2/3. Jez Nelson introduces respected US-based critic Gary Giddins , a regular columnist in the New York weekly Village Voice. For Giddins, New York's "loft scene" of the 1970s marked the end of the "linear" history of jazz, ushering in a new era dominated by post-modernist eclecticism, a transition that for Giddins ensured the US remained the global centre for jazz innovation.