Didn't 'avantgarde jazz' turn too soon in just another static academy?

[Adriano Lanzi]

Ok let's see how it works, I'll see if I can be active in this faust@ning thing starting from this. This is basically the answer I posted to Paul in the 'why does some music make people angry' topic in the faust-list. I did a Radio interview 12 years ago with Mario Schiano, sax player,founder member of the Gruppo Romano Free Jazz and curator of the festival of improvised music 'Controindicazioni'in Rome, and when the word 'avantgarde' slipped out of my mouth, he laughed 'Avantgarde of what? Of 40 years ago??''. He was witty, and funny, and I think he was right, in a number of ways. I LOVE radical improvisation, or I woudn't have joined this avantgarde jazz group here at all, but the truth is that too often 'avantgarde' has become, especially in Italy, just another form of cold and unlively 'academy', totally 'out of this world'in the worst sense - (not in the Sun Ra sense) no connection anymore with (or reaction to) what's happening in society, just a bunch of snobs (with exceptions of course) even more snob than the italian average 'jazz' musician.The fact that the audience of their concerts is almost entirely made of musicians, and musicians from the same entourage simply doesn't seem to worry them too much. But interesting things are still happening in this field of music here and there, aren't they?

Adriano