Took a bit of a detour from my jazz reading to dip into “Bill Graham Presents,” a memoir in interview form by Graham and Robert Greenfield, who conducted interviews of Graham and the many individuals whose paths he crossed.  I never met Graham, but, as owner and producer of the Fillmore East,  he played a vital role in my life at one time, as he did for others as well.  As the promoter of the original Fillmore Auditorium and Winterland in San Francisco, follwed by the Fillmore West, also in San Francisco, then the Fillmore East, in the East Village of New York City, Graham was a major force on the rock scene of the 1960s.   As a dazed and confused 15 and 16 year old,  I made regular pilgrimages to the Fillmore East, no small task at that time, given the very raw nature of the neighborhood and its denizens.  There, I saw many of the great acts of rock’s classic era, often before the “broke” big on the scene. Read the rest of this entry »

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Time to get back to work.  The holidays are mercifully over.  I was able to use a lot of my unused leave at my real job (and just to repeat, I do not work in a record store, nor do I work for Princeton Record Exchange alas).  I took last week off from blogging and just kicked back to listen to music and read, so far as I could in between all the usual holiday hoopla.   During that time,  I managed to listen to 54 CDs and LPs (rather uncharacteristically, I decided to keep track) and read several interesting jazz books.  I’ve been wondering:  is this too much, or not enough?  A vague feeling of guilt hovers about me (probably due to my parochial school upbringing):  was this time well-spent? 

Let me review briefly what I listened to and read, and you can form your own response to the question I’ve asked myself. 

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This is the time of year when we look back, take stock of what was, both the highs and lows, and look forward to what the new year brings. Let’s start with the Top 5 Worst Jazz magazine Cover Stories of the Year, shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

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This past Friday, your intrepid blogger set forth to face the challenges of I-95 from DC to Philly in order to attend the Ars Nova Workshop presentation of the Ron Horton Sextet performance of Andrew Hill’s Passing Ships. Since I love the music of Andrew Hill, I was more than willing to face the three hour drive each way (it’s the return trip late at night that’s tough). On my last trip up the same route, I ran over a large metal object in the road, destroying two tires (newly installed) on the driver side of my car as well as the front left wheel. So it was with some trepidation that I set forth. Fortunately, the storm that had deluged the DC area for several days lifted on the very monring that I left, leaving cold, grey but dry weather for the trip. I was looking for great music and great cheesesteaks. I found great music…. Read the rest of this entry »

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I thought it might be fun, and perhaps even instructive, to make some head to head and round by round comparisons between our two heavyweight jazz mags, Dowbeat (DB) and Jazz Times (JT), as they compete for the hearts, souls, and dollars of jazz fans. JT clearly wants to lead the pack, as last week I received their January 2009 issue, while my copy of DB that came in the mail a few days later was only the Decemer 2008 issue. Apparently the DB group are either laggards or have undue respect for the calendar. I noticed that DB’s individual copy price is $4.99, while JT come sin at a bargain price of $4.95 an issue. I wonder what DB does with its extra 4 cents? Read the rest of this entry »

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Sated with good food, good company, and plenty of music listening, it was not easy to put on my blogger’s mantle, but then I saw the cover of the just-issued Jazz Times and, well, I was roused to blog a bit. Our pals at JT seem pretty much determined to prove my point that much of what passes for feature writing in their magazine is simple puffery, fed by the blast furnaces of PR hot air. What else can explain yet another cover story on Tony Bennet? The ostensible reason this time is Mr. Bennett’s new Christmas album with the “Basie Band.” How’s that for advancing the art of jazz? Read the rest of this entry »

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Assuming you have any money left following our current economic downturn, or, almost as good perhaps, know someone who does, let me recommend a few gift ideas. I figure this is safer bet than slagging jazz magazines, or knocking a certain jazz radio station, but who knows. So, here are some ideas for you and yours to consider. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, it seems as if I have created a bit of a kerfuffle as a result of my post, “Why Our Jazz Magazines are Bad… and Bad for Jazz.” Who knew? It’s nice to know our little blogspot is getting some attention. In fact, Lee Mergner, editor of Jazz Times, on another website that I happened to come across by chance, huffed and puffed and, showing way more energy than in anything I have read by him or his staff of high-powered writers lately, tried to blow our post down. He didn’t even come close. The fact is, such an apoplectic response tells me that I have struck a nerve, and that the nerve was worth striking. One line from Lee’s blog post really caught my attention:

“For the record, I believe firmly that JazzTimes and Downbeat are much better magazines than most people in the jazz community realize.”

Lee, if “most people in the jazz community” don’t see the value in what Jazz Times and your colleagues at Downbeat put out each month, don’t you think it’s time for you to start trying to understand why they feel this way, start trying to listen to their concerns and criticisms, and start trying to make the sort of changes your magazine needs to make to again become a relevant and worthwhile voice in the jazz community? Read the rest of this entry »

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The cover picture and cover story for this month’s (December 2008) DownBeat (DB) heralds Keith Jarrett’s election to the DB Hall of Fame (HOF). Does Jarrett belong in the Hall of Fame? Well, I suppose the immediate and obvious answer is: Yes. Yet I am uncomfortable with the selection. I have reservations. Indeed, I would like to borrow from the recent discussions regarding the Baseball HOF, and suggest that Jarrett, while he might belong in this venerable jazz institution, should be entered with an asterisk next to his name (figuratively speaking of course), in the same way that many have suggested that such baseball stars as Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, and Pete Rose, were they to be inducted, also be awarded the asterick symbolizing a tainted achievement. Let me offer a few reasons why. Read the rest of this entry »

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My pal and I traveled to An Die Musik in Baltimore, Maryland Saturday night to hear two groups: Trio Bramm, from Holland, and All Coda, all from the Baltimore area with the exception of New York-based saxophonist Tim Berne. There was exciting music on offer, all in a small (perhaps 80 seats), comfortable (got to love those stuffed armchairs), and in a welcome departure from much current practice, unamplified format (although the bass players and guitarist did use small amp pickups that did not alter the essentially acoustic nature of the set). The performances were excellent, and the in the case of Trio Braam, particularly interesting and inventive. At the end, though, I was left with a question that has vexed me of late. Read the rest of this entry »

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First, full disclosure: I subscribe to both Jazz Times (JT) and Down Beat (DB) (I liked it better when it was “downbeat”) and have for quite a few years. I also have a subscription to Signal to Noise (STN), and until, recently, Cadence. But this has been the year of my discontent with both JT and DB, or, more precisely, this has been the year that my dissatisfaction with JT and DB has creached critical mass, for these two mainstays of the jazz scene are both bad– and bad for jazz. Read the rest of this entry »

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As William Congreve (not Shakespeare) once famously said, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast” (not beast, although now so often misquoted as to form a standard quote in itself), but it seems rather powerless to cure the sick– at least in my case, as I spent the week suffering from a nasty illness that left me time to listen but not much inclination to do so. I usually suffer, as I suspect most music lovers do, from a perceived lack of time to enjoy their favorite music. It’s one of life’s cruel ironies illnes gives one the time to listen but takes away one’s capacity to enjoy it. I suppose music can often be a power for healing and would love to hear from those who have experienced that power. Read the rest of this entry »

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I love my records and my CDs, and you can find me holed up with them for hours, but whenever I can I get out and listen to live performances, particularly jazz, I do so. Pickings have been somewhat slim this summer here in Our Nation’s Capital (you know, the place politicians love to hate, or pretend to hate), and so, I have had little to blog about. However, last week provided an embarrassment of riches, thanks to the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, presented at various venues around the Capital, with a big outdoor festival on Sunday at the Sylvan Theater on the Mall, near the Washington Monument. The weather was perfect, and the music ran from the very fine to the sublime. Read the rest of this entry »

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Folks, I’m going to need some help here. I’ll need your thoughts on this. Lately, I’ve felt the stirrings of a new infatuation, and I don’t know what to do about it. Should I indulge my passion, or impose some self-restraint? Am I too old to develop yet another liaison, or should I rest comfortably with my old flames? Oh, I’m not talking about my personal life, or, at least not that aspect of my personal life. No, this is about yet another musical infatuation: Punk. What I need to know is whether it is seemly for an aging Baby Boomer to launch himself into a passionate affair with punk rock. Read the rest of this entry »

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I’ve been spinning two recent CD releases this week, Bobby Hutcherson’s “Head On” (Blue Note Connoisseur Series) and Charles Lloyd Quartet, “Rabo de Nube” (ECM) and enjoying them both, particularly the Hutcherson release, or more accurately, CD re-release, as four of the tracks were originally released on a Blue Note LP in 1971.  The CD adds three lengthy (and excellent, not just filler)  tracks to the original release.  Interestingly, these releases are both from artists who made their mark during the 1960s and 1970s and who are still performing and recording regularly.  The Hutcherson is more than 30 years old but could be an original contemporary work, it is so vibrant and challenging.  The Lloyd is a contemporary work, recorded in concert in 2007, but if I were told it was the work of 30 years ago, I would not find it hard to believe, as it is, for better or worse,  so distinctly “Lloydian” in concept and expression. Read the rest of this entry »

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This post is simply to pay homage to John Coltrane, born September 23, 1926, in Hamlet, NC, died July 17, 1967 in Long Island, NY. While I am not quite ready to join the St. John Coltrane Church I can understand the impulse to canonize this great musical spirit, for Coltrane is one of the great musical artists of the 20th century. I say that, I think, without exaggeration. The term “great” or “greatness” are often tossed around all too casually, but there are a few spirits that deserve it: Trane, Miles, Monk, Mingus. They changed our musical language, and hence our world, in profound ways. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sometimes the mind just gets to wandering and wondering:

*** I was channel surfing the other night and came across several shows featuring music (I think it must have been a PBS fund-raiser night, when they play all the stuff you love but which they don’t play any other time of the year). There was a show on Jimi Hendrix; another on Luciano Pavarotti; and yet another on Pete Seeger. I watched each with deep pleasure. As different as they each were from one other, I began to mull why I found them all so compelling and enjoyable. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you were around in the 60s, you’ll remember the slogan, “Power to the People,” was very much in the air, and on the lips of every self-respecting radical (should I have put that word in quotes?), We didn’t quite know what it meant, but it felt right to say it (or yell it). We did know that we were telling several generation of rule-makers, those who set the rules that could send us off to war, to bugger off (to put it cleanly). Well, that was then; can anyone say it now without being laughed out of the room (or the convention hall?). Is that progress? Don’t know. Well, since this is a music blog, I’ll move on to the point of this post, which is the album jazz saxaphonist Joe Henderson recorded in May of 1969, capturing the spirit of the moment in its title, “Power to the People.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Don Byron is one of the most innovative and independent musicians on the jazz scene today. I hesitate to even call him a jazz musician because Byron really defies categorization, which is, I’m sure, how he likes it. Is Byron a jazz musican? Yes, sort of. A world music musician; yes, a little of that. A classical music performer; that too. Byron is all of that. A superb clarinetist and bass clarinetist (and a tenor sax player as well, although more on that later), Byron loves nothing more than to pose musical challenges, then going about solving them in his own way. Read the rest of this entry »

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Through forces beyond my control, I found myself spending a WEEK in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. Such a predicament could hardly be anticipated. You know the old joke, first prize is a week in Philadelphia; second prize is two weeks in Philadelphia. The Grand Prize must be a week in Cleveland. But honestly, it wasn’t all that bad. The weather was perfect (thank God my visit did not happen in mid-winter. I can only imagine the cold and snow blowing in off Lake Erie). I had business that kept me–well– busy, and the time eventually came for me to drive away from the affectionately (?) nicknamed “mistake by the lake.” But while I was in Cleveland, I took some time to visit the much-touted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (hereafter HOF), and this post contains my reflections on that visit, foremost among them: What the heck is the HOF doing in Cleveland!? Read the rest of this entry »

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