Jazz’s future — actually, its present — looks brighter than it has in at least 50 years. In April 2022, Jon Batiste cleaned up at the Grammys, becoming the first jazz musician below retirement age in decades to win album of the year. Young improvisers like him seem less intimidated than ever by jazz’s gloried history, and are dumping their energies into fusions and multimedia projects. For much of Saturday afternoon, when 11 pianists under 30 competed in the semifinals, there was cause to wonder. At one point I started to wonder if there was a rule against bringing in your own original tunes.

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Persons: —, Jon Batiste, Young improvisers, jazz’s, Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk, George Gershwin, Carl Allen Organizations: Hancock