Night Lights Classic Jazz
Terry Teachout's column about an NEA survey sets off another discussion about the health of jazz. Whatever its size, the jazz audience's passion remains keen.
I often curse out loud when I pick up a new issue at my local record store. The editors have a knack for choosing artists whom I find irresistible.
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.
.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?
Inspired by Art Kane’s legendary 1958 Great Day in Harlem photo of jazz musicians, jazz photographer Mark Sheldon is planning an Indianapolis version, A Great Day in Indy, that will offer visual homage to the city’s jazz legacy. Details follow in the press release that Mark’s sent out…
If you get a chance, check out the special jazz issue of StopSmiling, a Chicago-based music magazine. It has a good retrospective on Eric Dolphy, an interview with Ornette Coleman, a feature on Bobby Hutcherson, and much more. Brian Berger, editor of the fabulous New York Calling anthology and Who Walk in Brooklyn blog, hipped [...]
David Brent Johnson hosts the weekly WFIU historical jazz program Night Lights and Afterglow as well. Learn more »
Major Glenn Miller went missing over the English Channel in December 1944. For decades afterwards, much of his wartime orchestra's music went missing as well.
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
