O-10, glad you are enjoying "Pilgrinage"; there is a lot to like there and I agree it is accessible. Speaking for myself, I know that there was a time when I would not have thought so. We all grow as listeners if we let it happen. Sometimes we don't even realize that it is happening. I hope that I am being neither presumptuous nor am taking too many liberties when I say that over the course of the life of this thread we all have grown as listeners. You make some good points, but I would say this and none of it is intended as criticism or disrespect of anyone. It is a "musician thing" only to a degree. What I mean is I know and have known non-musicians who understand those "galaxies" and "parts unknown" very well; believe or not, better than some "musicians" that I have known. Imo, it is a matter of wanting to understand and not put up our own roadblocks to understanding. However, for some listeners that is a kind of "work" or effort. Some of us want to do that and others don't. A personal call and not applicable to everyone. Also, assuming that what the player is doing is not, in fact, "noodling" (aka bulls&!+) I don't think that it is that "musician's speed is faster than his ideas"; it is instead that the musician's ideas are faster than the listener's speed. You are quite right, there are plenty of bulls$!+ers out there, but I don't think that Trane (or Brecker) were two of them.