, Pass, and Peplowski, just to name a few. For me this was a pre-coital kiss. The rest came more naturally after this adaptation.
I don't know if my experience has any universality but if it does could not the frequent whine of the demise of jazz actually have more to do with it than the actual, and continuing natural evolution of a music form?
This thinking thing is too hard - I'm glad that unlike you and Frogman I don't have to do it for a living. :-)