The new school of old schools
Fred Hersch - In Walked Bud
At almost 15 years into the new millenium I think it is safe to say that we do not have a new thing in jazz music and composition. Instead we have what I call the great syncretization, all jazz styles from 1920s style blues forward are included, often in the same piece. Jazz still swings. Bebop is hip again. Everybody does Monk and everyone brings their own thing to it. Electric guitars can go from single line clean Charlie Christian leads to Jimi Hendrix style feedback and distortion within the same song. Swing songs can have free jazz interludes. Synthesizers, delay, and other digital effects are common. Nearly every jazz group plays time in at least some of their repertoire. Minimalism is a tool that is mixed in with extremely dense big band arrangements.
Maria Schneider Colours Jazz Orchestra guest soloist Scott Robinson - MY LAMENT
From bebop forward the improvised solo has reigned supreme and that remains true today. Since the 1920s jazz popularity has ridden on waves generated by female vocalists. That also remains true today. Now, however, the jazz vocalist will sing with a band that plays a wide range of repertoire as opposed to blues singers, swing singers, or torch singers from the 20th century. And the vocalists embrace these styles extending scat singing on a bebop change into textures and timbres that would seem out of place in most jazz vocal practice.
Diana Krall Live In Rio 2008
Also many popular groups performing for large audiences play mostly jazz without laboring themselves with the baggage that goes with the genre. So jazz artistry extends past the jazz label and you are likely to hear quite a bit of jazz at any music festival played by funk bands, jam bands, rock bands and genre free bands (alt-alternative). These bands often reach a larger audience with their jazz than genre jazz bands do playing jazz festivals and clubs. And they are every bit as much a part of the great syncretization as quote jazz unquote bands.
tUnE-yArDs
Jazz arrangements are also finding their way into concert halls where classical music is played. Where you used to be able to look at the instrumentation of a band and say "Now that's a jazz band" that is no longer true. Any size ensemble with any instrumentation may play jazz. And just like many symphony orchestras play arrangements of Gershwin and Ellington tunes many contemporary composers write symphonies and chamber music pieces that are jazz in their bones.
Billy Childs' Jazz Chamber Ensemble w/the Calder Quartet: "Into the Light"
Instead of looking for the new big thing in 21st century jazz I take this view. Jazz is the new big thing in 21st century music.
Hiromi Uehara - Piano solo Old Castle, by the river, in the middle of a forest.