Maybe it’s different around the world but where I live it is EXCLUSIVELY the purview of yuppie rich kids who go to fancy music schools. There is not a non-white person in sight. It’s also completely male dominated and most of those males are completely terrible with women (based on stories I’ve heard from femmes in that scene).
Like yeh they’re talented musicians but they’re insufferable and it’s classist and sexist and just gives me the ick big time. They colonised jazz folks.
I’m taking a jazz group class that’s run by the local jazz center and is open to people aged 15+. With about 15 of us there is good femme representation, including three transfemmes, but only white people (hopefully that changes in the next quarter). A few instructors are not white, though, so at least there’s that. I also remember a lot of good jazz in the past few years being put out by non-white people and I’m going to see a non-white femme performer this weekend.
To be fair, I’m not “in the scene” by any means. I’m just a little baby musician in a small-mid size city with its own little thing going on completely separate from NYC and such and it’s pretty nice here.