I was an avid jazz pianist at one point in time not too long ago. Here's my take on the situation...
Look at the origins of jazz music. It comes from the seediest, darkest, most underground places of society- brothels. In New Orleans in their "Red Light" district, one could hear jazz playing throughout. New Orleans, to this day, is still known for its jazz. As a historian myself, I tend to look at the origins of a "movement" to determine from what city it came from: the city of God or the city of evil.
The very name of jazz indicates its seedy origins. Jazz is another term for fornication. It's a very sensuous music as well, with slow, "careening" sounds.
Jazz, like rock and roll, is focused on a heavily syncopated rhythm. There's a lot of speculation as to whether or not heavy syncopation is a bad thing but I retort and say, look up a youtube video where there's a baby sleeping and they play modern music (most of which is heavily syncopated) and it wakes up only to dance. This is a clear indication that this type of music is only here to serve our flesh, not to endorse the spirit. This is important.
As far as its musical structure, jazz is very deceptive. It is very "subjunctive" in nature, and being subjunctive is not all that bad of a thing, but when the music one listens to is never sure of anything, one can take on that quality. I think this is where my spiritual laziness came in, because although I was not an apostate, my doubts about a lot of things started to come back and it took a lot more effort for me to "brush them off", so to speak. It's also so easy to move from key to key to key, there's no stability, there's no foundation, and some of the time the artists don't end up on the same key they started on.
The main problem is that it utilizes the tritone as an active constituent instead of an embellishment. The tritone, according to a leading neurologist that spoke at my school one time, causes the mind to activate the "fear" center of the brain. Now, if you were to listen to a music that activates the "fear" center of the brain all of the time, do you think you would not be fearful? I was, and it was not healthy for me.
Call me a "Puritan" if you will, I tend to think of myself as astute, and for good reason. Entertainment isn't always as harmless as some might postulate.
:geezer: