Keeping up with the kids

Music can be a merciless taskmaster ... and jazz is the meanest mistress. Many spend their lives struggling to master the delicacies of a minor 7 with a flatted fifth ....
Of course, others aren't so hampered: they get it early on in life.
To wit: check out Julian Lage, an old-hand on the jazz circuit at 21. I first read about him five years ago, when Just Jazz Guitar did a profile on the 16-year-old phenom.
How about Tal Wilkenfeld -- here she is doing her rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" with Jeff Beck. She toured Australia last year with Chick Corea. She's 21, too.
A quick search on Google finds links to articles from Maine to California about teenage and early-20-year-old jazz musicians ... and if you pursue it, you'll find there's a lot of good music coming from them.
Now, back to practicing those altered dominant sevenths ...