Ramona,
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You're listening to America's classical music. It's America's contribution to humanity, and one of the greatest art forms ever created by man. It's the ultimate in spontaneous creativity, as precise and intricate as mathematics, yet, provides a master musician with the freedom to explore the very depths of his or her emotional being - the depths of your emotional being. For that reason, since its creation and development, it's technical conventions have influenced the creation of music all over the world. Thus, even people who claim not to like jazz, owes jazz a debt of gratitude, because the chance are great than not, the very musical conventions that touch their hearts most about the music of their choice, was developed and perfected by the geniuses of jazz within the smoke-filled caverns long obscured nightclubs.
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Ramona, You write with such eloquence, imagination, and insight, I'm surprised that you didn't know that, since Jazz is much like writing. In fact, I became a writer through the influence of jazz.  The only difference between a great writer and a great jazz musician is jazz musicians write their essays in emotion rather than words. Look at how much better I can paint a portrait of my mother's ravishingly beautiful friend, Teresa, in music than I could ever have done in words:

A big difference between jazz musicians and the vast majority of pop "artists" is that jazz musicians are renowned for being some of the greatest musicians in the world.  They take great pride in that fact, so musical virtuosity plays a huge role in jazz. The musicians of the Bebop and Hard Bop eras understood from the outset that they weren’t going to get rich playing the music that they loved, so they sought to validate themselves through excellence.
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On the other hand, many of today’s young pop oriented musicians are in a hurry to learn their chromatic scale so they can run out and achieve wealth and fame - they figure they can learn to play in Gb Maj while they're on the road. Then they get out and play distorted chord progressions, add a thunderous beat and loud electronic distortion to camouflage their limitations, and label it as "The New Thang." Thereafter, they slap one another on the back as brilliant, and dismiss those of us who recognize it as noise it is, as being "out of touch."
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So the bottom line is, many of the so-called musical "revolutionaries" of pop never took the time to learn what either music, and particularly jazz, is really about. Jazz is more than just another form of music, and it's not just fun-n-games. Jazz is also a way of life. There’s a political component to it - a way of thinking that reflects a unique way of viewing reality. So jazz purists are not simply upset over a modified beat and the introduction of electronics, they're also upset over the caving in to mediocrity and the abandonment of the political principles and qualities that jazz represents.
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After all, one of the greatest contributions that jazz has made to the black community is informing the world that we're not the frivolous and thoughtless people in which we'd previously been portrayed. The harmonic complexity of bebop served to bring the dazzling intellectual capacity of black people to the world stage. So naturally, jazz purist are both reluctant and hostile to going back to the people-pleasin' days of what is essentially a musical form of Steppin'-Fetchism.
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Jazz has traditionally been the cultural anthem of social revolutionaries - both Black and White - who are willing to fight the good fight. Thus, jazz purists resent the mongrelization and surrender of those principles in lieu of "Can we all just get along?" To them, that represents the selling of our principles. That's why the word "commercialism" is looked upon with such disdain by those of us who have come to be known as jazz purists. We're not merely fighting to defend our right to be snobs. We're fighting to defend excellence from sliding down the slippery slope of corporate profit and mediocrity; we're fighting for a way of life, and we're fighting a political battle against the dumbing down of America as a whole. Our fight is an essential part of our jazz tradition. It's expected of us, because that's what jazz is all about - pushing the envelop, and never caving in to convention.
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So you can’t just put a funky beat behind noise and call it jazz, because once you go frivolous, the spirit of jazz has been abandoned. While jazz does kick up it's heels on occasion, it's a very serious form of music that’s designed to appeal to the mind, not just the ass. For that reason, a logical and organized structure is essential to its character. Without that, and it’s arrogantly distinctive swagger, it's not jazz - Period.
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True jazz is a dead-serious form of music, performed by a dead-serious group of musicians.  Any one of them, on any instrument, is capable of giving a master's seminar at any university or music conservatory in the world. So it's not at all surprising that many of us who are products of the jazz culture, and who understand the true meaning of jazz, become outraged at the spectacle of frivolous, rump-shaking imposters impersonating these great artists and our tradition.