Meet Marvin Stamm

Since you (Craig Jolley—the interviewer) have been on the site, I've put the areas for my CDs, my Discography, the CD reviews, and my performance reviews all on separate pages with separate links to each. Once I did that, I had to edit every page because I wanted links from each page to every other page. That way, you can easily get from any page on the site to any other page. You remarked that you thought it was one of the best websites you'd been to. I think that is quite a high compliment. Other people tell me it's one of the easiest to navigate, also a high compliment.

As I said, I now have my online newsletter on the website. Rather than send people the newsletter (I have about 1,200 people on my e-mail list), I instead send them a notice that the new edition of the newsletter has been posted. I inform them of the featured articles, give them links, and hope they'll go there to read it. I write a lot of articles about Jazz and culture, about all areas of music and music education and what I see going on today pertaining to these things. I'm preparing to write the next one as we speak. One of the articles will be about the January tour I did with Bill Mays, the concerts we performed, some of the musicians we met, and so on. I'm also interested in having guest writers. For example, in this next issue, there is an article by Steve Budiansky, a writer of books dealing with national security, which was originally in the Washington Post. He played music as a kid, and now his children are in school. He wrote a most interesting article about what he observes going on in music education. This article evoked tremendous response from musicians, educators, and parents nationwide, and he has given me permission to reprint this article with a link to the follow-up article on his web site.

There is also an "In Response page where anyone who reads an article I've written is welcome to express their own thoughts and opinions—pro or con. If it's intelligently written, I will format it and post it on this page for my other readers to see. In every notice that the new issue of Cadenzas has been posted, I encourage people to respond to my articles. If people disagree with me, that is fine because the idea is not just to put my thoughts up there, but rather to create a dialog among people. I would like the site to be interactive with the people who visit the website. The funny thing is that you rarely know who or how many read something you write. The payoff is when you run into somebody in Oshkosh, Wisconsin or Ludlow, Missouri who says, "You know, so-and-so sent me the link to your newsletter, and I went to your website and read it. I really think you have something to say.

Upcoming events

Most of my work is on the road, but it seems that this year I am doing a lot of playing around the New York area. I'm going to be playing a couple of concerts and club gigs in New York with Virginia Mayhew, a wonderful tenor saxophonist. I'm doing several things with Bill Mays, with his trio and with my quartet. The group will be playing this July at One Station Plaza in Peekskill, NY—a club where a lot of people like Joe Lovano, John Patitucci, and others are playing. I'm doing a couple of recordings—a new CD with the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band and also a guest soloist spot on a new CD of trombonist Scott Whitfield in tribute to his mentor and friend, Nat Adderley. I'll be doing some concerts and workshops at various schools and also teaching at a summer camp for a few days. I'll be playing at a couple festivals and most likely doing a Jazz cruise in December with Mike Vax's Kenton Alumni Band. I may also be going to Europe later in the year. And through it all, I will be performing with the Westchester Jazz Orchestra. Like a lot of the musicians who are able to work and make a living playing Jazz, I'm doing a lot of different things.

Comments