and I agree... one of the only places I really see a real social component to playing music (besides the Internet but that's its own ball of wax) is the church... and small artsy pockets of cities fortunate to have them.

given that a lot of that is winding down due to decreased membership for which ever reason... I feel like a lot of musicianship is being "funneled" nowadays.

I wish I could have more strongly tied jazz music to the trends we saw in the 60s-80s in that post. I really believe that's why I love that music so much... even though it wasn't jazz, there was a lot of "jazz" in what I heard, particularly from the sophistication side of things.

conversely there are some Chick Corea records (recorded apart from RTF) where I think he goes lightweight "R&B" with some of his chord choices.