This entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 1:11 pm and is filed under Concert Reviews, Editorials, Industry News, Opinion Posts, Top 10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Year in Review: Highs and Lows, Including the 5 Worst Jazz Magazine Cover Stories
by Anthony Medici in Concert Reviews, Editorials, Industry News, Opinion Posts, Top 10
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?
Number 5: “Tony Bennett in a Holiday Groove”- Christopher Loudon, Jazz Times, December 2008. Subtitled, “With the Basie Band in Tow!” Hyped excitement for a non-event.
Number 4: Tie: “Redefining Freddie Hubbard,” Howard Mandel, Dowbeat, June 2008, and “Freddie Hubbard, The Survivor,” Geoffrey Himes, Jazz Times, October 2008. Do these magazines really believe this stuff, or is it just a cynical exercise in PR? I don’t know which alternative is worse; however, I’m voting for the cynical exercise in PR. While Himes seems to have carved out a niche for puff pieces, I’m surprised at Mandel’s involvement.
Number 3: “They’re Back! Behind the Scenes at Return to Forever’s First Reunion Rehearsals and Shows,” Michael Point, Dowbeat, August 2008. Let me simply repeat what I said just above: Do these magazines really believe this stuff, or is it just a cynical exercise in PR? I don’t know which alternative is worse; however, I’m voting for the cynical exercise in PR. Instead of questioning this money grab, DB was only too happy to aid and abet.
Number 2: “David Sanborn: Rythym & Bluesman,” Geoffrey Himes, Jazz Times, November 2008. Having squandered his career playing lightweight and eminently forgettable schlock, Sanborn now comes for rehabilitation and JT is only too happy to oblige. Himes again!
Number 1: “Dianna Reeves: Love & Life,” Don Heckmann, Jazz Times, May 2008. As icky as it sounds. JT goes for the Entertainment Weekly / People Magazine look, and fortunately falls flat on its face; unfortunately, it probably will not keep them from trying again. And to add to the puffery quotient, the same issue offers another rehab article, “Stanley Jordan: Reinventing his Magic Touch.” Like Sanborn, Jordan wants the money, and the artistic respect he so richly does not deserve. Sorry dude, keep the money and run. A well-deserved First Place finish for this issue. It even has an article by Himes! If you were lucky, you were already headed to the beach when this turkey arrived in your mailbox.
Most fun jazz magazine article award goes to Signal to Noise (although not a jazz magazine per se) “Our Favorite Things,” Issue #50, Summer 2008. 50 contributors discuss a particular item that has some special significance for them: Michael Rosenstein talks about his Han Bennink & Misha Mengelberg 6-LP set, #3 of 20, bought directly from Willem Breuker in Amsterdam; Robert Ianapallo on Raahsan Roland Kirk’s discarded reed; Christian Carey on an inscribed (to Carey) and signed score of Elliott Carter’s String Quartet #5″ from the composer; Carl Hanni on his veteran Marantz 1060 amplifier, doing noble music service since 1975;, an LP copy of Manfred Schoof’s large ensemble “European Echoes” signed by all but one of the members, and more. Besides the fun of reading about these items, it’s worth reflecting on their totemic value, a reflection of the importance of music in our lives. They are the outward signs of the inward transformation that music, and art generally, wrought in our lives.
When DB and JT want to do it right, they can. Honorable mentions (in no particular order) to:
DB, April 2008, “Cecil Taylor, Our Era’s Beethoven,” by Howard Mandel (this is what I expect of Mandel). Although this was a feature article, I would have preferred to see it as a cover story (DB chose to run the Pat Metheny Trio as its cover story). A missed opportunity to produce an issue of real significance.
JT, December 2008, “Wadada Leo Smith,” by Josef Woodard. JT went with the Bennett cover story (#5) above, which might have helped sell a few more copies, but how much more of a real contribution to jazz it would have been to have featured the Wadada Leo Smith article as the cover story and to exapnd it to offer real documentation of Smith, his musical proteges and their musical legacy.
JT, February 2008, “Jewels of Thought: The Pharoah Sanders Interview,” by Ashley Kahn. Intersting, insightful, and occasionally funny as hell (intentionally or not), as Kahn tries to come to terms with Karma.
When will DB or JT show some vision and do a real cover story on Anthony Braxton?
Musical Event of the Year: Vision Festival XIII, Bowery,, New York City, June 2008, honoring Kidd Jordan. A week of intense, all-out creative improvised music, as well as dance, poetry, and art. While JT and DB get to stuff their pages with festival infomercials from JVC and George Wein, the real musical excitement is happening elsewhere.
Honorable Mentions: The Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, on The Mall, Washington, DC, October 2008. Unfortunately, this might be the last year for the festival in this form; the producers seem to have developed a taste for “bigger” and “better,” which means that they will probably destroy what made it good in the first place. Let’s hope not, but I’m not too confident.
Ars Nova Workshop, Philadelphia: An impressive run of high-concept, artistically valuable performances in an intimate setting, at a reasonable price. Anthony Braxton was a recent highlight.
Most Disappointing Jazz Scene: My home base, Washington, DC. With the exception of the DE Jazz Festival (which might be going away), a generally dull and uninteresting jazz scene. Seems like I’m frequently traveling to Baltimore, Philly or New York to catch interesting shows.
Musical Reissue of the Year: “Anthony Braxton: The Complete Arista Recordings,” Mosaic.
Let me wrap up by saying thank you to all the jazz musicians, on the scene now, as well as those who live through their recordings, for making life more rich, interesting, and worth living.
And let me thank you, my readers, for taking time to read my posts, whether in support or opposition; the important things is to care about this great music. I will take next Sunday off, so my best wishes for the holiday season and Happy New Year! By: Anthony G. Medici
One Response to “The Year in Review: Highs and Lows, Including the 5 Worst Jazz Magazine Cover Stories”
Leave a Reply
December 29th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Thanks for both the yay and the nay here. I wish you’d have mentioned that my Cecil Taylor article in DB was excerpted from my book Miles Ornette Cecil — Jazz Beyond Jazz, published in 2008 by Routledge, which got little play from the jazz outlets I’ve typically worked for or anywhere else.
As for the Freddie Hubbard story in DB: I witnessed Freddie up close and in person, in several different situations, for a week last December, and wrote an honest story about his decline as well as the way we might think of what was to be his final chapter as a success or take it as a lesson. I’ll stand by that article. The work David Weiss did with the New Jazz Composers Quartet to support Freddie last year was admirable, and musical. Freddie’s complicity in his own ill health has not been reported by anyone, me included — but that goes to show how far most jazz magazines or any other outlets in America seem to be from publishing drealistic accounts of how artists live and die. You may take a look at the “author’s authorized version” of my DB feature on my website; there are few adjustments, but maybe they are telling. I felt for Freddie, I really did, and do. I’ve listened to him today, after learning of his death, and did an NPR obituary appreciation — just a little bit of notice of a man who was a jazz artist. As I write earlier today in my blog, he will be missed and he will be remembered.