The sound of a distant saxophone echoing through the halls of time, a faint reminder that jazz is still here, but a painful signal of its past greatness and present failure.

When I think jazz I think Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and others from a time before I was thought of, from a time when soul was a requirement, not an option for success, from a time when music was just that, music. No synthesizers, no voiceovers, no editing, pure music.

As talented as Walter Beasley is, comparing him to Coltrane is like comparing the small packets of sugar found on restaurant tables to the pure sweetness of honey; it is truly unfair.

If you walk up to people on the street and ask them their favorite three types of music, most likely they would not say jazz. Besides my house, the most common places I hear jazz is in grocery stores and doctor’s offices. Jazz has virtually disappeared from the music scene.

Even avid fans of jazz on the Internet sadly proclaim that jazz has long passed its golden age and has since been on a decline.

The contemporary jazz I hear is so unlike the jazz of old I’m tempted to put quotation marks around it. Listening to albums like “Streetwize” is just disheartening.

The “Streetwize” album is a compilation of jazz songs that imitate popular R&B and hip-hop songs of the time. It appears to be an attempt to bridge the gap between “hip-hop generation” and “jazz generation.”

However, it didn’t work.

Right now, I am obsessed with jazz music. I listen to it nearly every day, but turning on some Kim Waters doesn’t appease my appetite for the soul of jazz.

What’s alarming is that I see this happening in hip-hop, too.

Many people agree that hip-hop has already passed its golden age. When I’m craving some true hip-hop, rarely do I listen to anything current.

This is a disturbing parallel to jazz music. If hip-hop must suffer the same fate as jazz when I’m 30, I’ll have to reminiscence on hip-hop that was created before I was even born. I won’t even be able to listen to music that was created by my own generation. Which begs the question, what kind of hip-hop are we making?