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Fear and Confidence-the Jazz Tight Rope
By Steve Provizer If you're an improviser who completely lacks confidence, you'll never get out of the practice room, but if you have no fear, you won't find The Edge. Most of us struggle to find a balance between the two. Some people have no fear in a studio, but freeze up in front of audiences. ...
Jazz and Self-Determination in Brooklyn
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 ...
Correspondence: On Discovering Bill Evans
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 Great Indie Music Conspiracy
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 ...
Comfort-Food Jazz
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 ...
Music Service ... or Disservice?
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 ...
Growing Pains
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 ...
Jottings of a Jazzman
The best biographical or autobiographical writings make a person the reader has never encountered come to life on the page. JOTTINGS OF A JAZZMAN: SELECTED WRITINGS OF LEN BARNARD, edited by his niece Loretta Barnard, has just that magic. When I was a few pages into it, I felt as if I had met and heard ...
Derek Sivers: Keep Your Goals to Yourself
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 ...
Unions and the Fame Myth
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 ...
