Let me post a quick thought here...

There is a "middle ground" with jazz also that does appeal to a very wide audience. Some jazz is what I call "difficult listening music" and it takes a trained mind to appreciate it, sort of like jazz musicians playing for other jazz musicians. But the softer smooth-jazz (aka contemporary jazz or c-jazz) has a very wide audience and is nearly unversally accepted (except by the old school jazz musos but how many of them are in your average audience anyway?). It's quite easy to take the old standards and also some well known pop songs and jazz up the rhythm and melodies a little so they have a a new twist and present them as something fresh and modern. I pretty much make my living doing this and it gets positive reactions from young and old alike.

I'm in the process of polishing up my Christmas music which I start playing next weekend (already!)... and you can bet Santa's boots it'll be a C-Jazz Christmas once again...