[GroosteFoessy]

As a (struggling)trumpet player/high school music educator, I am sometimes surprised by the current trend in music training to expect students to learn how to play everything that's happened up til now. The idea that originality will come naturally after having absorbed influences from so many sources strikes me as, well, unrealistic, really. If we go with the model of imitation, assimilation, and finally innovation, we may be addressing a fundamental necessity as far as development in our craft is concerned; however, if we look so far and so wide as to address music history in its entirety, I think we run the risk of sacrificing originality for technique. There is such a heavy emphasis on technique now, in order for a music student to be able to play anything and everything, that originality in music college becomes secondary, if it gets addressed at all, to fundamentals. Furthermore, jazz students are expected to be well-versed in classical style, which has a uniformity of sound (particularly in terms of trumpet).
When I think of truly original jazz composers/players, I think of Monk. It's not easy to create a recognizeable voice on the piano, but most of us can recognize Monk's sound after a couple of notes. And yet, his flat-fingered, two-fisted approach to playing would have been derided by any self-respecting piano teacher. I would argue that Monk, instead of learning to play anything on the piano, used his limitations to his advantage.
Now, I'm not saying that we can all be Theloniouses (Thelonei?) if we disregard technical proficiency, but I do believe that the conservatory approach gives more emphasis to fundamentals than is necessary to develop one's own unique voice.