If you listen to hip hop, you're listening to a ton of jazz. If you've been in a room employing a DJ in the last decade, you've heard a ton of jazz. I don't think there's a single record on Blue Note or Prestige that hasn't been sampled to death by someone.

It's not just the music, either -- the whole attitude of cool, smart, aware, committed black (and white) musicians comes 100% from jazz.

As evidence, may I present the jazz sections of every good record store in America, including a few just blocks from the Fillmore, which are full to bursting with reissues of important LPs from the 50s and 60s, by the likes of Lee Morgan, John Patton, Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and a hundred others. People are buying them, too.

The photo in your picture was taken at Jimbo's Bop City, SF's heppest jazz club, until the Fillmore was ethnically cleansed in the hippie explosion. I can't tell who's in the picture. If they're musicians, chances are excellent that they played on Seattle's Jackson Street during this time period as well.

In your other article, Charles, you mention Flying Lotus, whom you describe as "the most important musical mind of our generation". His record samples Chick Corea, Paul Horn, Tito Puente, Dorothy Ashby, and John and Alice Coltrane -- all jazz. The stuff is everywhere.

If you listen to Jazz you're also hearing Bluegrass, the hybrid of English, Celtic and West African musical traditions rolled up and smoked as unwritten, improvised jam sessions. The point is, the tradition of Jazz clubs and Jazz culture are gone from the Filmore and Jackson street, only the photographs and the records remain.

Even grits are getting all citified.