When Jazz Started Feelin' Groovy

IT WAS SO SIMPLE: pop music was for kids, and kids bought 45s. Jazz fans were older, hipper, and collected LPs. Two different constituencies, and even if the occasional jazz instrumental somehow caught on and became a hit single, that was a fluke. ll through the first rock and roll era, the second half of the '50s into the early years of the New Frontier, everyone knew where the dividing line was (although there were some jazz musicians who got swept up in the Twist craze), and then all of a sudden it got more complicated. With the Beatles, Dylan, the Stones, and the rest of the '60s creative wave, rock music wasn't relegated to the kiddie section anymore; it was Taken Seriously. It was selling albums. It was progressive, daring, experimental, cool. All the things that jazz was.