Great find!
I believe what he said is very much applicable here in the Philippines: the "musician don't connect with the audience" part, and the "audience doesn't try to understand part".
I think there should be a compromise. It is possible that audiences today don't really try to understand because the musicians don't give them enough familiarity to connect. Hence Jazz was famous at their time because they were playing their "pop" tunes, and Jazz isn't very popular anymore because we are still playing the pop tunes before.
Maybe we should try improvising over the pop tunes we have now.
The only problem is, which tunes? Maybe some John Mayer? Some Michael Jackson (much like Man in the Mirror of Tuck Andress)?