****The Duke nailed it with the good and bad thing. People will be listening to Miles and Mozart and folks like that, forever.****
Duke’s often quoted comment is one of the simplest and most "to the point" comments ever uttered about music and one that I (not meaning to be self-serving) have quoted here at least two dozen times. However, I think our interpretation of the comment is sometimes, in fact, "self-serving" or, at least, incomplete and can be distorted to buttress our own preferences in music without acknowledging just how inclusive, imo, that comment was intended to be. Let’s put things in some sort of context:
First of all, while it is fitting to quote Duke’s comment on a thread about jazz, it should be pointed out that Duke was not the first prominent musician to be credited with that insightful comment. In 1863, while having a conversation with a colleague about ethnicity in music, the great Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is known to have said:
+++ My dear sir, there is no such distinction as you suppose between Italian, German and French music; there are only two kinds of music, good and bad. +++
It is quite possible that Duke, being the student of Classical music that he was, was inspired by Rossini’s well documented comment. This simple possibility adds weight to the truth in the comment; a Jazz musician may have been inspired by the comment of a Classical musician. But, back to Duke and since we are quoting Duke, let’s quote him some more:
+++ It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line. +++
+++ I don’t believe in categories of any kind, ((and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again)). +++
For further context let’s also remember that Duke was also the person who said:
+++ Bop is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing +++
He was a giant and musical genius....and still subject to personal bias.
I don’t believe that Duke was putting any style, genre, or historical constraints on the meaning of the comment. Iow, while I am sure he was a fan of Mozart and Miles, he was also a fan of Stravinsky and Bartok; composers who have been called "noise makers" here.
Given all of the above, I have no doubt that Duke would find "good" music in some of the "new jazz inflicted on us recently". Well, probably not in "Kenny G. and house music" ☺️. Musical giant that he was, he understood music on a much higher level than any of us ever will and while we would all like to think that our own individual and personal scope of what defines "good" music is "the truth", the "truth-truth" (pun) necessarily demands a deep understanding of much more than what we like or don’t like. As always, nothing wrong with stating that any one music or period in music is our favorite or even our "truth", but to make that a general truth for anyone but ourselves without a more comprehensive understanding of music including its technical elements (like Duke had in spades) and its relation and relevance to the time of its creation is pointless.
If we want to use record sales as an indication of "good" (I don’t), while it is true that KOB is the best selling jazz record of all time, take a look at this list of the best-selling Jazz records of all time (let’s also be honest and not forget the debates right here about wether KBO actually deserves the notoriety that it receives). The results of this survey may surprise some, but of note are the facts that, out of thirty four, fourteen are "Fusion" and Pat Metheny ties Miles with three, and Duke is nowhere to be found on the list.
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Rifugium/best_selling_jazz_albums_of_all_time__riaa___or_theres_no_mon...
