Part of yr problem is that you fail to grasp that it's precisely yr attitude that drives people away from appreciating classical music. In the 1930s and 1940s it was this attitude that led my father to realize that his music instructors were intolerant zealots. They disapproved of jazz, insisting to him that the work of Art Tatum wasn't even music. It's largely as a result of this attitude that he spent the past 60+ years playing jazz and Fake Book standards instead of yr beloved classical music. My experience was quite similar. I suppose you'd be surprised to know that a lot of classical training is wasted due to attitudes like yrs.

Another part of yr problem is the silly & uninformed things that you say. Such as:

in a league with the fruits of a lifetime of labor by what are a relative handful of the world's greatest musical geniuses of composition and the incredible artists who have the talent and devotion to perform their work

Yawn. There'd be a lot less of what you refer to as 'devotion' necessary if there were less of these attitudes. Musicians are just as affected by a reason not to perform a particular style or piece as they are by a reason to perform a particular style or piece. They are human beings who are entitled to choose for themselves what they may like or not like, not machines who must be trained to understand only that which people like you would foist upon them, to the exclusion of all else. It should be obvious that a person might well have more interest in performing classical music if their mentor is capable of holding back their disappointment that they actually might enjoy listening to or playing other styles of music also.

In the 20s, 30s, and 40s, it was often young adults who didn't have the opportunity to be exposed to classical music or who wanted something lighter occasionally

I see. And what about the young adults who had plenty of exposure to classical music, and chose to instead prefer Louis Armstrong, Cole Porter, and Bing Crosby? Give me a break.

In the 50s with the appearances of rock and roll, it was targeted at teenagers

Uh-huh. Like Vic Damone and Rodgers & Hammerstein, I suppose? Or are you going to tell me they weren't part of popular culture, either?

As the 60s wore on, it was targeted at people in a drugged state of hallucination from the effects of marijuana and LSD.

You mean like Motown & bubblegum music? Or the rock music that was inspired by classical music? You need to be just a bit more overly broad with yr generalizations, please.

In the 70s and 80s the heavy metal music was targeted at the infintile mind which values shrieking and breaking whatever is in sight. Compare the behavior of rock performers of that era to infants in a crib and the similarity is obvious.

Maybe yr mind in its infancy valued shrieking and breaking things, but mine didn't. And I must say, the behavior of rock performers from that or any era has nothing on the behavior of a good number of people with whom I was in the orchestra with in high school on field and performance trips. That would be performers of classical music, and generally not all that much younger than the rock performers to which you are referring.

And now we have gangster rap, a genre which not only extols crime and violence but is targeted at criminals and would be criminals themselves.

Well, of course! They have to commit crimes in order to afford the CDs, right? It is sort of curious that they would target the sorts of individuals least likely to pay for the CDs, but I guess we can never have enough criminals. Oh, just one thing: the crime rate's been dropping for a decade now.

I didn't say Coltrane was not a fine saxophonist. I just don't think he attains even the heights other saxophonists do.

No, that's not true. You said: "History or no history, I think Coltrane sucks." Those were yr exact words.

Can a saxophone rise to the same level of expression and can a saxophonist attain the same height of virtuosity as a great violinist? IMO, not a chance. They are worlds and worlds apart.

The fact that you do not believe a saxophone cannot rise to the same level of expression as a violin speaks volumes, especially considering that jazz saxophonists are often composing and playing simultaneously. So does the fact that you would look to make a direct comparison when it comes to virtuosity using one instrument that can emit only one note at a time and another instrument that is capable of emitting more than one. Not to mention that the physical demands involved in playing each instrument are completely different. But that's okay--a jazz saxophonist could never be the virtuoso a violinist could be!

It's not that far off from saying that a bicyclist will never travel as fast as a race car driver, while ignoring that the bicyclist may indeed possess more skill when it comes to guiding his vehicle, may understand more about when and when not to accelerate, and may have a stronger grasp on how to combat wind resistance. All of these are analagous in one way or another to making music, but people like you never seem to think about things like that. This is because you don't understand music beyond yr very small view of what music actually is (guess what: there's more to it than you realize), and this is why you choose to spout off about subjects that you know little or nothing about. Like the question posed by the first post in this thread.

The fact is, making music involves more than one type of technique at which one can be a virtuoso, but you choose to focus on only one (which of course makes sense considering that violinists performing classical music typically read off a chart, while a jazz saxophonist typically doesn't). Unless one is criminally stupid enough to limit their evaluation of a performer's skills on that one alone, there can be no truth to yr contention.

As for attitude, I find yours as dislikable as you find mine.

Not possible. You should disabuse yrself of the notion that you are one who appreciates music; you are its enemy.

You would reduce all art to the same level and the same value. You would equate the outstanding and the extraordinary with the banal. You would compare what intrigues the most complex minds and entertains them for hours at a time with the babbling blather of the village idiots. And you would dismiss others who wouldn't as elitists you don't like.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. Are you kidding? Go back & reread yr paragraph about pop culture. Aside from being mind-numbingly incorrect, it does what you have the gall to accuse me of. You're still the guy who put out all this bloated whining about the level of education our society must have sunk to if there was even one person on the planet who would choose a recording as worthless as "A Love Supreme" as the one they would be most likely to bring to a desert island. Remember that?

Surely not, since you seem to have also conveniently forgotten that I suggested that you produce even one example to support yr ridiculous contentions if you had any desire to be taken seriously. You have not produced even one. I suppose that's the sign of a mind that's disciplined and under control, huh? And, uh, trained. Trained to do what? Avoid answering a direct question when you've pontificated on a topic you know little about?