jazz is not what jazz was but is a vision of what it can be.

Nor does it compete with jazz's pa

am is doing. If jazz history tells us anything, it is that the music, until the last decade or so,
new European jazz is unmistakably music of today.

ted straight-ahead jazz from its harbor and has sailed away,'' said the French pianist Lauren
r several years. ''Keeping tradition is a great thing, but it's not the only thing. You have to ke
'

European paradox. At the turn of the 20th century, many European artists blamed ''the trad
icularly in classical music. The composer Darius Milhaud and other French artists of his gen
vinsky, looked beyond European traditions to the vitality and exuberance of jazz . Milhaud's
r its strong jazz influences. Now jazz itself is looking beyond its boundaries for a new vitality

Ludovic Navarre's group, St. Germain, has had considerable success in combining French ho
oup's album ''Tourist'' has already sold more than 600,000 copies, mostly in Europe. To put
z world represent a hit record. In bars, restaurants, clubs and clothing stores across Europe,
uitous with its insistent 4/4 vamp and the now-famous sample of Marlena Shaw singing ''I w

isation from the trumpeter Pascal Ohse, the saxophonist and flutist Edouard Labor, the key
and reggae pioneer Ernest Ranglin, St. Germain is reaching young audiences in a way that h
azz did in the Swing Era. This idea was not lost on Jazz at Lincoln Center, which presented
e of the tour says it all: it was taken from a 1937 hit record by the Jimmie Lunceford Orches

Mezzadri, who has occasionally played in St. Germain, said recently: ''St. Germain has chang
ce -- don't put it in a box. You listen, you dance, this is what my generation wants, the dance

matic figure on the Paris jazz scene. Mere mention of his name is enough to fill any club there
on his latest album, ''Magic Malik,'' reflect the racial diversity of Paris, that most cosmopolit
merican, African and Cuban musicians,'' he said. ''I grew up in the West Indies, in Guadelou
m Africa, with slaves.'' His music is rhythmically unambiguous while bursting with pan-ethn

ent of the current Parisian jazz scene is captured on ''Candombe'' from the saxophonist Julie
rded live at the New Morning Club last year. With Mr. Mezzadri as a featured sideman, the
u's tenor sax riffs mediate the ebb and flow of the powerful drum 'n' bass-influenced grooves
ven younger because I think jazz is not elitist,'' Mr. Lourau said.

avian jazz artists was inspired by an earlier generation, particularly the Norwegian saxophon
cognition on the Munich-based ECM label run by Manfred Eicher. In the mid-90's, young m
he drummer Audun Kleive and the guitarist Eivind Aarset, all of whom are Norwegian, rejec
called the ''Nordic tone'' and began experimenting with dance-based grooves. Mr. Wesseltoft