Neither is easily done with regard to such a relentlessly misunderstood art, whose idiosyncratic master practitioners seem unified only in avoiding definitions.
Yet Mr. McPherson is barely noticed by the jazz press, another example of the quandary faced by some master practitioners of this art form.
In last October's American League playoffs, the Yankees' opponents -- the Minnesota Twins and the Angels -- were cast as master practitioners of the finer elements.
Readers, publishers and writers alike can agree that John Grisham, Robert Harris, Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel build up their massive readerships by knowing precisely what they are doing; they are master practitioners of their highly skilled craft.
This summer Mr. Barba, who usually directs only his own actors and master practitioners of disciplines from Japanese Noh to classical Indian dance, invited an additional group of 33 performers from 23 countries to spend four weeks at his theater in this small town in western Jutland.
Longtime A.A.'s know that drunks like Carver are master practitioners of the geographical cure, refusing to recognize that if you put an out-of-control boozer on a plane in California, an out-of-control boozer is going to get off in Chicago.
