There's an equilibrium process here. People don't like jazz because it violates their expectations. It violates their expectations because jazz musicians aren

There's an equilibrium process here. People don't like jazz because it violates their expectations. It violates their expectations because jazz musicians aren't pandering to the tastes of the listening public. Jazz musicians don't pander to the listening public because, since everyone knows that people don't like jazz, no one becomes a jazz musician because they want to become ridiculously rich or famous -- the people who are willing to change their musical style in order to become popular (as versus to satisfy some purely internal intellectual or aesthetic desire) all go to rock, hip-hop or pop. The flip side of this is that people who listen to especially unpopular subgenres of jazz (particular -bop) seem to enjoy thinking of themselves as "higher educated" or having more sophisticated tastes than others, or just listening to music that isn't* like everything else and isn't driven by short term fads. And jazz musicians seem largely happy to facilitate this, and in turn get to indulge in a creative process that's solely centered around their own creative interests. Bottom line, jazz won't "go back to the people", because the people don't want it, because the musicians don't want it ... except the ones that do. I think in recent years a whole lot of people have listened to Michael Buble, or Nouvelle Vague.