I just loved "A Musician's Guide to Jazz Criticism," for it lampooned with deadly accuracy a wide range of the attitudes and approaches that make so much jazz criticism just plain silly.

I review jazz CDs for a webzine, but I am not a "jazz critic." A critic, in my view, must have the necessary learning to analyze something with reference to objective criteria - in this case, musical theory and practice, on the one hand, and the history of the music, on the other. (Of course it also helps to have imagination, insight and an original perspective!) I am neither a musician nor a historian, nor even a record collector. All I have is a lot of practice listening and a willingness to share my tastes and reactions to the music with others. Rather than a critic, I am a fan with a keyboard.

From this point of view, the great majority of media critics of the arts are also fans with keyboards. The problem is that many do not seem to recognize this, and that the public reflexively assumes their authority simply because they are published.

I'd like to discuss here certain issues that often arise about jazz "criticism" - how fans with keyboards can deal with them, and to what extent they are sometimes exaggerated.

From "The Musician's Guide to Jazz Criticism": "Sometimes, a critic will attempt to do the extraordinary; music is actually discussed. Not facts about music. Chords. Notes. Sometimes actual scales. These moments can provide the most humor unintentionally and therefore are usually avoided. "

A fan with a keyboard should not try to bluff about music-making knowledge. A certain jazz "critic" with a very high-profile forum regularly peppers his impressionistic descriptions of music with technical terms seemingly chosen at random - even I, who am not a musician, can easily tell he does not understand the vocabulary he is using (I seem to recall talk of "modal rhythms"). This is the worst sin of all, in my opinion. He simultaneously tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the laymen, who can't challenge him on something they don't know either, and makes a fool of himself in the eyes of musicians, who can only laugh or cry among themselves.

But sometimes musicians attack jazz "critics" or FWKs not for incompetent attempts at musical analysis - which of course are fair game - but simply for not including musical analysis. This point of view implies the only valid criticism is technical criticism, so a reviewer who can't knowledgeably discuss harmony shouldn't be writing at all. But to say this is to ignore the simple fact that most readers wouldn't understand a technical discussion to begin with. You won't convince your average jazz listener to check out a given musician with shop-talk about scales and chords, but by describing, with metaphors or evocative language, how good it sounds.

If you're a fan with a keyboard and you don't know a harmony from a harmonic, a bridge from a coda or a mode from a hole in the ground, for God's sake don't try to fake it. Find other ways to talk about it that are non-technical and honest. Non-technical talk is the most effective anyway, for any audience but one of professionals. Stick to what you know - your own response, the connections you can make with other experiences, your opinions (not passed off as facts) about what you think is important.

Critic as Historian/Professor: "If you read a review or an article and have this fear that you will be given a test soon, well, that sums up this category. Did you think that while in the studio recording you were "tying together the threads of contemporary classical and jazz improvisation from Satie to Coleman", or were you just trying to get in one decent take before the drummer had to leave for a gig in Iceland?"

Critic as Every Man: "Your music reflects things that you didn't even know about. When there is talk of 'references to house, bantu, zouk, French cabaret, grunge and early Wayne Newton' concerning your music, you have entered the world of the everyman. Now, maybe you were doing a samba version of 'Happy Trails', but this cat saw way beyond your vision. These cats are mind readers. It's amazing."

A fan with a keyboard should not take on the mantle of jazz historian, archivist and judge supreme. Nor should a fan with a keyboard imply mind-reading capability. On the other hand, the musician's subjective vision is not the only vision there is... if something sounds like early Wayne Newton to you, there's no reason not to say so. If you make a connection, as listener, between what's on this record and what you have heard on another record, it might open up somebody's ears to point it out. Just be clear that this is something that occurred to you, not something the musician was trying to say.

Finally, a fan with a keyboard should not condescend to his or her readers, many of whom have at least equal knowledge and sophistication of taste. How often self-styled pundits take a smug, authoritative stance that seems to say, "It is for your own good that I deign to share my wisdom." Many "critics" seem to want to prove how cool they are, or how connected, or how encyclopedic. But they shouldn't be out to prove anything. They should be sharing, discussing, suggesting, rather than pushing, proclaiming and declaring. It is here that FWKs have to be careful. All of us sin sometimes. If we didn't express strong opinions, speak frankly about our reactions and make comparisons that are necessarily unflattering for some, our writing would be too dull to bother with. Readers with diametrically opposed opinions will be incensed, sure, but that's OK - as long as we don't claim an expertise we don't have.