For many people, the musical output of classic musicians like Louis Armstrong and Django Reinhardt remains some of the most accessible of the jazz genre.  Once delving begins into the myriad sub-genres of jazz, mass-appeal diminishes dramatically.  One listing displays over fifty jazz genres, including bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, hard bop, third stream, jazz-funk, jazz fusion, acid jazz, ska jazz, orchestral jazz, and nu jazz.  The distinctions are, thankfully, the domain of aficionados.  Other listeners, concerned more with letting the music flow, seem put off by the tendency of some jazz music to display a distinct lack of beat or purpose.  Many assert that appreciation of jazz is a direct correlation to a person's age...one day, we will all reach an age where we will wake-up and “get” jazz.

In any case, jazz music remains as one of the Twentieth Century's greatest contributions to music and culture.  In fact, 'the American Dialect Society named it [jazz] the Word of the Twentieth Century.'  In its musical sense, it remains as vigorously alive and ascendant as ever it was.