Was there any attempt to say what jazz 'was' and 'wasn't' in the way 1954 attempted to for folk?

Ooh, there were many, many opinions as to what it should be - and hugely inflamed arguments about the rights and wrongs of each style. Wonderful stuff - and hugely comic in hindsight. For example, at the height of West Coast cool in the US, the Californian Lou Watters came out with his very traditional-sounding Yerba Buena Jazz Band - more controversy over that... "revisionist" was a word that was being bandied around, if memory serves.

The great thing about playing jazz in the late 70s, as I did, was that there was a lot going on (certainly in Brighton), and "moderns" would sit in with "traddies" just for the fun of it. But it was a case of "we don't need no stinkin' badges...". No committees.