John S. Wilson (1913-2002) was a music critic for the New York (NY) Times and one of the country’s leading jazz authorities. He wrote about New York City’s role in the jazz world in “Saturday is Jazz Day” in the Times on October 1, 1967:
   
“Even though New York has been the Big Apple for several decades—the goal of hopeful jazz musicians not only in this country but around the world—it does not have the kind of positive identity with jazz that a number of other cities have.”
   
   
Wikipedia: John S. Wilson (music critic)
John Steuart Wilson (January 6, 1913 – August 27, 2002) was an American music critic and jazz radio host. He worked as a music critic for The New York Times for four decades, and was that paper’s first critic to write regularly on jazz and other genres of popular music.
 
1 October 1967, New York (NY) Times, “Saturday is Jazz Day” by John S. Wilson, pg. D11, col. 2:
JAZZ, that nocturnal art, will have its day next Saturday. October 7th has been officially designated Jazz Day by the New York Cultural Showcase, which begins a “Festival Fortnight” tomorrow. Jazz Day will be a time to consider the role that New York has played in the development of jazz.
 
Recognition has been a long time in coming. Even though New York has been the Big Apple for several decades—the goal of hopeful jazz musicians not only in this country but around the world—it does not have the kind of positive identity with jazz that a number of other cities have.
(...) (Col. 3—ed.)
This is not because nothing has happened in New York in jazz terms. Far from it. New York has been jumping with one kind of jazz or another for 50 years. And that may be the root of the problem: So much jazz in such a variety of styles has been produced here that nothing can be pinned down as New York’s particular kind of jazz.