Home » Jazz News
Opinion News
Timely announcements covering new album releases, tours, concert series, special events, job postings, crowdfunding campaigns and more. You can find more news by searching our website, viewing our news stream, seeing what's trending or reading our blog posts. Subscribe to our news RSS feed and/or embed AAJ news content on your website or blog. Learn about our news service here. Submit news here.
Correspondence: On Discovering Bill Evans
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Many of the numerous comments about my Bill Evans article in The Wall Street Journal this week have been touching. None has been more moving or more extensive than this one from Rifftides reader Mark Mohr. The staff agreed that Mr. Mohr's account of discovering Evans should be an item of its own because it parallels the experiences of so many other listeners.I first saw Bill Evans in concert at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1974. He ...
Continue Reading
The Great Indie Music Conspiracy
Source:
HypeBot
If I understand this “theory" correctly, an entire cottage industry has been erected around indie music and companies and bloggers like myself and others have been leading these poor and helpless musicians off a cliff like buffalo, only to be taken advantage of by businesses and gurus more than willing to take their money. We're peddling nothing more than illusions and dreams of a musical middle class that doesn't exist and perpetuating the myth of the DIY musician. In giving ...
Continue Reading
Jazz and Self-Determination in Brooklyn
Source:
The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
The Independent Ear series of conversations with African American jazz entrepreneurs—classic & contemporary — continues, this time in Brooklyn, NY... Remembering The East with Jitu Weusi PART ONE: A jazz fan in development... One of the revelations of the Lost Jazz Shrines of Brooklyn research project for the Weeksville Heritage Center (see elsewhere on Open Sky Jazz) has been the extensive interviews with key Brooklyn figures. The magnitude of Brooklyn's mid-20th century jazz history was first brought home in writing ...
Continue Reading
Comfort-Food Jazz
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer As Flann O'Brien once wrote, in “At-Swim-Two-Birds": “When things go wrong and will not come right, Though you do the best you can, When life seems black as the hour of night, A pint of plain is your only man." Well, the man was an alcoholic, so his RX for the blues was a little narrow. Jazz may not be the magic elixir. It may not make the lame strap on ...
Continue Reading
Growing Pains
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Matt Lavelle Everyone that plays,listens,and is a part of Jazz,.has their own version of what the music is,what is important to them in the music,and especially,.the music they like and don't like.That's true across the board in all music,and life,.but in Jazz I feel we are ever more particular.I don't think there are even 2 people that would both agree across the board on what Jazz is,and gravitate towards the exact same sources.There's just too many variables,.and too many ...
Continue Reading
Music Service ... or Disservice?
Source:
The Augmented Ear by John Patten
I subscribe to several music services, including Napster and eMusic, for accessing music for my listening enjoyment, for work and for teaching. All of these sites offer their helpful “picks" or recommendations, but there's a huge difference between the recommendations made by the sites. Compare Napster's top picks to eMusic's: Napster: Lyla by Avishai Cohen The Architect of Modern Bossa Nova (Antonio Carlos Jobim) The Best of Dizzy Gillespie Ultimate Big Band Collection: Glenn Miller Body and Soul, by Louis ...
Continue Reading
Unions and the Fame Myth
Source:
Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog
By Steve Provizer Seattle Negro Musicians Union-1925 Music is a collaborative art, but the sketchy history of unionism in American music seems to say that the spirit of collaboration has too often ended at the edge of a bandstand. Believe it or not, there actually is something called the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), under the aegis of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The union has forged many collective bargaining agreements that benefited musicians, but it seems there was ...
Continue Reading
Derek Sivers: Keep Your Goals to Yourself
Source:
HypeBot
In this TED talk, Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, tells us why we should consider keeping our goals to ourselves. The act of announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them. Thinking about pursuing a job that's slightly out of your reach or obtaining enough fans to gain financial independence by Christmas? Tell no one. The likelihood that you will achieve that goal only increases. ...
Continue Reading
