Flirting with jazz

I don't know about you, but I am quite allergic to pop singers flirting with jazz. What I mean by this is that some people, in my country that is, have a built their careers in pop music and suddenly call themselves jazz singers. Just because they gave a few concerts singing tunes like Summertime or Fly me to the Moon doesn't make you a jazz singer. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against pop singers. That's where the money is and why not? If you don't have a problem singing that, do it! But why do you build your career and your whole image on one thing and then claim to be something else?! Like jazz is so easy to be doing that. The biggest problem is that then people think that what they do is really jazz and people who have spend years building a jazz career and studying that music have to struggle to be recognized because the pop singers get all the spotlight. And the main reason why they're doing that is because jazz is IN at the moment so...you have to be IN, right? Gosh...it's a pain in the ass. 

I will be honest, pop is really the easiest thing to start with if you wanna sing at all. These tunes are popular, easy to sing to, people will surely love it. It's a safe way and it brings money. I know. I too started singing pop and even rock tunes, but I also know that it took me years to get the pop-ish sound out of my voice. I had to eliminate everything else and focus on jazz solely to be able to sing it right. And my motto is, if you want to do something - do it right! Or don't do it at all. Anyway, it's ridiculous. 

I am mostly concerned about people who really don't know what jazz is because they will get the wrong image and will never learn. Of course, we could start a whole new discussion about what jazz is, but I'm sure we can agree that some things simply are not. So it's wrong to mislead people and teach them things that are not true. Anyway, I sincerely hope to change this trend...otherwise we'll have a whole nation thinking that pop is jazz and real jazz is something else. That would be tragic.