“Thank You Very Much” — a poem for Hugh Fraser, by P.W. Bridgman
He closed almost every show with that tune.
It was so like him.
After giving us more than we ever knew
could be coaxed from a piano
or a trombone…
he thanked us.
Search Results for: thank you very much
True Jazz Stories: “Well You Needn’t: My Life as a Jazz Fan” by Joel Lewis
The journalist and poet Joel Lewis shares his immensely colorful story of falling in love with jazz, and living with it and reporting on it during his younger days in New Jersey and New York
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A Letter From the Publisher — “Thanksgiving, 2022”
Connecting an old photograph owned since the 1970’s to gratitude for friends, family, artists, creators, website readers and contributors
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“What one song best represents your experience with 2020?”
The community of poets, writers, artists and photographers who have recently contributed their work and time to Jerry Jazz Musician to answer this question, “What one song best represents your experience with 2020?”
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Veryl Oakland’s “Jazz in Available Light” — photos (and stories) of Thelonious Monk, Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor
In this edition of photographs and stories from Mr. Oakland’s book, Thelonious Monk, Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor are featured.
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“Every Soul is a Circus” — humor by Dig Wayne
Few people knew that the great jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong was also an accomplished ballet dancer. It was said that his Arabesque variations were breathtaking.
...Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are 4 or 5 of your all-time favorite Blue Note albums?”
. . Speak No Evil, a 1964 recording session by saxophonist Wayne Shorter (released in 1966), was among those listed by noted critics, authors and musicians as their all-time favorite Blue Note albums . __________ . “Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of … Continue reading “Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are 4 or 5 of your all-time favorite Blue Note albums?””
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Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are some of your all-time favorite record album covers?”
Gary Giddins, Jimmy Heath, Fred Hersch, Joe Hagan, Maxine Gordon, Tim Page, Veronica Swift and Marcus Strickland are among the 25 writers, musicians, poets, educators, and photographers who responded to our question, “What are some of your favorite record album covers of all time?”
...Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are 3 or 4 of your favorite jazz recordings of the 1940’s?”
. . Photo William Gottlieb/Library of Congress Charlie Parker is frequently found on the lists of noted critics and musicians answering the question, “What are 3 or 4 of your favorite jazz record recordings of the 1940’s?” This photograph by William Gottlieb was taken at Carnegie Hall in New York, c. 1947 . __________ … Continue reading “Reminiscing in Tempo: “What are 3 or 4 of your favorite jazz recordings of the 1940’s?””
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #49 — “Will You Play For Me?” by Hannah Draper
The first time I saw her, she was puffing softly on a cigarette in the girls’ bathroom. She looked all too much the devil incarnate, with tattered jeans and a band shirt that left no doubt at all that their songs would consist of guitar smashing and angsty screaming. She had dyed her hair this brilliant shade of blue that was almost black it was so dark. Upon her exhale, a long strand of smoke twirled from her ruby stained lips and curled around a nose ring that
...“In Your Own Sweet Way” — A Bill Evans Memory, by Robert Hecht
It was the kind of New York night not fit for man nor beast. Sleet and wind whipping about, snow banks and ice everywhere. With my ‘49 Dodge slipping and sliding on the Village streets, I make my way to the Vanguard to catch the midnight set. The small sign outside the entrance inconspicuously announces: “Bill Evans Trio.” This is the 1962 edition of the trio, reformed after bassist Scott LaFaro’s death the year before; and this is the club where Bill had played his last sets with
...“When the World Was Young,” a short story by Willard Manus
A finalist in our recent Short Fiction Contest, Willard Manus’ “When the World Was Young” is a love story between a man and a woman, and a woman and her musical inspiration — Clifford Brown
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“Accent on Youth,” by Sam Bishoff
Sam Bishoff, a high school student from Bainbridge Island, Washington, is the 2012 Jerry Jazz Musician “Accent on Youth” writer. His passion for jazz and the challenges he faces as a youthful fan of it is the focus of the column.
...Short Fiction Contest-winner #22: “No Thanks,” by Karen Karlitz
Thanksgiving, 1968. I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night, but I see that day as clearly as if I’m watching it on an old Magnavox. My mother Rose buzzes around our cramped two-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York, her hair in rollers, no makeup. She’s beautiful though, anyone would agree. It’s early in the day. She retrieves the tablecloth my grandmother embroidered when a teenager herself from the back of the hall closet, and sets the dining table in the foyer with her best dishes (black and white Noritake), silver plate from Fortunoff’s, and real cloth napkins in a tasty shade of pumpkin. She’s been up since five cooking; pies were baked the night before. But although her culinary plans are running smoothly, my mother’s mood is lethal.
...Who was your childhood hero? Page 1
Albert Murray: There was a piano player, a guitar player who seemed like a legend to me, and there was the great Satchel Paige, who lived on the outskirts of Mobile. Baseball was a big thing there, and he was the greatest baseball player in the world.
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Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion/Volume Seven: What do you recall about the first live music performance you ever attended?
“Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of “edu-tainment.” As often as possible, we pose one question via e mail to a small number of prominent and diverse people. The question is designed to provoke a lively response that will potentially include the memories and/or opinion of those solicited.
What do you recall about the first live music performance you ever attended?
Featuring Alan Broadbent, Cyrus Chestnut, Dave Frishberg, David Evanier, and others…
...Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion/Volume Four: What do you remember about your first experience buying a record album or CD?
“Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of “edu-tainment.” As often as possible, we pose one question via e mail to a small number of prominent and diverse people. The question is designed to provoke a lively response that will potentially include the memories and/or opinion of those solicited.
What do you remember about your first experience buying a record album or CD?
Featuring David “Fathead” Newman, Eddie Daniels, Phil Woods, Sheila Jordan and others…
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Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion/Volume Three: What recording session do you wish you could have witnessed?
“Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of “edu-tainment.” As often as possible, we pose one question via e mail to a small number of prominent and diverse people. The question is designed to provoke a lively response that will potentially include the memories and/or opinion of those solicited.
What recording session do you wish you could have witnessed?
Featuring Herman Leonard, Jane Ira Bloom, Lalo Schifrin, Buddy Bregman, Ingrid Jensen, Dave Liebman and others…
...Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion/Volume Two: What musical recording(s) changed your life?
“Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of “edu-tainment.” As often as possible, we pose one question via e mail to a small number of prominent and diverse people. The question is designed to provoke a lively response that will potentially include the memories and/or opinion of those solicited.
What musical recording(s) changed your life?
Featuring Dianne Reeves, Francis Davis, Fred Hersch, Jim Hall, Joshua Redman, Nat Hentoff and others…
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Interview with Douglas Henry Daniels, author of Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester “Pres” Young
ester Young was jazz music’s first hipster. He performed onstage in sunglasses and coined and popularized the enigmatic slang “that’s cool” and “you dig?” He was a snazzy dresser who always wore a suit and his trademark porkpie hat. He influenced everyone from B. B. King to Stan Getz to Allen Ginsberg. When he died, he was the subject of musical tributes by Charles Mingus (“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”) and Wayne Shorter (“Lester Left Town”), and incidents from his life were featured in the movie ‘Round Midnight.
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A Black History Month Profile: Louis Armstrong scholar Thomas Brothers on the “Master of Modernism”
Louis Armstrong scholar and biographer Thomas Brothers talks about the artist’s most fertile period, from his arrival as a young man in Chicago in 1922 to join Joe “King” Oliver, through the years of the “Hot Five and Hot Seven” recordings
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“Life in E Flat” — a conversation about Phil Woods, with pianist Bill Charlap and jazz journalist Ted Panken
Bob Hecht talks with pianist Bill Charlap and writer Ted Panken about the late Phil Woods, and his book Life in E Flat: The Autobiography of Phil Woods
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Book Excerpt: The Letters of Cole Porter, by Cliff Eisen and Dominic McHugh
A ten page excerpt that features correspondence in the time frame of June to August, 1953, including those Porter had with George Byron (the man who married Jerome Kern’s widow), fellow writer Abe Burrows, Noel Coward, his secretary Madeline P. Smith, close friend Sam Stark, and his lawyer John Wharton.
...Great Encounters: When Dexter Gordon played in Louis Armstrong’s band
In this edition, Dexter Gordon tells the story of joining Louis Armstrong’s band in 1944, and how they enjoyed their intermission time.
...Interview with Thomas Brothers — author of Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism
In Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism, Thomas Brothers picks up where he left off with the acclaimed Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans, following the story of the great jazz musician into his most creatively fertile years in the 1920s and early 1930s, when Armstrong created not one but two modern musical styles. Brothers wields his own tremendous skill in making the connections between history and music accessible to everyone as Armstrong shucks and jives across the page. Through Brothers’s expert ears and eyes we meet an Armstrong whose quickness and sureness, so evident in his performances, served him well in his encounters with racism while his music soared across the airwaves into homes all over America.
Brothers discusses his book with Jerry Jazz Musician publisher Joe Maita in an April, 2014 interview.
...Great Encounters #11: Duke Ellington and George Wein at Newport, 1956
Excerpted from Myself Among Others: A Life in Music by George Wein
Nineteen fifty-six was the Newport debut of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. I had struck an agreement with Irving Townsend, Columbia Records’s A&R man, earlier in the year. It would be good publicity to have some recordings from Newport. Our arrangement seemed like a good deal: for each artist recorded, the record company was to pay us an amount equal to that artist’s performance fee. As it turned out, it was a terrible deal, because the record company got exclusive rights and all of the royalties.
Columbia recorded the equivalent of four LPs during the 1956 festival:
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From the Interview Archive: Dunstan Prial, author of The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music
. . In this 2006 interview, John Hammond biographer Dunstan Prial talks about the life and career of one of the most charismatic and powerful figures in the history of American music. . . ___ . . photo by David Schull . Dunstan Prial, author of The Producer: John Hammond and the … Continue reading “From the Interview Archive: Dunstan Prial, author of The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music“
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Book excerpt from Jazz with a Beat: Small Group Swing 1940 – 1960, by Tad Richards
The introduction is excerpted from Tad Richards’ terrific book that explores the small group swing artists who made music from bebop to rhythm and blues.
...Community Bookshelf #2
“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share information about their recently authored books.
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“Black Coffee Blues” – a poem by Mary K O’Melveny
Even if you never drank black coffee, that won’t stop you from drinking in the feelings that filter across a room whenever Sarah Vaughan sings Black Coffee. One could drown in that bottomless, inky liquid, that heartache-laden brew,
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“An Un-played Instrument” – a story by Terry Sanville
Floyd grabbed his cane and stepped out of his air-conditioned car into the late August heat. The afternoon sun warmed his stiff joints. It felt good. From the Honda’s back seat he pulled a battered guitar case, locked the car and shambled down Monterey Street to Premier Music Store. Its front door stood closed against blasts of hot Santa Ana winds.
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“Sayir” – a short story by Ron Perovich
It was the first Friday in months that we didn’t both have our own gigs lined up, so my friend Paul invited me out to one of his favorite haunts on 8th Avenue. He promised me the food was good, but told me that the real draw was the live music. Honestly, I tried not to roll my eyes when he dropped that detail on me in the cab. I mean, I love music and all–I’d have to if I was going to work this hard at it–but I kind of was looking forward to giving my ears the night off.
...Three poets and Sketches of Spain
I’ve never seen much of Spain.
A business trip to Barcelona.
A commuter ride to Girona. Salvador
Dali’s museum. A stop in Sitges
where ivory beach sand abets
a shimmered turquoise sea.
“Ghost Music” – a short story by Stan Ellis
The trumpet melody glided on a cloud of clarinet and trombone notes. All three instruments dipped and soared over a rhythmical sea of piano, bass, and drums.
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A Black History Month Profile: Miles Davis
In a 2003 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, John Szwed, author of So What: The Life of Miles Davis, reveals a brilliant, inventive, intensely driven musician who was plagued by a host of internal conflicts and contradictions. “Miles’ life as a whole is not easy to grasp,” Szwed reflects, “and the meaning of it, with or without his help, is resistant to quick interpretations.”
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Six poems, six poets new to Jerry Jazz Musician
These poems are new submissions by five poets relatively new to Jerry Jazz Musician, and are an example of the writing I have the privilege of encountering on a regular basis.
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A Black History Month Profile: The Harlem Globetrotters
in this 2005 interview, Ben Green, author of Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters, discusses the complex history of the celebrated Black touring basketball team.
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“Afloat” – a short story by Brian Greene
“Afloat” – a finalist in the 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest – is about a troubled man in his 40s who lessens his worries by envisioning himself and loved ones on a boat that provides safety and ease for all of them.
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A Black History Month Profile: Zora Neale Hurston
In a 2002 interview, Carla Kaplan, editor of Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, talks about the novelist, anthropologist, playwright, folklorist, essayist and poet whose work is is taught in American, African American, and Women’s Studies courses in high schools and universities from coast to coast.
...Proceeding From Behind: A collection of poems grounded in the rhythmic, relating to the remarkable, by Terrance Underwood
A relaxed, familiar comfort emerges from the poet Terrance Underwood’s language of intellectual acuity, wit, and space – a feeling similar to one gets while listening to Monk, or Jamal, or Miles. I have long wanted to share his gifts as a poet on an expanded platform, and this 33-poem collection – woven among his audio readings, music he considers significant to his story, and brief personal comments – fulfills my desire to do so.
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A Black History Month Profile – Pianist and composer Eubie Blake
In this 2021 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Eubie Blake biographers Ken Bloom and Richard Carlin discuss the legendary composer of American popular song and jazz during the 20th century
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“Jazz and American Poetry” – an essay by Tad Richards
Tad Richards is a prolific visual artist, poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer who has been active for over four decades. ..He frequently writes about poetry, and the following piece about the history of the connection of jazz and American poetry first appeared in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry (2005). It is published with the permission of the author.
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A Black History Month Profile: Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin
In a 2003 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, John D’Emilio, author of Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, talks about one of the most important figures of the American civil rights movement, and a mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King.
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“The Silent Type,” a short story by Tom Funk
The story, a finalist in the recently concluded 64th Short Fiction Contest, is inspired by the classic Bob Dylan song “Tangled Up in Blue” which speculates about what might have been the back story to the song.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Winter, 2024 Edition
One-third of the Winter, 2024 collection of jazz poetry is made up of poets who have only come to my attention since the publication of the Summer, 2023 collection. What this says about jazz music and jazz poetry – and this community – is that the connection between the two art forms is inspirational and enduring, and that poets are finding a place for their voice within these virtual pages.
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“A Single Furtive Tear” – a short story by Dora Emma Esze
A short-listed entry in the recently concluded 64th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, the story is a heartfelt, grateful monologue to one Italian composer, dead and immortal of course, whose oeuvre means so much to so many of us.
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Interview with Gary Carner, author of Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer
The author speaks with Bob Hecht about his book and his decades-long dedication to the genius of Pepper Adams, the stellar baritone saxophonist whose hard-swinging bebop style inspired many of the top-tier modern baritone players.
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On the Turntable — The “Best Of the ‘Best Of’” in 2023 jazz recordings
A year-end compilation of jazz albums oft mentioned by a wide range of critics as being the best of 2023
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From the Interview Archive: A 2011 conversation with Alyn Shipton, author of Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway
In this interview, Alyn Shipton discusses Cab Calloway, whose vocal theatrics and flamboyant stage presence made him one of the country’s most beloved entertainers.
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Interview with Judith Tick, author of Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song
In Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song, the book’s author Judith Tick writes that Ella “fearlessly explored many different styles of American song through the lens of African American jazz, [and] treated jazz as a process, not confined to this idiom or that genre,” and who “changed the trajectory of American vocal jazz in this century.” Ms. Tick. who is professor emerita of music history at Northeastern University, talks with about Ella – and her book – in this wide-ranging October 23, 2023 interview.
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From the Interview Archive: A 2013 conversation with Guthrie Ramsey, author of The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop
In a 2013 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Guthrie Ramsey talks about Bud Powell, one of the greatest pianist’s in jazz history, and the collision of two vibrant political economies: the discourses of art and the practice of Blackness.
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“In the Church Library” – a short story by Zary Fekete
Four elderly women gather in a church for poetry readings, but they haven’t found a good rhythm yet. Finally, the woman who runs the poetry circle decides to personalize the experience.
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Interview Archive: Gary Giddins on Thelonious Monk
The former Village Voice writer Gary Giddins, who was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, and who is the country’s preeminent jazz critic, joins us in a December 23, 2002 conversation about jazz legend Thelonious Monk.
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A brief collection of poetry devoted to jazz…and love
Seven poets combine and art of jazz with an act of love…
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“Bashert” – a short story by Diane Lederman
This story, a finalist in the 63rd Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest, looks at the hopes one man has that a woman he meets the night before he leaves for Camp Devens will keep him alive during World War I so he can return and take her out for dinner.
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In Memoriam: Carla Bley, 1936 – 2023
An account that the photographer Veryl Oakland shared of his time spent with Carla Bley and her then-husband Michael Mantler during her visit to the San Francisco Bay area in 1979. This encounter is an example of how she’d find inspiration for her music; in this case within the “the marvelous inner workings of mechanical music boxes.”
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In a Place of Dreams: Connie Johnson’s album of jazz poetry, music, and life stories
A collection of Connie Johnson’s poetry is woven among her audio readings, a personal narrative of her journey and music she considers significant to it, providing readers the chance to experience the full value of her gifts.
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“A Song and Dance Proposition” – a short story by Richard Moore
Because of his childhood experiences, the story’s narrator loses his singing voice and as an adult neither sings nor dances. But when his marriage falls apart he meets a ‘song and dance man’ who turns out to be Iris, a woman with multiple sclerosis. With her help, he comes to grip with his inhibitions.
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Ella Fitzgerald, in poems by Claire Andreani and Michael L. Newell
Ella Fitzgerald is whispering
to me: “sit here and enjoy your dinner with my
sweet honey voice,” eternal bloom of time,
filling the corner of the street where I eat
with a Golden Age long gone but that remains
like an idea, lingering, like the steam of a
hot bath leaving
traces of fingers on the mirror
“A Skull on the Moscow Leningrad Sleeper” – a short story by Robert Kibble
A story revolving around a jazz record which means so much to a couple that they risk being discovered while attempting to escape the Soviet Union.
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Community Bookshelf, # 1
“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share information about their recently authored books.
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“Not Just Another Damn Song on the Radio” – a short story by Craig Fishbane
Neil Young stumbled off the stage more exhausted than usual. It had been a trying gig, watching Danny Whitten teeter from chord to chord on a heroin-fueled high-wire act that just seemed to get more perilous as the night wore on. It was fine that Danny blew some chords—everyone blew chords in this band. That was what made Crazy Horse special in the first place. If Neil wanted every note pure and perfect, he could have stuck with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. But what would have been the point of that? It was like playing a benediction for your own immaculate coffin.
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Interview with Brent Hayes Edwards, co-author (with Henry Threadgill) of Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music
Co-author Mr. Edwards discusses his work with Henry Threadgill, widely recognized as one of the most original and innovative voices in contemporary music, and the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2023 Edition
This edition features poetry chosen from hundreds of recent submissions, and from a wide range of voices known – and unknown – to readers of these collections. The work is unified by the poets’ ability to capture the abundance of jazz music, and their experience with consuming it.
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“Improvised: A life in 7ths, 9ths and Suspended 4ths” – a short story by Vikki C.
A man once asked me about ambition, not in a typical sense of family and lifetime accomplishments, more of a rhetorical artistic conversation. To me, it wasn’t a topic which warranted a structured answer let alone a real plan, God forbid life would be linear and predictable. Now, over two decades later, I am found in Notting Hill’s Rooftop Cafe, writing a story which could possibly address the subject unintentionally.
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Ella Fitzgerald…on being loved
“I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is…”
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #63 — “Company” by Anastasia Jill
20-year-old Priscilla Habel lives with her wannabe flapper mother who remains stuck in the jazz age 40 years later. Life is monotonous and sad until Cil meets Willie Flasterstain, a beatnik lesbian who offers an escape from her mother’s ever-imposing shadow.
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“Streamline Moderne” – a short story by Amadea Tanner
The story – a finalist in the F. Scott Fitzgerald 2022 Short Story Contest – follows a laid-off silent-era screenwriter’s career shift after she’s forced to pawn her typewriter.
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Interview with Stephanie Stein Crease, author of Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat That Changed America
The author talks about her book and Chick Webb, once at the center of America’s popular music, and among the most influential musicians in jazz history.
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Remembering and honoring my father
. . My dad…Joseph Maita, Sr. 1917-2000 This photo would have likely been taken in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s . .. . ___ . . “Good fathers not only tell us how to live, they show us.” -Mark Twain . As we get older, memories become more precious, and we hold them closer to … Continue reading “Remembering and honoring my father”
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Interview with Alyn Shipton, author of The Gerry Mulligan 1950’s Quartets
In this May, 2023 interview, Shipton and Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writer Bob Hecht talk about Mulligan’s unique contributions to modern jazz.
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“Partial Memories of Music and Love” – a short story by Lindsay Flock
What if you love music…but you can no longer hear? Ms. Flock’s story contemplates the paralleled loss of the protagonist’s hearing and her husband, where music fits into her life now, and attempts to forge a new relationship being deaf.
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“Guy Ryan” – a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson
. . “Guy Ryan,” a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 62nd Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author. . This story is a chapter from author’s book-in-progress, One For Sorrow. . . ___ . . photo by Lalesh Aldarwish/via Pexels … Continue reading ““Guy Ryan” – a short story by Alice Sherman Simpson”
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A Charlie Parker poetry collection
Nine poets, nine poems on the leading figure in the development of bebop…
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From the Interview Archive: a 2014 interview with Stanley Crouch, author of Kansas City Lightning: The Life and Times of Charlie Parker
In a 2014 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, the late jazz writer and cultural critic Stanley Crouch shares his thoughts on Charlie Parker, a great genius of modern music…
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Musings on Ellington (and others) — in four poems
Poet musings on Ellington — and big band music, by the poets Claire Andreani, Russell duPont, Laurinda Lind and Terrance Underwood
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“Back in the Day” – a poem by John Menaghan
The poet remember jazz pianist Horace Tapscott
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“Song for Sookie” – a short story by Steven Rosenbloom
A “jazz detective” uncovers a murder via a riddle involving a photo of Dizzy Gillespie
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Thoughts on Wes Montgomery
A poem and an essay devoted to the legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery
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“The Occasional Girl” – a short story by Mark Bruce
. . “The Occasional Girl,” a short story by Mark Bruce, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 62nd Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author. . . ___ . . Photo: Kubat Sydykov / World Bank/CC By-NC-ND-2.0 . The Occasional Girl by Mark Bruce . … Continue reading ““The Occasional Girl” – a short story by Mark Bruce”
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Poetic tributes to Ahmad Jamal
Several poems devoted to the pianist Ahmad Jamal, who died on April 16, 2023 at the age of 92.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Spring, 2023 Edition
This is the 14th extensive collection of jazz poetry published on Jerry Jazz Musician since the fall of 2019, when the concept was initiated. Like all previous volumes, the beauty of this edition is not solely evident in the general excellence of the published works; it also rests in the hearts of the individuals from diverse backgrounds who possess a mutual desire to reveal their life experiences and interactions with the music, its character, and its culture.
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“The Surprise of It” – a short story by Diane Lederman
A nurse is on the verge of selling everything before heading to WWI France, where a woman she is in love with awaits her arrival, forcing her to come to terms with what that means.
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Interview with Richard Koloda, author of Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler
An impeccably researched biography of an influential figure in American music, the goal of which is “to draw attention away from the circumstances surrounding Ayler’s death and bring it sharply back to the legacy he left behind.”
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Interview Archive: Donzaleigh Abernathy, author of Partners to History: Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and the Civil Rights Movement
The daughter of Reverend Ralph Abernathy talks about her life as a child of the civil rights movement, and to remember the two visionaries who changed the course of American history
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News of an unreleased 1979 session by Chet Baker
News of a previously unreleased set of studio performances recorded in Holland in 1979 by legendary trumpeter Chet Baker
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“A record shop, and a tale of two Michael Cohens,” by editor/publisher Joe Maita
A tale of two Michael Cohens — one is Trump’s former “fixer,” the other is an important voice in LGBTQ history
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A Women’s History Month Profile: Josephine Baker
In a 2000 interview, Ean Wood, author of The Josephine Baker Story, discusses the entertainer’s groundbreaking, extraordinary life
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“Armed Delilahs” – a short story by Amadea Tanner
A young Parisian girl comes of age during the Nazi Occupation, a time when social and political upheaval create drastic consequences for her youthful naïveté.
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A Women’s History Month Profile — Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson talks about the life of “The Empress of the Blues,” one of popular music’s most important figures during the 1920’s and 1930’s
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A Women’s History Month Profile: American women during World War II
In an interview originally published on Jerry Jazz Musician in 2004, Emily Yellin, author of Our Mother’s War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II, talks about the historic contributions women made toward the war effort
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #62 — “Mr. P.C.” by Jacob Schrodt
A saxophonist and his teenage daughter – a drummer –bond over their club performance of John Coltrane’s “Mr. P.C,” but it doesn’t come without its parental challenges, and the father’s warm remembrance of her childhood.
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“Hub City Hip” — Clay Coppedge on the historic Lubbock, Texas music scene
The author writes about his hometown of Lubbock, Texas, and some of the musicians and events that made up that city’s thriving music scene during the mid-20th century
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A Women’s History Month Profile: Lena Horne
. . In a 2009 interview, James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne, discusses the challenging yet inspiring life of one of the 20th century’s most revered entertainers . . ___ . . James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne . ___ . . . … Continue reading “A Women’s History Month Profile: Lena Horne”
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“Why We Write” – a conversation with three Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writers
Writers talk about influential life experiences with writing, literary figures who inspired their work, overcoming creative and economic challenges, and where they fit in today’s publishing model.
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A Black History Month Profile: Bandleader Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson biographer Jeffrey Magee discusses the influential bandleader, and the emergence of modern jazz
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“Appetite” – a short story by Brian Greene
In this short listed entry from the 61st Short Fiction Contest, a man’s eating habits alter along with the cycles of his love life.
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Interview with Glenn Mott, editor of Victory is Assured: The Uncollected Writings of Stanley Crouch
Mr. Mott discusses this posthumous anthology of extraordinary, thought-provoking uncollected essays by Stanley Crouch.
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A Black History Month Profile: An interview with Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad
Ralph Ellison biographer Arnold Rampersad talks about the complex life of the author of Invisible Man, the celebrated work that focuses on racial and economic issues of mid-20th century America
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A story of “My Funny Valentine,” and a poem by George Held
A brief history of Rodgers and Hart’s composition “My Funny Valentine,” and a poem by George Held, who reflects on the song
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Rosalinda Kolb’s “Jazz Portrait Series”
Rosalinda Kolb’s art is filled with creative energy and spirit that uniquely connects viewers to the soul, inner beauty, and complexity of jazz musicians.
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“Out Walks Bud” — a poem by John Menaghan
The poet tells the complex and tragic story of jazz pianist Bud Powell
...Book Excerpt from Victory is Assured: Uncollected Writings of Stanley Crouch
In two complete essays from the collection “Victory is Assured,” Crouch takes up two topics he had considerable opinions about – Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
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Six new poets, six new poems
A sampling of recent submissions from six poets who, until now, have not had their work published on Jerry Jazz Musician
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A Black History Month Profile: Scott Simon on Jackie Robinson and the integration of major league baseball
In a 2002 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon discusses his biography of Jackie Robinson, and the integration of major league baseball
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Book Excerpt from Holy Ghost: The Life and Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler, by Richard Koloda
The preface introduces the reader to Ayler’s influence on jazz, and to the compelling and often misrepresented history of Ayler’s life story.
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A collection of short jazz poems – Vol. 1
A collection in which over 30 poets communicate their appreciation for jazz music in poems no longer than seven lines.
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“Pressed For All Time,” Vol. 16 — producers and musicians recall Miles Davis’s 1969 album In a Silent Way
In this edition, producers Teo Macero, Bob Belden and Michael Cuscuna, and musicians Dave Holland and Joe Zawinul talk with Jarrett about the way Miles Davis’s 1969 album In a Silent Way came together.
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“Unicorn Portrait” – a short story by William Torphy
A wealthy art dealer discovers that his grandfather purchased art confiscated from Jewish families before and after World War II, and meets an elderly woman who was affected by the grandfather’s actions.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Fall/Winter, 2022-23 Edition
.This collection of jazz poetry – the largest yet assembled on Jerry Jazz Musician – demonstrates how poets who are also listeners of jazz music experience and interact with the spontaneous art that arises from jazz improvisation, which often shows up in the soul and rhythm of their poetic language.
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“Memories of Ray” — a true jazz story by Alan Swyer
The author writes of his friendship with Ray Charles, and his son’s 2000 interview with him.
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Interview with Winston James, author of Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik
A discussion about the revolutionary, non-conformist poet Claude McKay’s complex early life that culminated in a pioneering role in American letters
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“The Sweatshop” — a memoir, by Jim Donnelly
Mr. Donnelly’s “The Sweatshop” is a memoir about about his time working in a music accessory sweatshop by day, and slogging it out on the club circuit by night…
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“The Hidden Garden” — a short story by Con Chapman
A woman stands up for her ex-boyfriend when her new lover disparages music by Art Tatum, a favorite artist of his.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2022 Edition
A broad collection of jazz poetry authored by an impressive assemblage of regular contributors and established poets new to this publication – all of whom open their imagination and hearts to the abundant creative experience they derive from this art.
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“Pressed For All Time,” Vol. 14 — producer Teo Macero on Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew
Producers Teo Macero and Bob Belden, and bassist Dave Holland talk about working with Miles Davis on his groundbreaking 1969 recording, Bitches Brew
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #60 — “Thrush” by Owen Duffy
A neo-noir story of a young singer snuffed out by the music business early in her career, either by chance or malice…
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“Yalies Save Ellington Tune from Obscurity,” a true jazz story by Janet Lever, with Brad Dechter
The authors describe the circumstances surrounding the creation of an extended version of Duke Ellington’s little-known 1953 composition “Janet”
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“Thunder” — a short story by Robert Knox
The voice comes down from the bedroom, winding down the stairs, crankily.
It does not at once compel in the manner of one of my “favorite singers” on the radio. I am a person, to use the word loosely, who does not own record albums, or a record player. What I hear from upstairs at her house, wailing down from the steps in that unassimilable voice, is the whine of the prairie. A rusty gate. A barroom complaint…
A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Spring, 2022 Edition
Over 60 poets from all over the world celebrate their love of jazz…in poetry.
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“Face Value” — a short story by Rebecca Givens Rolland
A story about two American musicians in Paris for the summer–both of whom are on the brink of a breakdown.
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Interview with Joe La Barbera, co-author of Times Remembered: The Final Years of the Bill Evans Trio
Drummer Joe La Barbera talks about his book, and the significance of his experience working in Bill Evans’ last trio
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #59 — “His Second Instrument” by Dave Wakely
Gail’s days on the bandstand are behind her now, London nights swapped for the life of a farmer’s wife back in Devon. But if an intriguing young man with a love of Billy Strayhorn wants sax lessons, who is she to deny him the chance to experience what she has given up?
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“Smoke” — a true jazz story by John Riley
The author’s experience with racism, ignorance, poverty, and jazz in the American South of the 1960s.
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A Black History Month Profile: Charlie Parker
In a 2014 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, the late jazz writer and cultural critic Stanley Crouch shares his thoughts on Charlie Parker, the great genius of modern music…
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“Pressed For All Time,” Vol. 12 — producer Bob Thiele on John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme
In this edition, producer Bob Thiele talks with Michael Jarrett, author of Pressed For All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall about working with John Coltrane on his classic 1964 recording A Love Supreme
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“The Cloth Coat” — a true jazz story by Ray Robinson
We’re going through Security at Dublin airport, headed to Philadelphia, thinking about what’s ahead of us. There’s something sinister about lines of people queuing up to be processed. Nobody likes it. Belt, jacket, phone, laptop, wallet. Do they need my shoes? Everyone feels displaced, dehumanized somehow.
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“Old Man Hands” — a short story by Terry Sanville
Gordon sat in the corner of the Red Sky Café and stared at his fingers as they slid across the fretboard of his Fender Stratocaster. They seemed disconnected from the rest of his body but hardwired to his brain. When he thought blue, they moved to his favorite notes. When he thought joy, a new series of chords and major scales opened up. He thought, played, listened, and watched.
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A Black History Month Profile: Louis Armstrong
In a November 16, 2020 interview with Jerry Jazz Musician, Ricky Riccardi, author of Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong, discusses his vital book and Armstrong’s enormous and underappreciated achievements during the era he led his big band.
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“An Awakening” — a short story by Brian Greene
A 34-year old childless bachelor reluctantly agrees to babysit the nine-year old daughter of a friend of his on a Saturday night in September. The experience leads to a life-changing revelation.
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Interview with Wayne Enstice, co-author of The Lady Swings: Memoirs of a Jazz Drummer
The book’s co-author in conversation about the little-known life story of the pioneering Ms. Dodgion, who defied the odds to become a world-class jazz drummer in a world – and on an instrument – dominated by men.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Fall/Winter, 2021-22 Edition
Molly Larson Cook’s abstract-expressionist paintings accompany the 50 poets contributing to this collection. Her art has much in common with the poetry and music found within it; all three art forms can be described as “landscapes of the imagination,” created by artists from all over the world who are inspired in a meaningful way by jazz music, and whose work can be uniquely interpreted and appreciated (or not!) by those who consume it.
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“Committee Room” — a short story by J.W. Wood
“What I have to say now stays between us.”
The Chairman’s face flushed a little. I sensed one of his rants was coming, and I was not disappointed:
“In my opinion, Jakub Hoch is a pseudo-liberal loudmouth of minimal talent who has no place as Musical Director of this orchestra.”
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #58 — “Mouth Organ” by Emily Jon Tobias
Three times a year, we award a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work. Emily Jon Tobias of Dana Point, California is the winner of the 58th Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award. In “Mouth Organ,” Monk is a young musician who comes of age within his family domain, first by falling in love with girlfriend Gloria, and then having to face an unreconciled past with his mother, Bunny.
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“Queen Mabelle’s Blues,” a short story by David Rudd
Maebelle had been surprised when, in 1934, a scout for the American Record Corporation invited her to come and sing at the General Store, “for our field recordings.”
“Field recordings?” she’d joked. “They wanna hear the Boll Weevil, close up?” She was recalling the Charley Patton song.
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“Ways to Look at Blind Lemon Jefferson” — a story by Larry Smith
One of the best things about my life is that in the course of it I had the chance to see the great Blind Lemon Jefferson on eleven different occasions. This was especially gratifying because for me he was the finest blues singer who ever lived, even better than Robert Johnson or Charlie Patton or Bessie Smith.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2021 Edition
“It’s not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.”
-Herbie Hancock
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And…this spirit is not limited to the musicians, because celebrating jazz is rich in creative opportunity for writers and visual artists as well. The 54 poets who contribute to this poetry collection are living proof of that.
As always, thanks to the poets, and I hope you enjoy…
Joe
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“Space For Nothing” — a short story by Pamela Nocerino
“Space for Nothing” a story by Pamela Nocerino, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 57th Short Fiction Contest.
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #57 — “Constant At The 3 Deuces” by Jon Zelazny
In the closing weeks of 1949, the consensus of New York’s cognoscenti was unanimous: the American debut of London’s Sadler’s Wells Ballet was the triumph of the post-war era. The praise and attention lavished upon the visiting artists was unrelenting; the Yanks’ sudden passion for tutus, Tchaikovsky, and entrechat quatres bordered on obsession. And yet, three weeks into their engagement, with four performances at The Met remaining, their company’s esteemed music director and conductor Constant Lambert was bored to tears.
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“Christmas, Stockings” — a story by Peter Newall
Prague, Christmas Eve, 1994. Midwinter. Snow. Anna and I have a room in the Grand Hotel Europa, which is not grand in the least but run-down and cramped, still bearing the stamp of its Warsaw Pact years. The floral wallpaper is worn and the carpet threadbare; the room is mostly taken up with the big double bed.
...True Jazz Stories: Musical Adventures of Joe Maita, Sr.
. . Joseph Maita, Sr. c. 1935 . ___ . …..My father Joseph Maita (Sr.) was affable, charismatic, and loving – gifted as a musician and, ultimately, a successful business owner. He was also extraordinarily complex and challenged by having to make choices so many young parents find themselves confronting – following … Continue reading “True Jazz Stories: Musical Adventures of Joe Maita, Sr.”
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A Poetry Collection — inspired by Miles Davis
Few artists inspire creativity like Miles Davis. This collection of poetry by 50 poets from all over the world is evidence of that.
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“The Lottery” — a short story by Charlotte Davies
A young man was walking up one of the roads that climbed out of the town, into the hills. He was tall, probably in his late teens, appeared fit and strong – looked like he’d pass a physical. Dark curly hair which was too long, but that could be easily taken care of, of course – give him a haircut, swap the t-shirt and shorts for an olive green uniform, the glasses for a pair of regulation army specs, and he’d look the part.
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Interview with Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom, authors of Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm, and Race
Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom, authors of “Eubie: Rags, Rhythm, and Race,” talk about Blake and their insightful and timely book – an important portrait of the man and the musical world his work helped reshape.
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“Pentimento” — a short story by Tanisha Shende
The first time I tried to convince Veronica that we’ve met before, it was a dark summer night, honeyed and sulky, and beneath my feet, the earth was still swollen with rain. Under my right arm, I carried one of her paintings in a wooden case, while my left hand held the scrap of paper bearing the Trevisan family home’s address, given to me in a brief yet frantic call from her aunt.
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Interview with Alyn Shipton, author of The Art of Jazz
An interview with The Art of Jazz author Alyn Shipton, whose book is an exploration of how jazz influenced sheet music art, album art, posters, photography, and individual works of fine art.
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“Shadow Ball” — a short story by David Eugene Everard
In all honesty, my father had been known to tell more than a few tall tales in his time. Yet, whenever I’d try to catch him on one he would pause, nod his head patiently, and then politely remind me there were always two sides to every story.
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“The End of a Love Affair” — a short story by Gareth Davey
Gareth Davey writes a fictional account of the tragic death of the jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan
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Two of a Mind: Conversations on Creative Collaboration, Vol 1: featuring Bill Charlap and Sandy Stewart
An intimate portrait of Bill Charlap and mother Sandy Steward, who explore the art of musical collaboration and accompanying singers.
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“Under Quarantine” — COVID era poetry of Erren Kelly
A collection of the poet Erren Kelly’s unconstrained, improvisational and provocative poetry written during the era of COVID
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Winter, 2021 Edition
In this winter collection of diverse themes and poetic styles, 55 poets wander the musical landscape to explore their spirit and enthusiasm for jazz music, its historic figures, and the passion, sadness, humor and joy it arouses.
...A Black History Month Profile: Thelonious Monk, a founding father of modern jazz
. . In a 2009 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, talks about the legendary composer/pianist who was a founding father of modern jazz. . . .Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an … Continue reading “A Black History Month Profile: Thelonious Monk, a founding father of modern jazz”
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A Black History Month Profile: Alain Locke, the father of the Harlem Renaissance
In a 2019 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Jeffrey Stewart, author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke and winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Non-Fiction, talks about Locke, the man now known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance.
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“An Archaeologically Authenticated, Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden” – humor by Lee Shamberg & Mark Shamberg
“An Archaeologically Authenticated, Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden” is excerpted from a work-in-progress entitled “The Hip Man Letters, vol. 2: Dear Morty.”
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Poetry in the era of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season, Vol. 5
In this fifth collection of poetry reflecting these times, 33 poets offer their perspectives…
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On the Turntable — The “Best Of the ‘Best Of'” in 2020 jazz recordings
December has brought the tradition of year-end “Best Of” lists, and the consensus among critics is that – as difficult as it may be to understand given the challenging circumstances – 2020 was a banner year for new jazz recordings.
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Interview with Ricky Riccardi, author of Heart Full of Rhythm: The Big Band Years of Louis Armstrong
In a November 16, 2020 interview with Jerry Jazz Musician, Riccardi discusses his vital book and Armstrong’s enormous and underappreciated achievements during the era he led his big band.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Autumn, 2020 Edition
Jazz and poetry have always had a symbiotic relationship. Their creative languages share the common soil of imagination and improvisation, from which their audiences discover inspiration and spirit, and perhaps even a renewed faith in life itself.
This collection features 50 gifted poets from places as disparate as Ohio and Nepal, Estonia and Boston, Guyana and Pittsburgh, each publicly sharing their inner world reverence for the culture of jazz music.
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“Sphinx” — a short story by Brian Greene
. . “Sphinx,” a story by Brian Greene, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 55th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author . . . “Lucy XV,” by Vakseen . Sphinx by Brian Greene . 1. …..I met Leonor when I was 23 and she was 51. … Continue reading ““Sphinx” — a short story by Brian Greene”
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The “Three Dot Update”…An occasional flurry of news and information, Vol. 3
Updates and news about content recently and soon-to-be published.
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #55 — “Chromesthesia” by Shannon Brady
He still has his father’s old records.
That single cardboard box is all that Ken has left of the man. That and memories. He remembers those swirling blue winter nights: sitting on the living room rug, right between the full-blast radiator and Dad’s battered old armchair, watching the record turn around and around and fill the room with Duke Ellington’s piano. The summer Sundays, where the warm breeze came in through the window, and the cleaning of their apartment turned into a game backed by Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, deep orange-pink like strawberry lemonade.
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Poetry reflecting the era of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season — Vol. 4
On the cusp of an election of consequence the likes of which America hasn’t experienced for 150 years, and in the midst of continued Black Lives Matter protests and an indisputable surge of COVID, 29 poets sharing perspectives from all over the world contribute to this volume of poetry reflecting our tumultuous, unsettling era…
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Interview with Will Friedwald, author of Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole
In an exclusive interview, Will Friedwald, author of Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole, discusses Cole and his book.
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“All the Things That I Can’t Tell” — a short story by Blythe Asta
I methodically walk along. Stepping in tune to the pulsing soundtrack spilling out of the passing nightclub, littering the sidewalk. The electric guitar wailing something menacingly slow and strong. Almost soulful but still all the while punk at its core and insisting itself to be anything but a love song. I wouldn’t be surprised to catch a glimpse of Lux dancing inside as I pass. Lux, used to be Grace, and I almost miss the days when she was.
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A broadside and short story of Thelonious Monk, by Russell duPont
“Nah,” Mucka says to the guy in the funny hat, a couple of seats down. “We’re from Massachusetts, an hour or so from here. My friend here….” He leans back so the guy can look around him to see me….”he wanted to come down, see if we could, you know, the whole jazz thing . . . . festival …. thing.”
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Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands discuss the legacy of Erroll Garner
In a July 27, 2020 conversation with Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita, the historian and most eminent jazz writer of his generation Dan Morgenstern and pianist Christian Sands – the Creative Ambassador of the Erroll Garner Jazz Project – discuss Garner’s historic legacy.
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Poetry reflecting the era of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season — Vol. 3
An invitation was extended recently to poets to submit work that reflects this time of COVID, Black Lives Matter, and a heated political season. In this third volume, 33 poets contribute…
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“Satin Doll” — a short story by Jack Tasker
. . “Satin Doll,” a story by Jack Tasker, was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 54th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author . . photo Creative Commons CC0 . Satin Doll by Jack Tasker . The Pianist and The Cabbie . …..When the music stops … Continue reading ““Satin Doll” — a short story by Jack Tasker”
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2020 Edition
. . “Clifford Brown” is a painting by Warren Goodson, a Saxapahaw, North Carolina artist whose work is driven by his appreciation for Black culture. With his gracious consent, Mr. Goodson’s art is featured throughout this collection. . . _____ . . “Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.” -Lawrence Ferlinghetti … Continue reading “A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2020 Edition”
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #54 — “A Failed Artist’s Paradise” by Nathaniel Neil Whelan
He’s here again, his mossy hair visible at the back of the crowd. I’ve seen him a few times before and it’s always the same: he leans against a pillar, arms crossed, a hungry look in his eyes. There’s a bit of rebel in him. I don’t know if it’s the cigarette or the rimless sunglasses perched on the edge of his nose, but he doesn’t fit in with the polished and the proper.
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“They Could Be Anywhere” — a short story by Emma Deshpande
but tonight they’re here, on a street off seventh avenue, holding a thermos of coffee, following a jazz guitar. The music comes from a doorway beneath a brownstone on the next block.
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Tulsa in 1921 — an interview with Tim Madigan, author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
. . Given the current Black Lives Matter protests, coupled with the upcoming presidential indoor “rally” in Tulsa (in the middle of a pandemic, no less), it seems like a good time to revisit an interview I conducted with Tim Madigan, author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot … Continue reading “Tulsa in 1921 — an interview with Tim Madigan, author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921“
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Interview with Maria Golia, author of Ornette Coleman: The Territory And The Adventure
Ms. Golia discusses her book and the artists whose philosophy and the astounding, adventurous music he created served to continually challenge the skeptical status quo, and made him a guiding light of the artistic avant-garde throughout a career spanning seven decades.
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“The Portrait of Felice” — a short story by Drew Martyn
His face gave it away. Standing in front of the painting, his ice-blue eyes like tiny bejewelled pinpricks, mouth gaping and tongue hanging out, he basked in the portrait’s aura like a skinned lizard under a desert sun.
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Reminiscing in Tempo: “Life during the time of isolation and social distancing”
Prominent artists and educators reflect on the pandemic and how they are spending their time during isolation and social distancing
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“One August Morning”– a short story by Jeanine DeHoney
No one knew why he did it. Why early one August morning, the day after I turned eleven, when stores were just pulling up their metal gates, and delivery trucks were double parked in front of them, when as Mama said the sun was so oppressive you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, Mr. Carmichael left his seventh-floor apartment right above ours in The Bridgeton Apartments…
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“An Interview with Lee Konitz” — by Bob Hecht and Grover Sales
Bob Hecht hosts a previously unpublished 1985 interview with the late, great jazz saxophonist Lee Konitz, featuring photography and music
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“Oblivious” — a short story by Carolyn Geduld
Her granddad shook Bridgett awake. He was sniffling.
“What’s the matter? Are you sick?” She propped herself on her elbows.
“It’s Morrison. Gone.“ He was standing there in a faded tie-dyed shirt, smelling musty. His thinning gray hair, reaching past his waist, had not been tied back, but he was wearing his love beads.
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Life (and living) in the era of isolation and social distancing
I am writing to share some of the ways I am coping with the current alarming situation, to fill readers in on a few things that are going on with Jerry Jazz Musician, and to invite you to share your own thoughts during this time.
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Interview with Dominic McHugh, co-author of The Letters of Cole Porter
In a Jerry Jazz Musician interview with The Letters of Cole Porter co-author Dominic McHugh, he explains that “several of the big biographical tropes that we associate with Porter are either modified or contested by the letters,” and that “when you put together these letters, and add our quite extensive commentary between the letters, it creates a different picture of him.” Mr. McHugh discusses his book, and what the letters reveal about the life – in-and-out of music – of Cole Porter.
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Interview with Richard Crawford, author of Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music
Richard Crawford’s Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life in Music is a rich and detailed musical biography that describes Gershwin’s work throughout every stage of his career. In a Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Crawford discusses his book and the man he has described as a “fresh voice of the Jazz Age” who “challenged Americans to rethink their assumptions about composition and performance, nationalism, cultural hierarchy, and the racial divide.”
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“Charles Ingham’s Jazz Narratives” — Vol. 3
Ingham’s “Jazz Narratives” connect time, place, and subject in a way that ultimately allows the viewer a unique way of experiencing jazz history. This edition’s narratives are “”Exactly Where She Is Supposed to Be,” “In Memory of Clora Bryant, Standing Outside the Downbeat,” and “Out West, Thinking About Miles Davis”
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #53 — “Market & Fifth, San Francisco, 1986,” by Paul Perilli
You walk on the rose-colored strip of concrete that starts on the sidewalk, goes under the big black awning with the street light shining on it, and stops at the two heavy wood doors inviting in all of Central Ave. You pause long enough for Walt, the bouncer you should never irritate to the degree of getting his exclusive attention, to nod you inside even though he knows you.
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A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Winter, 2020 Edition
The winter collection of poetry offers readers a look at the culture of jazz music through the imaginative writings of its 32 contributors. Within these 41 poems, writers express their deep connection to the music – and those who play it – in their own inventive and often philosophical language that communicates much, but especially love, sentiment, struggle, loss, and joy.
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Interview with Con Chapman, author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges
In a Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Con Chapman, author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges – the first-ever biography of the immortal musician – talks about the enigmatic man and his unforgettable sound.
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“Piano Girl” — a short story by Shannon Brady
Arlena Sawyer’s mother had spent all seventeen years of her life warning her against what seemed like every last thing under God’s creation. With her thin, trilling voice she had done her best to hammer fear and caution into her only daughter’s head like the beak of a woodpecker into a tree.
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Great Encounters: When Johnny Hodges met Sidney Bechet
“Great Encounters” are book excerpts that chronicle famous encounters among twentieth-century cultural icons. In this edition, Con Chapman, author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges, writes about Hodges’ early musical training, and the first meeting he had with Sidney Bechet, the influential and legendary reed player who Hodges called “tops in my book.”
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“Quiet at the Constellation Club” — a short story by Grace Howarth
The stars would burn out before the Constellation Club would fall silent.
No matter the hour, no matter the day, a constant hum of life echoed through the walls.
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #52 — “Random Blonde,” by Zandra Renwick
I’ve been bitter a long time. It’s like sucking a wedge of lemon on and on and on, pulp disintegrating, everything dissolving until the flavor turns mellow and mild, almost sweet. I’ve been bitter so long it’s hard to know anymore how anything should feel, or which part of me navigating the world each day is tainted with bitterness and which part is how I always was, even before Ty Greggor smashed through my life.
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“Sonata” — a short story by Kirk Loftin
Jonathan was only eight years old the first time he fell. It was the first winter in the new house, and he wasn’t used to the biting cold yet. It was a large, Gothic structure that scared him at first, but he had grown accustomed to the imposing house on the hill.
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“In Herzegovina, near the Town of Gorjad” — a short story by Nick Sweeney
There’s a new song going around, with a maddening refrain as catchy as that flu plotting its course around the world, killing venerable ancients and babies newly out of the womb. You hear it everywhere and, no matter how much you hate it, you’ll find it bursting out of your head.
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Interview with Nate Chinen, author of Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century
Nate Chinen, the former New York Times jazz critic who is now director of editorial content for WBGO Radio, talks about his book, Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century
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“A Price Too High” — a short story by Russell Waterman
Robert Shines lifted his sweat stained fedora just enough to wipe his brow. Stuffing his handkerchief back into his breast pocket he repositioned his hat at a slight angle, rakish style, just enough for a breeze to cool his skin, should one happen by. As luck would have it the Mississippi air was stagnant and sticky this August evening.
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“A Viennese Story” — a short story by Matias Travieso-Diaz
Being slight of build and juvenile looking was a mixed blessing for Alicia. On the one hand, people tended to be cloyingly condescending towards her – as if she were nine years old instead of seventeen.
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The Jazz Photography Issue
. . Carol Friedman’s 1976 photograph of Chet Baker . _____ . …..For many of us who revere jazz music – especially those fortunate enough to have grown up during the era of the 12 x 12 record album jacket and coffee table photography books– the images of great musicians taken by photographers like William … Continue reading “The Jazz Photography Issue”
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Interview with renowned jazz photographer Carol Friedman
. . Carol Friedman . ___ . …..During a career now spanning over three decades, the esteemed New York portrait photographer Carol Friedman’s iconic images have appeared on hundreds of album and CD covers. Her poignant, often spontaneous work – a generous sampling of which is on display within and following the interview – includes … Continue reading “Interview with renowned jazz photographer Carol Friedman”
...“Learning to Fly” — a short story by Mary Burns
Harry Delaney is a night janitor, and he is teaching himself to fly. As he works his mop up and down the dim corridors of Waterville Public High School, he can feel what it would be like, floating, say, four feet above the floor, moving easily through the air, though not fast.
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Interview with Mosaic Records co-founder Michael Cuscuna
Interview with jazz record producer, discographer, and entrepreneur Michael Cuscuna.
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Interview with Jeffrey Stewart, author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
Jeffrey Stewart, National Book Award-winning author of The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, discusses the life of the man known as the father of the Harlem Renaissance
...A special collection of poetry devoted to mothers and fathers
This month, in a special collection of poetry, eight poets contribute seventeen poems focused on stories about family, and honoring mothers and fathers
...“D-Natural Blues” — a short story by Salvatore Difalco
Galinsky was killing my buzz. I could not see his face behind a fuming joint, clenched between his tarry teeth, but I could see his hands—one holding a deck of playing cards, one opened gesturally. They wove with the languid rhythm of a Greek rhetorician as Galinsky droned on about the pratfalls of legalized cannabis: how the government had screwed up a good thing, how the government was greedy, how the government had put the kibosh on a thriving subculture—a tribe to which we after all, at this game, belonged. The black market had provided a beautiful service, in his words, without all the red tape and
...“Strings of Solace” — a short story by Kimberly Parish Davis
“Strings of Solace” was a finalist in our recently concluded 50th Short Fiction Contest.
...
Interview with Mary Schmidt Campbell, author of An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden
Mary Schmidt Campbell, author of .An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden,discusses the remarkable life of this important American artist in a Jerry Jazz Musician interview.
...A collection of jazz poetry — March, 2019 edition
18 poets contribute 20 poems to the March collection
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 9
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 45 – 49
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 8
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 39 – 44
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 7
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 35 – 38
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 6
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 29 – 34
...A collection of jazz poetry — February, 2019 edition
Twelve poets contribute 15 poems to this month’s collection
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 5
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 24 – 28
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 4
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 17- 23
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 2
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 7 – 11
...Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest — Winning Author Profiles, Group 1
On March 11, 2019, .Jerry Jazz Musician.will publish the 50th.winning story in our thrice-yearly Short Fiction Contest. To celebrate this landmark event, we have asked all the previous winners (dating to 2002) to reflect on their own winning story, and how their lives have since unfolded.
This week’s edition covers authors of winning stories #’s 1 – 6
...A Roundtable conversation — “Religion ‘around’ Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison”
. . . …..While Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison are not known as being “religious” figures, they have, in a way, become “sacred” figures. Revered, iconic and inspirational, their essential work contributed mightily to the creative climate of twentieth-century America, and did so in the midst of complex and evolving religious … Continue reading “A Roundtable conversation — “Religion ‘around’ Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday and Ralph Ellison””
...“All Blues: The Story of a Lost Friendship” — a true jazz story by Bob Hecht
…..I have to wonder how many friendships have been forged over mutual love of Miles Davis’ album, Kind of Blue. The one I want to tell you about came to pass in an unlikely setting back during the winter of 1963…
...“The Man Who Lives in My Head” — a short story by Luke Bergvist
“The Man Who Lives in My Head,” a story by Luke Bergvist, was a finalist in our recently concluded 49th Short Fiction Contest. It is published with the permission of the author. The Man Who Lives in My Head by Luke Bergvist ___ {A handwritten manuscript, fished from the … Continue reading ““The Man Who Lives in My Head” — a short story by Luke Bergvist”
...“Uncle Joey Blows Trombone at Le Jazz Hot” – a short story by Lawrence J. Klumas
Uncle Joey Blows Trombone at Le Jazz Hot by Lawrence J. Klumas _____ You would think that for such a momentous occasion my memory would be crystal clear. This is not so. I have no personal memory of hearing my Uncle Joey at Le Jazz Hot, that Friday night on … Continue reading ““Uncle Joey Blows Trombone at Le Jazz Hot” – a short story by Lawrence J. Klumas”
...Interview with Bing Crosby biographer Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins, his generation’s most eminent jazz writer and author of the award winning biography Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams: The Early Years, 1903 – 1940, talks with us about his brilliant second book on Crosby, Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940 – 1946. The interview is a fascinating read — a virtual history of Crosby’s life and his impact on America during its most consequential decade. Featuring photos, music and film clips, and information about Giddins’ experience studying Crosby for 25 years.
...About
About Jerry Jazz Musician Founded and published in Portland, Oregon since 1997, Jerry Jazz Musician is a non-commercial site whose mission is to explore the culture of America with, as noted jazz critic Nat Hentoff wrote, “jazz as the centerpiece.” We focus on publishing content geared toward readers with interests in jazz music, its … Continue reading “About”
...“Umbrella: A Play in One Act” — by Emilia Getzinger
Baltimore, Maryland. 1960. DAVID, a white boy in his late teens, is standing in the rain under an umbrella, waiting for the morning school bus. There is a bench behind him. Enter CLARE, a black girl his age.
CLARE
It’s so cold.
Long pause. DAVID is uncomfortable.
CLARE
Would you mind sharing your umbrella?
...“Lay Out” — a short story by Barnaby Hazen
You’ve played this gig at the Tennyson Lodge at least a hundred times by now you figure—three years times twice a week, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You just took a solo and now The Kid is thumping on his oversized instrument, oversized by comparison to his body. He’s a five-foot-nothing of a chubby student bassist having joined the quartet two weeks prior. His dark, stylishly teased hair is stuck in place by product, his eyes just barely open and he rocks left to right in a manner offensive to you for some reason.
You don’t need a reason. You’ve been doing this long enough to call it like you see it and The Kid is nothing more than a vaguely promising hack. You might want to talk to him on break, get a better idea where his head is at, but meanwhile he’s wiggling around and you kind of hope he gets caught under a
...“Blue Venus” — a short story by Rhonda Zimlich
Gas lamps lined the street lifting their warmth out into the world to stave off the night. Their flickering orange reflected in the puddles along the curb and the cobble still shiny with rain long gone. A storm had passed. Leaves now settled in clumps along the gutters and at the feet of a slumped musician folded forward on a stoop. The curve of his instrument’s dark case towered above him, concealing an elegant bass within.
Brownstones framed the scene extending stoops from hidden entryways. A newspaper fat with rain hung over a wrought-iron rail, the upside-down words “Congress Overrides Veto of Taft-Hartley” visible even in the obscurity of predawn. A five-and-dime, closed for business until morning, hosted a shadowy window display advertising dry shampoo and
...“Silent Soundtrack” — a short story by Bari Lynn Hein
Chris Chisholm’s suit jacket landed beside his foot in a black pinstriped heap. He studied his fragmented reflection in a mosaic of mirrors, raised his eyebrows and his glass and said, “A toast!”
There was only one other person within view, within earshot. Phil the bartender stood beneath a clock whose hands were both pointed to the number one. “What’re we toasting, Chi Chi?”
Chris opened his mouth to say, “To Reggie!” But what came out were the lyrics of a Led Zeppelin song: “The cup is raised, the toast is made again…” He trailed off, humming, as if he’d forgotten the rest. He hadn’t.
Phil smirked and reinserted a rag into the glass he’d been drying. “Thanks a lot. Now I’ll have that love song stuck in my
...
A true jazz story — “The Sober Years” by Robert Hecht
From a small balcony above the stage of the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, I’m looking down on the jazz duo of bassist Red Mitchell and pianist Roger Kellaway, while tapping my foot to the earthy, swinging beat they are laying down.
It’s a Sunday afternoon in 1992 at this unique venue. The recital hall is part of a house originally built by the famed architect Bernard Maybeck in the early twentieth century. (Maybeck designed the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, along with many other notable buildings in that city.) The hall accommodates only about 50 people, and it’s a warm, redwood-paneled room with beautiful leaded glass windows on three sides. It actually feels a lot like being in a little chapel—but the religion being worshipped here is that of acoustic jazz, primarily of the pianistic variety.
For several years now, ‘The Maybeck’ as it’s familiarly called, has hosted a who’s-who of
...“The Blues Museum” — a short story by Jay Franzel
Camp looked through glass doors and across the shoulderless highway. A patch of grass across the road was covered with white trailers washed clean by the rain. He stared out a side window at the brown back of a gas station. A red and yellow sign, mounted so high he had to twist his neck to see it, seemed like it should have been turning but sat still against a gray sky.
What do you find in a bus station? Long waits under dirty fluorescents, grimy floor and seats, gloom on scattered faces. Soup, coffee and candy vending machines. If someone could gather it up, all the pieces a bus station’s handed down through the years, you could start a museum. You could cover the walls with black and white photos, pictures of a million people. Pick out any one person, nobody special, just someone with some
...“No Hiding Place” — a short story by Chris LaMay-West
Seen from above, the motion probably exhibited some coherence. Like how the particles on the surface of a liquid jiggled around each other. What did they call it? Brownian motion. Seen from a distance, the mass of people no doubt also swirled in patterns that had a great deal of regularity. Was there perhaps even a meaning in the group activity, a secret swaying cadence that couldn’t be discerned just from watching the constituent parts?
Carl found how he engaged in metaphysical speculations when in these situations distressing.
But God, you had to do something.
Or else this dance club, The Edge of The World, the apotheosis of all that he had come to hate during this year and a half spent in
...“The Launch” — a short story by Amy Tagle
“How dare you play it like that!”
I look up from my sight-reading piece, certain I had correctly executed all of the rhythms and notes, all of the articulations and embellishments. My questioning eyes found a passionate face, lined with wrinkles that were now quivering in angst.
“I don’t care if you play a couple wrong notes here and there, but to play it so flat like that… so dull… that is inexcusable.”
“Play it again.”
I started again, trying to sense the life behind the ink, and I felt like the blind fool who
...A collection of poetry celebrating love and jazz
In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, I recently invited many of our contributing poets to submit work that combines the themes of jazz music and love, with the result being a collection of voices expressing their own contributions to the language of love…
Dozens of writers submitted over 100 poems, and the best of the submissions — 29 poems by 18 poets — are found on the following 12 pages. Advance through the selections by utilizing the page monitor at the bottom of each page.
Many thanks to everyone who submitted their work.
JJM
...Jazz poetry by Steven Dalachinsky, Michael L. Newell, John Stupp, Ron Kolm, and Freddington
A wealth of excellent poetry has been submitted recently. Poems by Steven Dalachinsky, Michael L. Newell, John Stupp, Ron Kolm, and Freddington are examples…
...“Lulu and Me” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
The winter I ran away, I moved into a garret in Provincetown, where I wrote poetry under the light of a candle far into the wee hours. Out my window, two stories up, I could see snow glistening on slanted rooftops that led like an uneven staircase to the bay. Below me, a twisted narrow path led to Commercial Street, peaceful and stark as an unwritten page. It was 1973 and I had run to the end of the world as I knew it to find freedom.
I knew Provincetown from spending summers with my dad and Grandma Tess in her cottage in Truro. It seemed she’d lived most of her life since Grandpa’s passing as a beachcomber. I liked following behind her when we collected
...
“Bird Lives” — a memory of Charlie Parker’s Kansas City, by Robert Hecht
The night I truly ‘got’ the shining genius of Charlie Parker I was in my girlfriend’s apartment on the Lower East Side. The year was 1961. I was nineteen, she was much older and hipper, and had turned me on not only to some great music but to getting high as well. She had all the essential jazz records, including the one on the turntable that night. It was The Fabulous Bird, on the old Jazztone label, consisting of reissues of some of Bird’s phenomenal 1947 Dial sessions. She had a very low-fi stereo—I can still see the nickel she had scotch-taped to the tone arm to keep it in the grooves. But the fidelity didn’t matter, in part at least because this evening I had just smoked a
...“Icarus” — a short story by Ian MacAgy
Near the end of high school I thought myself sophisticated, a fan of Pink Floyd and King Crimson and Kevin Ayers, but at a Weather Report Concert in 1972 I had a nearly religious conversion. It was as though a stranger had run up to me and said, “hold this for minute” and ran off. Then the music exploded. I had never heard anything like this. Everything changed.
It was as though I grew hair in secret places and a new appendage. I became a different creature. After that night few of my suburban DC white friends’ guitar and lyrics-oriented ears could hear what mine could; the joy and heartbreak in this unfamiliar and ebonic timbre, this canvas painted in horn, acoustic bass, and polyrhythm; this blues, this brokenness, this homesickness.
There it was, though, for anyone who had ears for it—there, in the absence of verse, in the uncertainty and unpredictability of lengthy solos, in the timelessness of power beyond the moment from which
...“Improv” — a short story by Lorna Wood
This was all her fault, Sarah thought, as she watched the Victory Lounge clear out. She should have known Branchville wasn’t ready for improv jazz. But the bass player, Tommy Williams, had been so supportive after the workshop with the graduate wind students. Sarah had gotten so interested in the group’s ideas about jazz and improvising that she had gone straight to the practice room after the workshop and found their website. Earbuds in both ears, she was improvising to one of the rhythmic bass tracks there when she happened to raise the bell of her clarinet on a long high note the way she’d seen the quartet’s wind players do, and there was Tommy knocking on the door.
He had been so just what a jazz bass player from Chicago should be, Sarah thought, with his dusky skin and his smoky voice, and his rakish fedora tipped over one eye. And at the same time he had been so genuinely
...“One Suitcase” — a short story by Wayne Cresser
Henry Bell wished the actress on the TV interview show wouldn’t smile so much. Most show folk, he thought, were not memorable. They were things, as he had written in one of his songs, made on the cheap from neon and crepe. Sometimes he believed it too. Then he’d remind himself that human beings wrote all kinds of wonderful tunes, like “The Wind” — the number that had made his mind reel when he was very young and made him think he could write songs.
“The Wind” was eight, maybe nine, minutes of continuous jamming colored in with jazzy chords, an understated vocal and poetry. As a kid, listening to Dick Summer’s Subway show late at night on his transistor radio, stuck under the pillow to muzzle its volume, he thought he could trek into “The Wind” and the journey through its changes would be endless.
Now, nearly forty, he wasn’t a kid anymore, and jazz-inflected rock music wasn’t his thing. At some point too, he’d decided that Circus Maximus was a pretty dumb name for a
...“Voodoo Run” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
Allie drove her taxi with a smart ass attitude, smacking gum ceaselessly, and wore a Yankees cap backwards on her head on the job, even though she’d never watched a baseball game in her life, didn’t even like the game. Her dad had named her after a pitcher who’d won five straight World Series and Allie was always grateful that pitcher hadn’t been named Lefty or something like that.
Allie’s father had been the true baseball fan and Allie wore his cap in his memory. His real gift to her was love of music, jazz in particular. In her cab, she listened to WBGO, 88.3, remembering times she hung out with her dad in the garage listening to Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, experiments in sound, beautiful chaos while he fixed things. The garage was Bert’s space and his peace, or rather, the music was, and the smoke and silence that rose between them accentuated this. Whenever the strangers she drove around asked about her father, Allie always told them, “He went the way of the Marlboro man.” Cancer.
It surprised people to hear that she, a Millennial should enjoy jazz. “Jazz was like my Gerber food,” she liked to say. As a teen she dug hip hop enough to explore its fusion with jazz, but the fusion didn’t
...“Foolish Love” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
That winter we lived among mice in the Berkshires, in a little cabin set not far from a large white clapboard house that belonged to the owner Betty, who was a widow. Two steps up to the cabin did nothing to keep the mice away. Their constant tweaking and bustle made me feel I was living in an indoor forest. Betty, who was a nice old lady, warned us. “You’ll never be able to keep the mice out. If you can stand them, the place is yours.”
We had come up to the Berkshires figuring we might have to rough it, but had no idea. Van and I had been together about two years then. The summer before we had been married on a beach in
...
“Born With It” — a story by Rod Martinez
Do you remember growing up and always running into that one kid that just could do it all? Or at least did something better than you that you just wished you could do? It could have been art, sports, holding his breath under water – whatever it was it seemed it was a natural gift for him, like he was born with it. Who didn’t wish he or she was “born with it”?
During my childhood, I was always told I was special. Sure we all hear that growing up, and each one of us believes it. No one could make a bed as well as you, no one could
...“All Aboard” — a short story by Susandale
The dank and chilly hall echoed with a Marksmen rehearsal taking place. Lea and her spanking-new group rehearsed their music on a stage bordered by tables holding overturned chairs. And as David sat unnoticed in the dark hall, Lea’s caramel voice melted to run down the walls, and warm the empty pockets in his heart.
*Daydreams, I’ve got daydreams galore.
Cigarette ashes, there they go on the floor.”
Scooting around, he wrestled with the chair’s wooden slats and wobbly legs versus his long limbs.
And while Lea was singing the third stanza, *”Let them laugh, let them frown … “ David was plotting his exit from the trailer. He was so engrossed with his plans that he didn’t notice the
...“Storyville” — a short story by Matthew Peel
Jeffrey’s fingers hovered inches above the ivory. His heart pounded. The oak bench creaked as he leaned forward, only the toes of his scuffed leather shoes making contact with the floor. The hand-written notes on the page in front of him bounced up and down with every panting breath. He recognized most of the squiggles and lines cascading up and down the staff, but he couldn’t read a single word that surrounded them. Ms. Joetta’s voice echoed in his head, reverberated out of the hole in his threadbare fedora. Play, son. The first chance you get, and don’t look back. He could feel lightning in his fingers, almost driving him past the fear deep in his
...On Nat Hentoff
I am saddened to read of the passing of journalist Nat Hentoff, who died yesterday at the age of 91. Hentoff’s work was published by the Village Voice for 50 years, and was also frequently found in the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, and Jazz Times. He was also editor of Downbeat during the mid-1950’s. There are many obituaries available to read about Nat and his career – including Robert McFaddin’s in today’s New York Times.
As I began publishing original content on Jerry Jazz Musician in 1999, I had the privilege of having my site embraced by the three most prominent jazz writers of the time, Gary Giddins, Stanley Crouch, and Nat Hentoff. All three of them got involved in Jerry Jazz Musician in their own way.
Giddins — who I was able to catch up with during a recent trip I took to New York — and I developed an interview series called
...“Like a Pigeon in the Park” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
“What a shame,” people always said whenever they saw the two of them, Jeremy and Jade. What a shame the beauty of the boy had escaped the girl, who had her mother’s small oval face and father’s prominent nose and small dark eyes that were filled with a peculiar, almost unnatural intensity. “Such a shame,” relatives observed unabashedly at family gatherings. The remaining phrase that hung in air unspoken was, ”that she isn’t the beautiful one. “
To herself in the mirror, Jade’s own face and visage seemed fine, just a part of her, not even all that consequential. Didn’t brains and character matter more? She was striking much in the way Zelda Fitzgerald had been—a beauty you could not capture in photographs, more in movement, gesture, articulation. Somewhere, not far from the small, provincial town where Jade lived, where people stared at you if you did not fit a mold, there were people like her who were different and proud of their differences and she looked forward to meeting them one day. In the meantime, she would have to deal with challenges.
Growing up, many of them had to do with her brother, who was two years older. Although Jade garnered high marks in school, not much was made of it so
...“Requiem For Ishmael” — a short story by Jeanine DeHoney
There had to be hundreds of people standing in the rain, waiting to get into Misty’s Supper Club on Lenox Avenue for my brother Ishmael’s memorial. I swallowed the lump of grief in the back of my throat and surveyed the crowd, fans and protégé’s of his music, as varied as a pot of jambalaya.
Some people recognized me from seeing
...“Our Perspective” – a short story by Joy Bergman
“I don’t know…I still don’t see it.” I grumble to myself, sloping my head down in a perfectly coordinated position with the rest of my body. Slope. Coordinated. It all just makes me think of math. Math. “That’s it,” I tell myself silently, still looking around the empty halls, though no one is there. I sigh. I suppose it may not really be a fact, but everyone knows that statistically minded people, like me, see numbers. But people like her – well, I guess they see what I’m looking at. “No,” I run a hand through my gelled hair. She would see it all differently. What did she say again? I check my phone and then casually hold up what she said it would look like to the picture. “A black parked car with white windows near the dock in a blazing sunlight overlooking the ocean.” I focus on the
...“Louisiana Pearl” — a short story by Bokerah Brumley
The faraway trumpet’s trill drifted into the home we shared. The tune stirred the heavy air. It should have been spring weather, but a heatwave had taken over our parish. It made the air heavy and made us languid during the days.
Mama hummed along with the hand-me-down song while she worked, stirring the wash or cooking supper or mixing herbs. Her mama taught her to hear it, same as she taught me. It was as constant as the wind.
Mama’s gray strands peeked from beneath a dark blue kerchief, the majority braided then twirled in an age-thinned bun. She didn’t know how old she was. Best she could figure, she was
...“Intergalactic Language” — a short story by James E. Guin
I was playing my weekly gig at Café Reinhardt when Bella, one of the waitresses, whispered in my ear, “They want you out back.”
She had disturbed me from a zone. I had been through all of my arrangements and was improving on the chords to “Minor Swing.”
“They?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. Straight to the point, no small talk, Bella was my kind of gal. In the second it took to place my guitar on my guitar stand a million thoughts circled around in my mind. Did Chad, the drummer, want to borrow money again? Had the musician’s union caught on to the fact I wasn’t paying my dues? Another one of the agent Jimmy’s scams? Groupies? Oh yeah, jazz musicians haven’t had groupies under the age of forty-five since the 1940s.
I stood up, and as Bella was strolling to a table near the front door, she said, “Take your guitar.”
Ah, nothing complicated just someone wanting to test out my chops before a gig. People can be peculiar when it comes to inviting musicians into their home. They want to meet you, form a relationship, and get the feel for
...Short Fiction Contest winning story #42 — “Playing for Tips,” by Kevin Bennett
It was a persistent and gentle nudge—always was. He knew who was prodding him and what she would say without turning, so he continued to run his fingers up and down the keys—there was a major seventh followed by a fifth interval; repeat several times, arpeggiate, transpose—
“Sir? I’m sorry sir—”
The nudging again. He spoke as if distracted—which he was: “Yes?”
“Some of the people are trying to work,” she said.
“Have them come and talk to me,” he replied, and continued to play.
The barista was put-off for a moment, but she jostled him again. “If you could just play a little quieter—”
The words were like daggers. They weren’t new, they weren’t original, and they brought hate like bile to his mind and body; coursing in and throughout him like a thousand
...“The Horn: Whispers of eternity in F major” — a short story by Mi West
Some lives turn out healthy and long, some more fulfilled than long. Bro was sick and much older. He passed away last spring, so his voice sounds both new and familiar to me, as it whispers,
“Go to my place and visit my old room.”
“Why?”
“I’ll let you know.”
An ascending airliner outside wakes me up, and I realize I was dreaming. I’m still yawning as I look up a weekend bus, but the online timetable shows more blanks than connections.
It’s dry September weather, so I grab my key to his door, fill up my water bottle, and make this a bike trip in heat haze instead, like the
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #40 — “The Blues Museum,” by Jay Franzel
Camp looked through glass doors and across the shoulderless highway. A patch of grass across the road was covered with white trailers washed clean by the rain. He stared out a side window at the brown back of a gas station. A red and yellow sign, mounted so high he had to twist his neck to see it, seemed like it should have been turning but sat still against a gray sky.
What do you find in a bus station? Long waits under dirty fluorescents, grimy floor and seats, gloom on scattered faces. Soup, coffee and candy vending machines. If someone could gather it up, all the pieces a bus station’s handed down through the years, you could start a museum. You could cover the walls with
...“Woman Plays Horn” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
She was born into a family of musicians. Her father had played bass in a jazz band and traveled with Dizzy until an accident had cost him his arm and his career. Getting out of a limousine that had stalled on the highway en route to a gig in Chicago, he opened the car door to get out at the wrong time, just as a truck was passing.
“C’est la vie” he always said about that, as if it meant something. He had to go on, a musician without a limb, without his instrument, because he was a man and had children and a legacy to uphold through them, but inside, where nothing touched him, he felt as torn as his shoulder had been that night. Something had shifted. Only his wife, his gentle, meek and attendant wife who saw him sitting at the edge of their bed each night head bowed counting his blessings, all but one, only she knew what
...“Dizzy Moods” — a short story by Daniel Alvarado
Three cars honked almost in union. Then successively, each a blare in order, one two three, then two three one three four with the line through, beat ripitum boom, ba, riptum boom, now hear it a little faster, just a little faster, lips to instrument, trumpet, three valves, infinite notes to jot to sing to blow, perched lips, fat cheeks, cosmic energy of the union, the intertwined with keys of ivory.
Marcus Breck was recalling stepping on stage the first time. Nervousness rising from toes to a tingling head. Dry mouth, the initial silence of the room that precedes the beginning of
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #38 — “Till’s Piano Lesson,” by Don Dewey
New Short Fiction Award
Three times a year, we award a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work.
Don Dewey of Jamaica, New York is the winner of the 38th Jerry Jazz Musician New Short Fiction Award, announced and published for the first time on March 5, 2015.
Till’s Piano Lesson
by
Don Dewey
_______________________________
“You’re early, Till. I told you never come early.”
“Sorry. I guess my watch is off.”
“Buy a new one.”
Klein refit the crutches under his armpits and swung his crabbed legs back toward the studio, leaving Till to enter the living room for himself. Till didn’t like living rooms. He thought them banal in their predictable assembly of tables, chairs, lamps, and rugs. What he wanted to see someday was a living room with people who dropped dead as soon as they put a foot outside it. Living rooms should have been what they claimed to be.
Klein’s pupil in the studio seemed to be trying to erase his presence through sheer aggression. Had Mozart started that way? Till didn’t think so.
...“HEAT” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
1. Savoy Blues
Mercies would have put blues on the menu if it could, but that was a province of the kitchen, where I worked four and a half months too many. I heard actual blues music and caught a gust of air conditioning whenever I snuck through the dining area early in my shift to use the guest bathroom before customers arrived, passing the line of booths next to the orange and black walls on which hung colorful modern paintings of jazz musicians and the
...“Broad Street” — a short story by Arya Jenkins
The publication of Arya Jenkins’ “Broad Street” is the fourth in a series of short stories she has been commissioned to write for Jerry Jazz Musician. For information about her column, please see our September 12 “Letter From the Publisher.”
For Ms. Jenkins’ introduction to her work, read “Coming to Jazz.”
__________
The day I moved into Broad Street, the roiling waters of the Long Island Sound burst over sea walls along the Connecticut coast from New Haven to Greenwich, flooding Bridgeport so badly, a poor, emotionally disturbed man actually drowned in a sewer. At Seaside Park, water rushed across two parking lots, swirled around a few skimpy trees and headed straight for the historic set of row houses that included my basement apartment. It was early December as I arrived, two knapsacks in tow, only to find my new landlady Rosie and my neighbor Alice knee-deep in galoshes in muck, hauling out my furniture.
A week earlier, Alice had lured me with, “There’s a vacancy next door and it’s yours. Everybody’s an artist here. You belong.” I had felt that the studio with its cozy rooms
...Louis Armstrong – the genesis of his “crossover” appeal
Breaking into the white market without losing his African-American vernacular identity was an amazing achievement for Louis Armstrong — particularly during his era. I talk about this in an excerpt from my recent interview with Thomas Brothers, author of Louis Armstrong: Master Of Modernism.
__________
JJM In the winter of 1925 – 26, while making a name for himself at classy venues like the Dreamland Café and the Vendome Theater, Armstrong was also extending his reputation thanks to the Hot Five series on OKeh Records. The recordings sold in Chicago, but the main target audience was African Americans in the Deep South, where “race records” were immensely popular. What was OKeh’s marketing strategy for this series?
TB Yes, they certainly sold in Chicago, and they sold in all northern cities where there were African-American communities from the Great Migration. The target of these “race records” was of course to appeal to the African-American mass audience, and to do so in a low-budget way. They were not interested in paying musicians any royalties – they would get a flat fee
...Monday Jazz Quiz #38
This trumpeter was the spark plug in Gene Krupa’s band, and was known as “Little Jazz”. Who is he?
Dizzy Gillespie
Roy Eldridge
Fats Navarro
Chet Baker
Shorty Rogers
Conte Condoli
Bunny Berigan
Jonah Jones
...The Beatles — post Ed Sullivan appearance critical reviews, a Charles Mingus rant, and perspective
With the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ appearance on Ed Sullivan prominently in the news this past week, it is interesting (and entertaining) to revisit some of the critical perspectives of their music following the performance.
On February 10, 1964, Theodore Strongin, music critic for the New York Times (who Wikipedia describes as a “champion of new music”) wrote that “The Beatles’ vocal quality can be described as hoarsely incoherent, with the minimal enunciation necessary to communicate the schematic texts.” Three days later, acknowledging the phenomenon that hit our shores, George Dixon of the Washington Post wrote, “Just thinking about the Beatles seems to induce mental disturbance. They have a commonplace, rather dull act that hardly seems to merit mentioning, yet people hereabouts have mentioned scarcely anything else for a couple of days.”
Months later, William F. Buckley, the era’s chief conservative voice and founder of the National Review got into the act, writing
...Interview with Marc Myers, author of Why Jazz Happened
Marc Myers is a busy guy…In addition to being a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal (where he writes about jazz, rock, and other culture), he also posts daily on his award-winning blog Jazz Wax and travels around the world promoting his pursuits. Perhaps his most important contribution is his book Why Jazz Happened, described by his publisher (University of California Press) as “the first comprehensive social history of jazz.” Myers’ perspective is fresh and thorough and wonderfully entertaining. For those who love the history of this music, it should be on your night table.
I recently interviewed Myers about his book, which he took the time to converse in great detail about — topics like how the G.I. Bill altered the direction of jazz; the advent of the extended jazz solo that came with the introduction of the LP; and how the suburbanization of Southern California ushered in a new harmony-rich jazz style in contrast to the music played in urban markets. It is a great read!
What follows is part conversation/part history class about Myers’ fascinating cultural study of why, in his opinion, “jazz happened.”
...Interview with Stanley Crouch, author of Kansas City Lightning: The Life and Times of Charlie Parker
Described by the New York Times as a “bebop Beowulf,” Stanley Crouch’s Kansas City Lightning: The Life and Times of Charlie Parker is a love song to the life and times of Bird, one of jazz music’s most critically important figures. Mr. Crouch, himself an essential participant in both contemporary criticism and in the delivery of live performance (through his work with Jazz at Lincoln Center), discusses his long-anticipated biography with Jerry Jazz Musician in a recently conducted interview.
...“The Bluest Train,” a short story by Arya Jenkins
My friend Carl lived in a house full of ghosts with an evil sonofabitch brother who stole his shit, I mean all of it. But Carl himself, man, Carl was good as gold. He would give you the shirt off his back–everything, and did.
I moved in with my ex-old lady across the street from him in the late 80s when I was drying out and desperate for change. Marcy took me in, even after I had been such a dick. She knew it was the booze made me sleep around, and even though she kicked my drunken ass out on the curb, she took me in once she saw I was sober and clean. By then, she was already shacked up with a polite, fat, slob who was everything I wasn’t or would ever be.
Homestead Avenue, where we lived, was a pleasant street in a nice section of Fairfield called Black Rock, near the water. At the time, people were starting to navigate to the hood, although since then real estate prices have dropped due to the many storms–there have been too many storms in the area, man. But because of Black Rock’s proximity to the sound, which is like the sea, artists and strange people gravitate there.
I noticed Carl right off the bat. You couldn’t help but see him sitting on his porch with his supersized feet, head and limbs, a Franken monster. So I crossed the street one day to meet my neighbor, who looked a sorry sight–blackish long hair
...Interview with Guthrie Ramsey, author of The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop
Bud Powell was not only one of the greatest bebop pianists of all time, he stands as one of the twentieth century’s most dynamic and fiercely adventurous musical minds. His expansive musicianship, riveting performances, and inventive compositions expanded the bebop idiom and pushed jazz musicians of all stripes to higher standards of performance. Yet Powell remains one of American music’s most misunderstood figures, and the story of his exceptional talent is often overshadowed by his history of alcohol abuse, mental instability, and brutalization at the hands of white authorities.
...On the Influence of Albert Murray
One of my more interesting experiences as publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician was producing a series of interviews that focused on the work of the novelist Ralph Ellison. Invisible Man was a favorite novel of mine as a young man, but it wasn’t until I reread it in the 1990’s before I began to understand the enormity of its cultural significance. At that time, Ellison’s second (and unfinished) novel Juneteenth was being published, and a variety of books on Ellison were released at the same time – among them Living with Music, a collection of Ellison’s writings on jazz music edited by Columbia University scholar Robert O’Meally, and Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.
...
Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.
...
Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
“The piano ain’t got no wrong notes!” So ranted Thelonious Sphere Monk, who proved his point every time he sat down at the keyboard. His angular melodies and dissonant harmonies shook the jazz world to its foundations, ushering in the birth of “bebop” and establishing Monk as one of America’s greatest composers. Yet throughout much of his life, his musical contribution took a backseat to tales of his reputed behavior. Writers tended to obsess over Monk’s hats or his proclivity to dance on stage. To his fans, he was the ultimate hipster; to his detractors, he was temperamental, eccentric, taciturn, or childlike. But these labels tell us little about the man or his music.
...Poetry by Arlene Corwin
So Much To Do, So Little Time To Do It In
For Michel Petrucciani
A little man, glass bones disease.
A la Lautrec: two prodigies.
At thirty-six his lungs gave out.
We cried, we would not be consoled.
Poetry by Ed Coletti
Coltrane, Dig?
I suppose what it is with trane and me is
he takes all the time he wants to take
even outside of time, sidereal time,
stardust time, bessie blue time,
Poetry by Michael Keshigian
BURGLAR
Two days ago
the sun caught me stealing
the cardinal’s song
to construct a melody,
demanded restitution,
then reported me
to Mother Nature
Poetry by John Kaniecki
Tommy
Tommy sweeps the floor
Content at his task
Is it wrong to ask
For a little more
A temporary worker at minimum wage
Not exactly where you’d expect to find
Poetry by CEE
Hudson and Landry 45, 1973 (drunks is funny)
Bowling alley lounge
Liquor license
We’re served our burgers
Served our cokes
We laugh and horse
Enough to be warned
We’re not one-tenth as loud as the adults
We also did not vanquish Hitler,
Precious quarters, Vegas addict,
New Short Fiction Contest-winning story #31: “Night Cafe,” by Joe DiBuduo
When my doctor released me from the asylum in Saint-Remy, he warned me to stay away from absinthe or my hallucinations would worsen. I didn’t tell him I had no need for absinthe to hallucinate. I often had company, even when there wasn’t anyone with me.
I’d spent some of my time in the asylum playing billiards. Everyone assured me that I was a natural, the best player they’d ever seen. Maybe, instead of painting, I’d play billiards for a living. As soon as I walked past the gates of the asylum,
...Poetry by Robert L. Martin
Scales
My fingers flying like the wind
Dexterous and all so disciplined
From the bottom to the top and back
In a flash and right on track
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #29: “Inspiration,” by Gabriella Costa
The garden by the sea is just beginning to grow into itself. Its green has started to spill out over the fence and tumble onto the walk that lines the side of the shore house. The weather is warming, and combined with the rich soil of the ground, the plants reap the favor of the earth, led to grow lush and vibrant across the expanse. The tendrils of the cucumbers have travelled far up their trellises, continuing to curl out into the air, while the bushes of basil nearby explode into a happy, bright leafed green.
...
Alyn Shipton, author of Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway
Clad in white tie and tails, dancing and scatting his way through the “Hi-de-ho” chorus of “Minnie the Moocher,” Cab Calloway exuded a sly charm and sophistication that endeared him to legions of fans.
In Hi-de-ho, author Alyn Shipton offers the first full-length biography of Cab Calloway, whose vocal theatrics and flamboyant stage presence made him one of the highest-earning African American bandleaders. Shipton sheds new light on Calloway’s life and career, explaining how he traversed racial and social boundaries to become one of the country’s most beloved entertainers.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #26: “The Improvisational Distance,” by J. A. Reynolds
Everyone is afraid to knock on the door when they hear the trumpet behind it. A closed door is like an On Air sign or a red light outside a dark room. Still, they have to talk to him. Sonny is nowhere to be found. And Thibodeau is too busy eye-fucking the women at the hotel bar to practice. And Baldwin is just tired.
They wait for a lull, a break. Three minutes waiting outside the door, and it comes. They knock soft, one of those we didn’t want to have to bother you but didn’t see any other recourse knocks; a musician has a way of using sound, its timbre, its breadth, to say everything. Knocking is no different.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #25: “Fahrenheit,” by Danny C. Knestaut
A trumpet squealed in the hospital halls. The note, like a brass rabbit, zipped past room 334. Moments later Mr. Fahrenheit watched two orderlies jog past the open door: not too fast, not real slow. It appeared to be the speed of indicated hurry. A few more notes from the trumpet whizzed down the hall before they too slowed to a jog, and then drew themselves out into expressions of gold, blue, green then stopped before Mr. Fahrenheit could call the name of the song to mind. The next few notes he tapped out on the back of the hand he held in his own. His wife did not respond. Even he had begun to forget to expect a response. She inhaled. She exhaled. The eyes beneath her blue lids quivered and shimmered.
...Short Fiction Contest-winner #24: “Alone: A Love Story,” by Abby Cummins
When I was ten, I was in a movie. It was a very famous movie. It ran in theaters for over a month, bringing in more and more revenue for the production company. When it finally came out on VHS (it was old enough that it was a tape, with reels inside it), the film grossed in the millions. The director was hailed as “visionary”, the actors as “superb”. The film itself became famous for having been one of the best horror movies of the year (1992). Critics said that it had “truly ushered in a new era of horror, one in which the innocent and benign murder recklessly”. The review that held these words was taped to my wall, for I’d been mentioned by name, praised, and it was a very well known newspaper, indeed. “Sharon Ellis, a real child actor who will no doubt amount to something great, gives a phenomenal debut performance. Her emotion and sensual expression are truly remarkable for such a young girl so new to the scene.” I used to read those words, over and over again, and imagine the critic who had written them watching me on the big screen before them.
...
James Gavin, author of Stormy Weather: the Life of Lena Horne
Lena Horne biographer James Gavin discusses the challenging yet inspiring life of one of the 20th century’s most revered entertainers
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #21: “Parker’s Mood,” by Leland Thoburn
In the fall of 1991 I believed I would be the next Charlie Parker. Few of the bands on campus had even heard of Bird, and the few that had did not want a flute player. This did not deter me. I was out on the commons at UCLA riffing on “Confirmation” when Nadine found me.
“That makes my nipples hard.” She smiled.
I lowered my flute and stared. She was wearing a man’s dress shirt, as if she’d spent the night away. The shirt did little to hide the truth of her statement. But that wasn’t what got my attention. It was her face. She had the knack of smiling with her whole face – eyes, cheeks, lips, nose. Everything got into the act.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #19: “Offkey” by Kate Robinson
If Mom and Dad had heard about my friend Benny and all that jazz from me, they’d have handled it. But when my fifth grade teacher ratted on us, it became a big, fat deal. Mom had to meet me in the front office after school and we silently trudged back to my classroom, both taking refuge in our own mental world.
Mrs. Drake motioned us to identical chairs in front of her desk. “I don’t want to alarm you. This isn’t an emergency, Mrs. McKenzie.” She forced her goosy face into a sympathetic mask. “Cathy’s not a problem child by any means.”
Mom’s shoulders relaxed under her starched cotton housedress, but her hands clutched the white gloves and tooled leather pocketbook positioned mid-lap.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #18: “The Notes,” by Brian Greene
The first of my notes read I’M IN A STATE OF DISBELIEF. I left this one on top of a counter at a place where many of the thousands of people who worked in the same building as I did went to get their coffees and pastries in the morning.
The second note went AN ANGEL GOT IN BED WITH ME LAST NIGHT — OR MAYBE IT WASN’T AN ANGEL. I taped this one to the inside of the door of one of the stalls in the public bathroom of the same building.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #16: “Cipher,” by Colleen Anderson
It had been warm all day, the type of day where the heavy air presses into you and makes it hard to move. It didn’t help that her shift had been spent calling customers and listening to endless streams of why they couldn’t make their hydro payments. And they would yell, swear at her as if she had caused their loss of job, their alcoholism, their way of life. She absorbed it all, the words sinking through the membrane in her ear and resonating within the membrane of her mind long after the calls had stopped.
If there’d been a breeze, or a slight coolness to the air, then those words could have lifted from her. They heated her, churning and boiling within so that by the time she got the apartment door open her flesh looked glossy with the sweat.
...
The Ralph Ellison Project — Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography
Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellisons strange inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. In Ralph Ellison: A Biography, Arnold Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary heritage.
...
Conversations with Gary Giddins: on his book, Natural Selection
Long recognized as America’s most brilliant jazz writer, the winner of many major awards — including the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award — and author of a highly popular biography of Bing Crosby, Gary Giddins has also produced a wide range of stimulating and original cultural criticism in other fields. With Natural Selection, he brings together the best of these previously uncollected essays, including a few written expressly for this volume.
...An Online Story of Jazz in New Orleans – Chapter 5
An Online Story of Jazz in New Orleans With an introduction by Nat Hentoff __________ Featuring the complete text of chapters 1 – 5 from Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya: The Story of Jazz As Told By the Men Who Made It, a 1955 book by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff (Published with the consent … Continue reading “An Online Story of Jazz in New Orleans – Chapter 5”
...Dunstan Prial, author of The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music
John Hammond is one of the most charismatic figures in American music, a man who put on record much of the music we cherish today. A pioneering producer and talent spotter, Hammond discovered and championed some of the most gifted musicians of early jazz — Billie Holliday, Count Basie, Charlie Christian, Benny Goodman — and staged the legendary “From Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall in 1939, which established jazz as America’s indigenous music. Then as jazz gave way to pop and rock Hammond repeated the trick, discovering Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in his life’s extraordinary second act.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #13: “Mystery in C Minor,” by Bruce Golden
January 30, 1946 — Allied Headquarters, Paris, France
“What is it, Captain? I’m very busy.”
“Sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but you said you wanted a report as soon as I completed my investigation.”
Colonel Washburn searched his desk muttering, “Yes, yes. I’ll read your report as soon as you’ve filed it.”
...
Rick Coleman, author of Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll
While many think of Elvis Presley as rock n rolls driving force, the truth is that Fats Domino, whose records have sold more than 100 million copies, was the first to put it on the map with such hits as Aint That a Shame and Blueberry Hill.
In Blue Monday, acclaimed R&B scholar Rick Coleman draws on a multitude of new interviews with Fats Domino and many other early musical legends to create a definitive biography of not just an extraordinary man but also a unique time and place: New Orleans at the birth of rock n roll.
...Reminiscing in Tempo: Memories and Opinion/Volume Six: What are the five greatest albums (LP or CD) of all time?
“Reminiscing in Tempo” is part of a continuing effort to provide Jerry Jazz Musician readers with unique forms of “edu-tainment.” As often as possible, we pose one question via e mail to a small number of prominent and diverse people. The question is designed to provoke a lively response that will potentially include the memories and/or opinion of those solicited.
What are the five greatest albums (LP or CD) of all time?
Featuring Ahmad Jamal, Ashley Kahn, John Pizzarelli, John Szwed, Nancy Wilson and others…
...Short Story Contest-winning story #11: “Stalking Bella,” by Hope Payson
The whole stalking thing started with the footprints. They were so large that his size twelve’s fit easily into the indents in the snow, and the space between them was so wide that following them forced him into an awkward little step-jump. Large paw prints ran parallel to the human prints. He assumed that they belonged to a dog. What else could they be? Yet, what did he know about the customs or recreational habits of these Northern Maine people? For all he knew they strutted through the pines chatting with bears.
...
“Up From New Orleans: Life Before, During and After Hurricane Katrina” — A conversation with transplanted New Orleans musicians Devin Phillips and Mark DiFlorio
“I’m always wondering,” Louis Armstrong wrote in 1966, “if it would have been best in my life if I’d stayed like I was in New Orleans, having a ball.”
In 1922, Armstrong left his city of New Orleans by choice, boarding a Chicago-bound train in his long underwear, carrying a “little” suitcase with a “few” clothes in it, his cornet, and a trout sandwich packed by mother Mayann.
In late August of 2005, an unimaginable number of New Orleans residents in the path of an oncoming Hurricane Katrina were left with little choice but to flee the city. One can only assume that few had the luxury of leisurely packing a suitcase, let alone a trout sandwich
...
Peter Levinson, author of Tommy Dorsey: Livin’ in a Great Big Way
No musician evokes the time of the Big Band era more strikingly than Tommy Dorsey (1905 – 1956), whose towering trombone style and smash hits created legions of fans and influenced popular music for decades. Peter Levinson, the author of criticially acclaimed biographies of Harry James and Nelson Riddle, has now written the definitive account of this icon of jazz, drawing on exhaustive new research and scores of interviews with the musicians and others who knew him best.
...Great Encounters #22: Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, and Sam Cooke — the Clay/Sonny Liston fight, Miami, 1964
Excerpted from Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, by Peter Guralnick
Jerry Brandt got them all tickets for the Clay-Liston fight in Miami on February 25. Allen brought his wife, Betty, Sam took Barbara, and J.W. came by himself, with Allen arranging for accommodations at Miami’s resplendent Fountainebleau Hotel. Allen had already registered and was in his room when Sam arrived, only to be told that there had been a mix-up about the reservations. It was not as blatant as Shreveport,
...
Chuck Haddix, author of Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop
There were but four major galaxies in the early jazz universe, and three of them — New Orleans, Chicago, and New York — have been well documented in print. But there has never been a serious history of the fourth, Kansas City, until the recent publication of Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop — A History, by Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix.
...
Ben Green, author of Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters
Before Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, or Michael Jordan — before Magic Johnson and Showtime — the Harlem Globetrotters revolutionized basketball and spread the game around the world. In Spinning the Globe: The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters, author Ben Green tells the story of this extraordinary franchise and iconic American institution.
...
William Kenney, author of Jazz on the River
Just after World War I, the musical style called jazz began a waterborne journey outward from that quintessential haven of romance and decadence, New Orleans. For the first time in any organized way, steam-driven boats left town during the summer months to tramp the Mississippi River, bringing an exotic new music to the rest of the nation. For entrepreneurs promoting jazz, this seemed a promising way to spread northward the exciting sounds of the Crescent City. And the musicians no longer had to wait for folks upriver to make their way down to New Orleans to hear the vibrant rhythms, astonishing improvisations, and new harmonic idioms being created.
...
Conversations with Gary Giddins: on Big Bands
In the final column of his thirty year career as jazz critic of the Village Voice, Gary Giddins wrote, “I’m as besotted with jazz as ever, and expect to write about it till last call, albeit in other formats. Indeed, much in the way being hanged is said to focus the mind, this finale has made me conscious of the columns I never wrote.”
...
Jeffrey Magee, author of Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz: The Uncrowned King of Swing
If Benny Goodman was the “King of Swing,” then Fletcher Henderson was the power behind the throne. Not only did Henderson arrange the music that powered Goodman’s meteoric rise, he also helped launch the careers of Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, among others. In Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz: The Uncrowned King of Swing, Jeffrey Magee offers a fascinating account of this pivotal bandleader, throwing new light on the emergence of modern jazz and the world that created it.
...Great Encounters #13: Why did Louis Armstrong leave Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra in 1925 and return to Chicago?
Excerpted from The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz by Jeffrey Magee.
By the fall of 1925, then, the musical synergy in Henderson’s band had reached unprecedented intensity. Henderson continued to hold court for dancers at the Roseland, reaching thousands of other listeners through its radio wire, and recording for a variety of record labels both with his full orchestra and with selected members of the band as accompanists for blues singers. And there were also continuous bookings in the summer between seasons at the Roseland, large crowds in venues up and down the East Coast, and consistently hyperbolic press coverage.
...Great Encounters #12: The interconnecting paths of heavyweight champions Jack Johnson and Joe Louis
Excerpted from Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson by Geoffrey Ward
Johnson was back in Chicago in the summer of 1934, appearing in Dave Barry’s Garden of Champions, a sort of sideshow at the Century of Progress International Exposition organized by a veteran referee to compete with such attractions as the Midget Village, Sally Rand’s Balloon Dance, and the Aunt Jemima Cabin. For a dollar, children could throw punches at Jack Johnson while he ducked and laughed and popped his eyes. One evening, he fought an exhibition there against Tom Sharkey, whose sparring partner he had briefly been back in 1901. It was supposed to be a nonviolent sparring session,
...
Thomas Webber, author of Flying over 96th Street: Memoir of an East Harlem White Boy
Tommy Webber is nine years old when his father, a founding minister of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, moves the family of six from a spacious apartment in an ivy-covered Gothic-style seminary on New York City’s Upper West Side to a small one in a massive public-housing project on East 102nd Street. But it isn’t the size of the apartment, the architecture of the building, or the unfamiliar streets that make the new surroundings feel so strange. While Tommy’s old neighborhood was overwhelmingly middle class and white, El Barrio is poor and predominantly black and Puerto Rican. In Washington Houses, a complex of over 1,500 apartments, the Webbers are now one of only a small handful of white familes.
...
Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome: A roundtable discussion with Stanley Crouch, Gerald Early and Kitty Margolis
Although it has had its share of detractors, critical acclaim for Stanley Crouch’s first novel, Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome, is quite impressive — particularly among scholars and fellow writers. For example, Susan di Sesa, former Executive Editor of The Modern Library called it “one of the most profound novels in the English language,” while Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Alan McPherson wrote, “In attempting to employ ‘riffs’ to explore the emotional and psychological dimensions of his characters, Stanley Crouch has evolved a new narrative technique.”
Crouch — known primarily as an outspoken New York cultural critic — clearly understands that a serious writer’s role is to provoke his audience with potentially new avenues of thought
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #7: “Inheritance,” Diana Spechler
The workers at Jackson’s favorite record store wear bumble-bee striped tights, black plastic glasses, leather boots that lace straight up their thighs. Jackson’s wearing the purple beret he always wears, with his blond hair sticking out in back, and his cords, and his corduroy jacket that smells like him. It’s April, too warm for corduroy, but Jackson always wears corduroy, along with T-shirts that tell the world he’s been to every blues concert and jazz festival you could think of.
To me, it all sounds the same — jazz, the blues, whatever — it’s all horns, but Jackson’s got two hundred seventeen records — vinyl, he calls them — and a saxophone, too. Clearly, he’s got music in his blood. His dad also plays the saxophone, at bars in Harvard Square, and they kind of look alike, only Jackson’s dad has eyes like power drills that would tear your clothes clean-open if you didn’t look away in time.
...
Our Mother’s War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II author Emily Yellin
Emily Yellin’s Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II is a stunning and unprecedented portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way women participate in American society. It is a long overdue examination that re-creates what American women from all walks of life were doing and thinking, on the home front and abroad.
...
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry author Tim Brooks
Lost Sounds is the first in-depth history of the involvement of African Americans in the earliest years of recording. It examines the first three decades of sound recording in the United States, charting the surprising role black artists played in the period leading up to the Jazz Age.
Applying more than thirty years of scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black artists who recorded commercially in a wide range of genres and provides revealing biographies of some forty of these audio pioneers. Brooks assesses the careers and recordings of George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W.C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, boxing champion Jack Johnson, as well as a host of lesser-known voices.
...“Remembering Dizzy Gillespie,” a conversation with Nat Hentoff and James Moody
Saxophonist James Moody, whose significant achievements include employment in a variety of Gillespie’s best groups, and journalist Nat Hentoff, whose chronicles on jazz during Gillespie’s era were the benchmarks of his craft, remember Dizzy and his remarkable life in a March 19, 2004 Jerry Jazz Musician hosted conversation.
...
Donzaleigh Abernathy, author of Partners to History: Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and the Civil Rights Movement
Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. were inseperable and together helped to establish what would become the modern American Civil Rights Movement. They preached, marched, and were frequently jailed together. Donzaleigh Abernathy, Ralph’s youngest daughter, has written Partners to History as a testament to the courage, strength, and endurance of these men who stirred a nation with their moral fortitude.
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Amy Albany, author of Low Down: jazz, junk and other fairy tales from childhood
Look up pianist Joe Albany in the All Music Guide to Jazz and you will discover that during his career he associated with the likes of Benny Carter, Lester Young, Joe Venuti, Warne Marsh, and even Charlie Parker, and that eight of the albums recorded under his name in the United States and Europe between 1957 and 1982 are still in print. In the short biography accompanying Albany’s critical discography, the writer Scott Yanow touches briefly on his troubled life, his drug abuse, and his many wives, and concludes that given these circumstances, “…it is miraculous that he lived to almost reach 64.”
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #4: “Anacostia,” by Qevin Oji
One. Anacostia lay there. Two. Three. Counting gunshots. Four. Five. He imagined the bullets cutting the sky, wondered how this tradition had begun. Six. The first time he held a gun, fired his first shot, he was six years old. It was on this same night — New Year’s Eve — thirteen years ago, just after midnight. Seven.
* * *
His father’s yellowy, roach-burnt fingertips stretched and folded his hand, his small fingers, barely skilled using a pencil, around the handle and trigger. I’m gonna make you a man. A chill shook his small body. He had never felt anything so cold, not a popsicle fresh from the ice cream truck, not the cold air gushing from inside the fridge onto his face in summer. Not even snow was this cold. When he had finished molding the boy’s hand to the gun, he let go. It fell immediately to Anacostia’s knees. A flat, open palm, smacked the back of his head. You ain’t no bitch. Lift that gun up, boy!
...“Jazz in the Modern World” — a Roundtable discussion with Joshua Redman, Bruce Lundvall and Ben Ratliff
What are the boundaries of the jazz idiom? What is the role of jazz in today’s world? To download or not to download? What is the future of retailing and how does that affect the art of making music? What is the value of recorded music?
As ever, jazz faces an array of questions, certainly more than three people can address in an hour. The hour spent in this particular discussion among men at the top of their respective fields focuses on confronting the challenge of marketing a music filled with nuance and passion to a modern audience conditioned by technology for instant gratification, and the issue of competing with its own historic past.
In a Roundtable hosted by Jerry Jazz Musician publisher Joe Maita, Blue Note Records president Bruce Lundvall, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and New York Times critic Ben Ratliff lend their perspectives.
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Chris Albertson, author of Bessie
Considered by many to be the greatest blues singer of all time, Bessie Smith was also a successful vaudeville entertainer who became the highest paid African-American performer of the roaring twenties.
First published in 1971, author Chris Albertson ‘s Bessie was described at the time by critic Leonard Feather as the most devastating, provocative, and enlightening work of its kind ever contributed to the annals of jazz literature. New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett called it the first estimable full-length biography not only of Bessie Smith, but of any black musician.
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Conversations with Gary Giddins: on Jazz Criticism
Village Voice writer Gary Giddins, who was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, and who is the country’s preeminent jazz critic, joins us in a conversation recorded on June 20, 2003 — and then slightly revised in October — about the profession of jazz criticism.
The conversation is an autobiographical look at the writer’s ascension in his field, and includes candid observations of other prominent critics. It concludes with a unique “Blindfold Test” that asks Giddins to name the jazz writer responsible for the essay excerpt he is spontaneously shown.
...“Blues for Clement Greenberg,” a Jerry Jazz Musician hosted roundtable on jazz criticism, with Stanley Crouch, Martha Bayles and Loren Schoenberg
The fact that writer Stanley Crouch is willing to speak his mind has been known to readers of cultural criticism for three decades. Depending on one’s outlook, his views on jazz, politics, and race often spark outrage, applause, or provoke debate. In April, 2003, Jazz Times magazine, host to Crouch’s monthly column “Jazz Alone,” published “Putting the White Man in Charge,” a provocative essay covering topics familiar to Crouch readers, most notably his aggressive defense of the jazz idiom and its African American heritage. In the essay he wrote that critics like respected Atlantic Monthly writer Francis Davis see “jazz that is based on swing and blues as the enemy and, therefore, lifts up someone like, say, Dave Douglas as an antidote to too much authority from the dark side of the tracks.”
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Conversations with Gary Giddins: on pianist Cecil Taylor
Village Voice writer Gary Giddins, who was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, and who is the countrys preeminent jazz critic, joins us in a March 13, 2003 conversation about pianist Cecil Taylor.
...Short Fiction Contest-winning story #2: “Tin Soldiers,” by Kirk Bjornsgaard
Donna walked into the student union on the evening of the Kent State shootings while thunderheads roiled over the Toledo River. They invoked little-girl notions that God brought storms until she checked herself with the atheism sweeping the Milestone College campus that semester. In the foyer mirror she stroked long chestnut hair and nodded terse approval of her denim mini-skirt, leotards, and khaki jacket.
Descending the circular staircase to the basement, Donna replayed the scene in the dining commons–Chris, flanked by his entourage, requesting that she report after dinner; how girl friends had flashed wide-eyed grins that heightened her excitement–“God, Donna! No freshman poly-sci’s ever been invited to work with him before!”
...John Szwed, author of So What: The Life of Miles Davis
More than half a century after his bebop debut, and more than eleven years after his death, Miles Davis lives on. His music is used to pitch jeans, shape films, and personify an era. To this day, he is revered as the archetype of cool.
While several books have been written about Davis, including his own autobiography, due to his passion for reinvention and his extreme reticence the real story of Miles Davis has been obscured by the legend and widely misunderstood.
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Negro League Baseball legend Buck O’Neil
The charismatic Buck O’Neil is truly an American hero. His eloquence, grace and genuine love for people have captured the hearts and imaginations of kindred spirits worldwide. His illustrious baseball career spans seven decades and has helped make him a foremost authority and the game’s greatest ambassador.
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Conversations with Gary Giddins: on Thelonious Monk
Village Voice writer Gary Giddins, who was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ documentary Jazz, and who is the country’s preeminent jazz critic, joins us in a December 23, 2002 conversation about jazz legend Thelonious Monk.
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Scott Simon, author of Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball
The integration of baseball in 1947 had undeniable significance for the civil rights movement and American history. Thanks to Jackie Robinson, a barrier that had once been believed to be permanent was shattered — paving the way for scores of African Americans who wanted nothing more than to be granted the same rights as any other human being.*
In an interview with Jerry Jazz Musician publisher Joe Maita, NPR Weekend Edition host Scott Simon, author of Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball, discusses how Robinson’s heroism — and that of Dodger general manager Branch Rickey — got America to face the question of racial equality.
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Short Fiction Contest-winning story #1: “Coloring Outside the Lines,” by Debora Ewing
I like the jazz because it plays in different colors: deep green and blue, translucent purple, ivory black; city storefronts, magenta sunsets; watercolor splashes here and there like a yellow crocus on snow or an orange goldfish tail — sudden, surprising, but always carefully placed.
Like the way people come in different colors — they just don’t know it. People walk along in darkness daily, ignorant of the color that’s surrounding them or the beat their music plays. That’s what I’m lying here thinking about, in my dark bedroom between the folds of cotton sheets. Africans, Asians, Seminoles they all come in different colors — not their skins, but their insides.
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David Skover, author of The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon
Lenny Bruce’s words had the power to provoke laughter and debate — as well as shock and outrage. It was the force of his voice that would place him on the wrong side of the law in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
Lenny committed his life to telling the truth. But the truth he told infuriated those in power, and authorities in the largest, most progressive cities in the country worked effortlessy to put him in jail. To them, Lenny’s words were filthy and depraved. But to his friends — the hip, the discontented, the fringe — his words were not only sharp and hilarious, they were a light in the dark to the repressed society of the early 1960’s.
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“The A Love Supreme Interviews” — Ashley Kahn, author of A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album
A successful recording generally entertains and communicates passion on an earthly, mortal level. We typically respond to an effective performance by humming the melody, tapping our feet, and sharing it with friends. It might even “stomp the blues,” as the critic Albert Murray suggests.
Few recordings, however, actually challenge a listener to address one’s personal essence.
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Loren Schoenberg, author of The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Jazz
Loren Schoenberg is a noted conductor, saxophonist and author who has appeared internationally and won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes. He has recorded several albums with his own big band, and also with Benny Goodman, Benny Carter and Bobby Short. He is on the faculties of the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Band Director’s Academy, and is program director of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Jazz Colony and is Executive Director of The Jazz Museum In Harlem.
He is the author of The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Jazz, a book Wynton Marsalis describes as a “thorough guide to the music from a few basic perspectives: what it is and how it’s made, its history, the people who made and continue to make it, some suggestions on how to approach it — and a whole pile of ideas.”
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Pulitzer Prize winning author Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Movement
For Birmingham, Alabama native Diane McWhorter, growing up in the city Edward R. Murrow described as the “Johannesburg of America” was “pleasant, because we were the privileged people.” While privilege has its rewards, even as a young girl McWhorter sensed the segregated society that supported this privilege was anything but normal.
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David Amram, author of Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac
The composer David Amram has been hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the most versatile and skilled musicians America has ever produced.” Since Leonard Bernstein appointed Amram as first composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic in 1966-67, he has become one of the most acclaimed composers of his generation, listed by BMI as one of the Twenty Most Performed Composers of Concert Music in the United States since 1974.
Amram is also known as the musical collaborator of the great mid-century American author Jack Kerouac, whose book On the Road is considered to be the artistic soul of the 1950’s.
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Tim Madigan, author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America’s most prosperous. Thirty-four square blocks of Tulsa’s Greenwood community, known then as the “Negro Wall Street of America,” were reduced to smoldering rubble.
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Tony Award winning playwright Warren Leight
The Tony Award winning play Side Man dramatizes the emotional elements of a dying jazz culture and its effects on an American family whose very soul depended on it. Playwright Warren Leight’s fascinating dark comedy chronicles three decades of living through the lives of jazz sidemen, and is filled with humor, honor, passion and pain.
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Whitney Balliet, author of Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz, 1954-2000
As jazz critic for the New Yorker magazine since 1957, and author of fifteen books, Whitney Balliett has spent a lifetime listening to and writing about jazz. Generations of readers have learned to listen to the music with his graceful guidance.
In our interview with Balliett, he discusses his latest book, Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz, 1954-2000 (St. Martin’s Press), which collects a bounty of his reviews, reporting and portraits.
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Conversations with Gary Giddins: on Bing Crosby
When Gary Giddins, the jazz critic and columnist for the Village Voice, began work on an in-depth biography of Bing Crosby, many asked him, “Why?” He has explained that Crosby, perhaps the most famous entertainer in America between 1927 and 1956, has been unjustly forgotten since his death in 1977.
...Interview with Ean Wood, author of The Josephine Baker Story
The effervescent smile of Josephine Baker is easily recognizable. The mellifluous tone of her voice is legendary. Epitomizing the adage “all that glitters is not gold,” her life was plagued with broken marriages, discrimination, poverty, and eventually illness.
In his book, The Josephine Baker Story, author Ean Wood, who previously wrote of George Gershwin’s life, presents us with a portrait of a truly remarkable woman whose charm, vivacity and captivating personality live on long after her death.
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John Kruth, author of Bright Moments: The Life and Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Bright Moments, the first biography of the legendary jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk, establishes once and for all the brilliant multi-instrumentalist’s place in the pantheon of jazz giants alongside Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. Culled from three years of in-depth interviews and research, Bright Moments chronicles the tumultuous life of the neglected genius through enlightening observations and hilarious anecdotes by Kirk’s friends and family, as well as by famous contemporaries such as Quincy Jones, Allen Ginsberg, Yusef Lateef, Eric Burdon, Ken Kesey and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson.
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Interview with jazz photographer Herman Leonard
For many of us, the photography of Herman Leonard is our first link to jazz culture. Ellington in Paris, Dexter with a Chesterfield, a youthful Miles, Satchmo in Birdland…These images, in some cases more so than the music, are responsible for our devotion to preserving and protecting the art the musicians of mid 20th Century America created, and Herman Leonard reported on.
...Pianist Kenny Barron
If you looked up the word ubiquitous in some cosmic jazz dictionary, you’re likely to find “Kenny Barron” as its definition. Long considered one of the finest jazz pianists of his generation, Barron has forged celebrated collaborations as a sideman with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, Ron Carter, Stan Getz, to name but a few.
...John Fraim, author of Spirit Catcher: The Life and Art of John Coltrane
Author John Fraim is a very interesting man. Taking on a subject like John Coltrane is not a left-brain experience. He knew wisdom and historical perspective were required before writing about a complex, musical prophet, and wrote this biography the way Coltrane lived his life In his award-winning book, Spirit Catcher, The Life and Art of John Coltrane, he presents Coltrane’s life as spiritual quest, and in it creates a piece of art not often found in biographical form.
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Interview with bassist Leroy Vinegar
Bassist Leroy Vinegar talks about his life in jazz music…
...In This Issue
The Sunday Poem
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Poetry
Publisher’s Notes
Poetry
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Essay
Interview
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Poetry
Interview
Trading Fours with Douglas Cole
Click here to read previous editions of Trading Fours with Douglas Cole
Review
Short Fiction
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Book Excerpt
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Poetry
Jazz History Quiz #171
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Community
Contributing Writers
Coming Soon
Interview Archive
