Night Lights Classic Jazz
William Claxton, whose photos of jazz artists became iconic talismans of the music they played, passed away on Saturday at the age of 80.
Actress Edie Adams, who passed away this past week at the age of 81, had some jazz connections.
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis made an appearance Monday night on The Colbert Report, trading verbal fours with the inimitable ex-presidential “candidate”. It’s always interesting to see how guests act on Colbert–whether they get the concept and play along (as most do, especially these days) or whether they end up cluelessly deadpan.
A few months ago Mosaic Records confirmed a forthcoming Ahmad Jamal box-set, covering the pianist’s trio recordings from the late 1950s and early 1960s, currently projected for a March or April 2009 release. Some more details have emerged now on the box’s contents (supposedly 9 CDs). It will contain the following Argo and Chess-label albums:
.jpg)
A blogger at the Princeton Record Exchange Club takes jazz media to task for “vacuous writing, PR cliches, and tame thinking,” singling out Downbeat and Jazz Times as primary suspects. The writing and argument is a little rough around the edges, but it’s a provocative point. Like the author, I subscribe to both magazines, and there’s no doubt that they represent the mainstream jazz “establishment,” such as it is. But are they really damaging jazz, as he suggests?
JazzTimes editor Lee Mergner responds to the PREX critique of Downbeat and JazzTimes:Objectively, I believe he’s overreacted to our cover choices, including most recently Return to Forever, Esperanza Spalding, Freddie Hubbard and David Sanborn. I’m not sure why he dropped the cover artist Rahsaan Roland Kirk; I suppose it didn’t fit his argument.
David Brent Johnson hosts the weekly WFIU historical jazz program Night Lights and Afterglow as well. Learn more »
Johnny Hartman, Blossom Dearie, Dean Martin and others help us pay tribute to the Indiana songwriter.
Afterglow is WFIU's weekly program of jazz and American popular song hosted by David Brent Johnson.
Copyright © 2013, The Trustees of Indiana University | Copyright Complaints
1229 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
