Sure, that element is always there. Speaking for myself, I def don’t resist the music. I just think that the “jazz poll” is a sort of time-tested institution and until there is a “creative music” poll or somesuch (shoutout to El Intruso! And obv the Free Jazz Collective), it’s likely that great music like this will continue to fall through the cracks critically, to some degree. Seth Colter Walls, e.g., has done great work attempting to address these in-between areas. And also, again, I think in general that we’re lucky to see all of this AACM cohort (Threadgill, Braxton, Wadada, Roscoe) be pretty well appreciated/acknowledged on their own uncategorizable terms during the past 20 years or so.

I think about this a lot btw - Braxton said it to me in a 2007 interview:

“I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas.”