Esperanza is every bit a jazz musician extraordinaire. To say she's not is ridiculous.
She is a great jazz vocalist as well as bassist.

Jazz is very much alive in the small venues and clubs around the country.
Wherever there are real musicians there will be jazz, because it takes a real musician to play it.

The Grammys are like the Oscars, they have lost all meaning artistically and only indicate what recordings are selling.

Berklee in Boston is turning out great jazz players at a productive rate.

You can hear jazz all over the net.

I would relabel this thread the Death of Recording because the music biz is really hurting right now and it deserves it.

Jazz and folk are not that far apart and yes blues is an art form, folk interpretation is an art form and the best of jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker all recognized the role of blues and country musicians.

Jazz came out of folk music originally. The blues is a form of folk music.
Trad jazz is very close to its folk roots. Even the most sophisticated form of the blues such as Charlie Parker stems from a traditional blues base.

Jazz guitarists are eminently popular among guitar players today of which there are quite a few.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: The Death of Jazz is greatly exaggerated.