“An Archaeologically Authenticated, Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden” – humor by Lee Shamberg & Mark Shamberg

January 26th, 2021

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“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 HipMan Letters, vol. 2: Dear Morty.”

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photo via Picryl

Chicago, c. 1927

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An Archaeologically Authenticated, Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden

by

Lee Shamberg & Mark Shamberg

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Larry Truberg
4736 E. Randolph Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60000
(333) 765-1313
[email protected]

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July 4, 2020

Mortimer Jones Finkelstein, III
Mighty Mort Management
(WEG) ETU-GIGS
[email protected]

Dear Morty,

I know that it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me, but I hope that you appreciate the fact that I’ve been very busy trying to steer ordinary Joes and Josies off the straight and narrow, to dissuade them from continuing to repetitively keep the beat on the beaten path and instead flow with the groove, and to persuade them that they really would encounter some extraordinarily hep happenstances as they thus perhaps dizzily traversed the miles they’d go before they lingered awhile. And to munch sensibly: life’s a slam regardless of whether you are or aren’t slim.

Anyway, I hope that this finds you well, and that your investment in that banana plantation is proving to be fruitful. And, actually, in the course of my researches I’ve unearthed a little tidbit, so to speak, that might help you along those lines, publicity-wise.

I call it The Kong Revelation.

I have conclusively established that King Kong, despite his cultural status as the most celebrated of all monstrous mammals, is actually the most misinterpreted character in the entire history of the cinema, if not in all of literature of all kinds.

It’s no secret that one of the reasons that people love to watch old black-and-white movies—horror flicks, creature features, and noir, in particular—is that the contrasting light, darkness, and shadows were manipulated for ominous, menacing, spooky, and otherwise titillating effect.

On the other hand, The Kong Revelation vividly demonstrates that color film—in addition to being iconic in the literal sense, much closer to unmediated reproduction of reality than black-and-white film ever can be—can have definitive narrative significance.

As you know, everybody has always thought that King Kong keeps trying to peel Ann Darrow’s dress off of her because of unrestrained carnal lust.

But The Kong Revelation establishes that he was motivated by a different kind of hunger, one which, it can be debated, is an even more fundamental human drive.

You see, Ann’s dress really is yellow.

Yellow.

I discovered this in some long-forgotten preproduction notes.

You obviously can’t see it in black-and-white, but the dress definitely is yellow.

Thus, it can be presumed that Kong was trying to unwrap her because his Great Ape tummy was growling.

That’s right.

He thought that she was a banana!

Which brings me around to the subject of this particular Message To Morty.

As I’ve explained in the past, in addition to having reinvented myself as a quintessential Chicago flaneur, I’m also a bit of an urban archaeologist: I dig in digs that even the triangles, septagonals, hexagonals, and all the other multifaceted nonsquares don’t dig in—yard sales, garage sales, and perpetual-going-out-of-business-so-long-the-sign-painted-on-the-window-has-faded sales.

You dig?

And so, I pursued an ad in Trashfreak Week about a last-chance blowout “Extravagansale!” on the top floor—up in the attic, really—of a Southside manse reputed to once have been been the I-made-it-in-the-big-city dream palace of Machine Gun Jack McGurn’s on-site assassination modalities consultant.

His weapon schlepper.

 Having scraped a considerable amount of urban detritus of both fin de siecle and otherwise indeterminate early 20th century vintage—match boxes, bent button hooks, and the odd fragment of whalebone corset stays—off of the soles of my footgear in the course of my ascent of the proverbially elegant series of staircases to the equally proverbially slope-roofed aerie, I followed some arrows chalked on the floor to a windowless room adjacent to the garret in which none other than Ben Hecht himself is reputed to have been ensconced during his salad days.

And there, under a stack of moldering cartons—one of which contained a half-gross of coasters and a passel of swizzle sticks from the notorious McGovern’s Liberty Inn—I’ll explain that hazardously connected nontonsorial clip joint to you in a future missive—I found the enclosed documents.

In less than ninety seconds, I was in Dissociation City—beside myself—with joy, and would’ve been even if I hadn’t been able to effortlessly negotiate the gracelessly aging Hipster—in the four-years-old, thankfully now passé sense of the word—who now holds the mortgage on those particular premises down to, let’s just say, a fraction of his original asking price. It just goes to show you that you can take the equilateral quadrilateral corporatist out of the Jivey League suit and pour him into designer lumberjack duds, but you can’t take the susceptibility to expertly slathered-on jive out of the Square.

Now, those are, of course, photocopies that you’ll be reading: the originals safely rest in the files of my attorneys, Wheedle, Bluster, & Bleed. Bear in mind that the letter was handwritten on what evidently was very expensive, and, I’m sure, at the very least reputedly elegant custom stationary. The vertical parallel lines joined by a curve at the top which appear in the upper left-hand corner are impressions which remained when I removed the rusted paper clip that held the layers together.

And come to think of it, speaking of layers…

Josephine Baker is prominently mentioned. Maybe we can somehow use her likeness—garbed, natch, in her signature tropical produce skirt—in an all-singing, all-dancing infomercial for your new agribusiness!

So read it, and, just like I keep telling you, Morty, you just keep on stickin’ with me and I’ll have us rollin’ in the big bigger biggest big bucks. The long longer longest long green. Los muchos dineros, los muchos dineros muy grande, los muchos dineros muy grande y mucho giganticos!

Your loyal client for life,

Larry

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From the desk of Osbert Dillingham, Sr.

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June 5, 1927

Johnson Dickson
Palmer House Hotel
17 E. Monroe St.
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Johnson, old chum,

…..I am certain that you are more than absolutely thrilled that your Mr. Lindbergh has safely traversed the atmospheric avenue which separates the mystically munificent life force of the Sun from the damply deathly depths of the Great Pond, and that you, with characteristic meticulousness calculated to preclude the intrusion of any unforeseen phenomena, already have begun to arrange a commendatious cotillion, as it were, to formally present him to your nascent network of Nordic Nabobs, his societal debut as a techno-Daedalus who virtuosically managed both his symbolic and his physical proximity to said solar orb, and thus avoided the hubristically induced fate which, upon being meted out, melted the wings off of Daedalus’ own son, much to the chagrin, I’m sure, of Icarus’ own historically neglected Mommalus.

…..And, old chum, it seems that you also could fete him at a function of your Futurist Finaglers Forum.

…..Alternatively, should he prove not to share your and their enthusiasm for Mr. Mussolini—does that not remain to be seen?—perhaps your own dear Mumsie could arrange one of her salubrious soirees at our venerable Art Institute.

…..I, myself, also have an event characteristic of the decade in which we live to report.

…..You see, as I sauntered down a particular South Side Chicago thorofare on a recent balmy Spring evening attempting to divine the precise location where Blind Blake purportedly convinced a divine coed acolyte of the University of Chicago’s venerable School Of Divinity that he truly is the only person equipped to divine, and, thus, to fully envision, what Diddy Wa Diddy means, an energetic figure cocooned in a bearskin coat and swinging a stick festooned with a pennant emblazoned with the motto, “Doctor Jazz will examine you now!” bounded into my path.

…..In tone obviously modulated so as to foster an atmosphere of complicit confidentiality, he informed me that he could tell at first glance that I am a man of uninhibited explorational and scholarly inclinations, an unimpeachable geshtaltnik, a man of our era who is destined to emerge as a quintessential child of our century, and that if I wished to hasten my ascent to said prominence he could facilitate, and, thus, accelerate my journey to widespread adulation by allowing me to participate in a unique opportunity characteristic of what has, today, become our national pastime: to instantaneously realize a fantastical return on a tiny investment—in this case, all of five bucks.

…..Never being one to pass up the chance to participate in a quick killing when I’m not the one being killed, I allowed him to further explain that if I forked over the five smackeroos he would return to that very spot in a trice—taxis being exceedingly hard to hail in that particular vicinity—with an indisputably authenticated cultural artifact of irrefutable provenance, a veritable Jazz Age Rosetta Stone of historiographical musicological significance valued, as he had initially asserted, at many times my speculative investment of that measly fiver.

…..I forked over the moola and waited. And waited.

…..And waited, until, finally, my curiosity as to whether or not he really did intend to return got the better of me.

…..I repositioned my monocle, adjusted my suspenders, and otherwise girded myself for the possibility that my disputatiousness might be responded to with forceful physical measures.

…..I skulked into the alley.

…..I heard what sounded like a clicking noise.

…..Presently, a shimmery stream of light, a sliver of a pale pewter tint flashed across my field of view.

…..I rounded a corner and saw a game of dice in progress.

…..And there squatted my erstwhile business partner.

…..Muttering, “Poppa needs primary sources, Poppa needs primary sources,” he laid my five simoleons onto a low stack of greenbacks and coins plopped atop a grimy blanket.

…..Beside that meager pot lay an envelope—old, and wrinkled, and smeared with some undefinable substance.

…..Clearly, someone had wagered it, and the others, who I presumed to be unabashedly wayward academics due to the fact their taste in neckwear ran to drably shaded knitted cravats, obviously considered it to be of some value.

…..Pulling back the sleeves of the furry overgarment that a fiercely noble forest creature had sacrificed their life—involuntarily, I presume—to cloak him in, my treacherous former business partner amplified his invocation of his yen for unimpeachable info into a chant as he scooped up the dice and shook them.

…..“Desist, you blackguard!” I cried as he flung the dice onto the blanket.

…..Two single dots stared up at the assemblage with herpetological finality.

…..Snake eyes.

…..“You foul, mangy cur!” I exclaimed.

…..Stunned by the evidence that the vicissitudes of fortune had not played the particular études that he had requested, the duplicitous dastard looked up at me.

…..Dumbfounded. Chagrinned. Crestfallen. Utterly stymied.

…..“You villainous varlet!” I further proclaimed, “You absconded with my hard-earned capital in order to indulge your weakness for the vice of gambling.“

…..“But no!” he cried. “I fully intended to win and then repay your investment of faith in me with the promised contents of that envelope.”

…..“You gambled. Gambled, you inexcusable knave,“ I retorted. “You betrayed not only me, but mankind’s salvation, faith in faith itself, by placing your faith in the most faithless possible object of faith. Mere chance.“

…..“But you underestimate me, elegant sir,” he replied, “for when I cast the die it was to be it was no game of chance at all. For those symmetrical ivory sextuples that you see staring up at you, mercilessly unblinking, are not the die I intended to cast. For my customized cubes are weighted to invariably display five dots on the one, and two on the other, for a grand total of a triumphant seven!“

…..The next sound that I heard was that of the exertions of the others gasping in unison, and then, subsequently, I heard a veritable Neo-Eisensteinian sonic montage of passionately propelled epithets—gadzooks/scoundrel/Modernist-Bolshevik mommzer/antidisestablishmentarianist bunco artist/neo-Dada crybaby—and other, even more damning behavioral and aesthetic indictments, some both positively revolting in their anatomical precision and otherwise too distasteful in their clinical evocativeness to be recounted in literate company.

…..And then one of the others, clearly not yet another bourgeois scholar on an expedition to ascertain how the lower classes frivolously fritter away their evenings at moments when they should be assiduously tracking their investments, but an obvious blackguard—the motheaten bowler hat pulled down over his bloodshot hepatitic eyes was the surefire tipoff—reached under his sweater.

…..Instinctively divining that he was the crook who crooked the crook, the traitor who pulled a switcheroo on my own personal traitor, and that he was not, this time, reaching for yet another pair of loaded dice but, rather, for a weapon—a roscoe, a rod, a Remington pistola—I smoothly reached beneath my waistcoat, extracted my own gat, and fired one shot, a warning, an expertly aimed round which neatly propelled his headgear off of his stubbly skull without disturbing so much as a single strand of the sparse follicular growth that was Brillanteened there.

…..But, demonstrating that he might actually have been every bit as resilient as his ragamuffinesque demeanor sullenly signified, his hand emerged from beneath his jumper to reveal a massive hammered blade that would’ve prompted Jim Bowie’s R&D and merchandising specialists to cut loose with backwoods hollers of anticipated year-end profit sharing delight.

…..My instantaneous alternative analysis of the particular interpersonal dynamic being evidenced during that hyperadrenalized instance of conflict resolution attempted by metallic means established that, for all of his calculated conniving, he had neglected to foresee the possibility of the most basic—and, hence, dominant—power-based oppositional polarity operant at the moment.

…..The dumb shmuck brought a knife to a gun fight!

…..My finger directed the trigger of my hand cannon one tiny increment rearward.

…..The red, white, and blue flames characteristic of the specially formulated gunpowder that I’d loaded my cartridges with in anticipation of celebratory marksmanship competitions the previous Fourth of July erupted once again from the muzzle of my mini-musket.

…..A hole appeared in the varlet’s sweater next to his obviously wellfatted ribcage.

…..“You danged monstrous mountebank,” he cried! “You have now ruined my fondest possession, the topmost portion of the costume I absconded with in the aftermath of my sole of experience of modish celebrity, my employment as an extra in the saloon scene in David Wark Griffith’s seminal underworld extravaganza ‘The Musketeers of Pig Alley,’ yes, you have woefully warped the woof of the now woebegone woolly wrapper I wore when I wobbled and weaved through Wark’s wondrous work.”

…..“There will be no more missals of warning,” I replied, “for you now have exhausted my prodigious patience. And make careful note of the fact that I would’ve said to you what I am about to say to you even had you not proudly proclaimed that you have no humane, Enlightenment-driven compunction about assisting in the elevation of avatars of unreconstructed traitorous values to the status of secular royalty. Do not make light of the inescapably abrasive fact that I strongly recommend that you while away the rest of this evening attempting to mate with a rusted sump pump.”

…..“You truly are a man of cruel intentions,” he ejaculated, and then, characteristically, he once again demonstrated his singular lack of character by acting as the lead canine, the cowardly cur at the head of the pack, as he led the others in their unimpeded stampede out of the alley.

…..I scooped up my fiver, and the envelope, and, justly leaving behind the remainder of the wagers, and, of course, the blanket and its coating of hardened grease—perhaps some flower girl or other manner of urchin in the direst of all dire straits could ignite one of the protruding threads and use it as a candle—repaired to my rooms.

…..Once there, safely ensconced among the furnishings I’d plucked from among the floor samples at the showroom of the Ned Buntline Collection, I counted up my take.

…..First, the legal tender generated by the Department Of The Treasury and the United States Mint: the sum of $9.42 in greenbacks and coin—nothing to sneer at even in these times of economic boom and unabashed opulence.

…..And then I considered the envelope.

…..I laid it on my desk next to the Conklin fountain pen I’d purchased in emulation of its spokesman, Mark Twain.

…..I picked up the Opinel pocket knife I’d purchased in emulation of both Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso, and unfolded the blade.

…..I slit open the envelope, and, as I did, I became aware that, in addition to the anticipated sheets of paper, there was a loose object inside.

…..I inverted the envelope and shook it.

…..Out fell a green-stained rectangular object with striations oriented parallel to the long sides, and a piece of paper stuck to it—undoubtedly by some sort of effluent, as I was unable to ascertain the presence of any kind of tape.

…..I gingerly picked it up.

…..The scrap of paper affixed to it was a note which explained that the mysterious rectangle actually is a sliver of bamboo; that it is a saxophone reed which once graced the mouthpiece of one Milton Mezzrow, the Chicago native whose family legally purveys pharmaceuticals via their network of apothecary emporia, and whose nom de la jazz hot is The Mighty Mezz; and that it is believed that one needs only to hold it in close proximity to one’s nostrils and inhale deeply in order to achieve what is known in the psychopharmacological vernacular as a contact high.

…..Since I intended to to remain sound of mind and pristine of physical body in anticipation of my scheduled assignation later that evening with a lanky chorine who currently graces the proscenium at Rudy’s Ruckus Room with her lissome limbs and bounteous bazoozums, I set aside the reed, extracted the papers from the envelope, and examined them.

…..And, thus, I learned that they bear a list of the delicacies served each Sunday between 11:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M. at Jack’s Tea Garden, a local chophouse of considerable repute both as a purveyor of heated and chilled gourmet comestibles, and of invariably scorching, syncopated, syncretic—albeit largely African-American—American music.

…..Since my own dear Mumsie succeeded in her efforts to impress upon me the wisdom of retaining and safely securing artifacts which might, at some future date, prove to be of monetary as well as historical and aesthetic value, I have had my personal secretary transcribe the text of the menu: you will find that faithful duplication below.

…..I have taken the liberty of entitling it,“An Archaeologically Authenticated Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden.”

…..There is, of course, more than mere cultural enthusiasm involved here on my part.

…..You always have encouraged me to approach you in the event that I were to happen upon some opportunity which might prove advantageous to both us were we to explore it in partnership. And it seems possible to me that your family could now endow a Fellowship Chair at one of the many educational institutions to which you so lavishly contribute, and dictate that I be the beneficiary of your largess in order that I might be able to further explore all of the ramifications of everything which I have described above, thus further securing the Dillinghams’ reputation as visionary proponents of our unique way of life. The possibilities have no limit: as you are well aware, the ability to generate verifiable torrents of fantastical intellectual gymnastics—my facility for indefatigable geshptritkheit—is my greatest God-given gift: I could verbalize about this particular situation alone until long after Gutenberg‘s successors run out of lead with which to cast movable type, the forests are denuded of trees to pulp, and William Randolph Hearst runs out of ink with which to attempt to manifest his vision of our national destiny.

I remain,
Osbert

P.S. I sincerely hope that you don’t still believe what your cousin Ginevra said about me. I never believed even half of what she told me about you.

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An Archaeologically Authenticated, Gastro-Musicological Historical Artifact: The Menu For The Jazz Brunch At Jack’s Tea Garden

“Everybody Speaks Easily At”

Jack’s Tea Garden

“Where The Elite Meet To Eat To The Beat”

“Enjoy A Refreshing Cocktail Prepared With Only The Finest Spirits Distilled In Real Factories In Foreign Countries While You Peruse Our Very Special Menu For Today”

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Jimmy Cobb Salad

Art Pepper Steak

Sautéed Dave Pike

Veal Oscar Peterson

Beef George Wallington

Rock Cornish Henry Threadgill

Louis Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwiches

Lou Donaldson Duck

John Hammond Eggs

Veal Jimmy Marsala

Chicken Marty Marsala

Gerry Mulligan Stew

Lester Young Carrots

Grant Greens

Arnett Cobb Corn

Buddy Tater Tots

Potatoes Hod O’Brian

Charlie Parker House Rolls

Chilled pats of Butter Jackson

Cornbread Hal Singer

Stevie Wonder Bread

Ed Cherry’s Jubilee

Don Cherry Pie

Johnny Mince Pie

Clifford Brownies

Hot Cross Teddy Bunns

Sonny Fortune Cookies

Clifford Jordan Almonds

Louis Jordan Almonds

Sheila Jordan Almonds

James Cotton Candy

For a taste of ancient Rome, Candied Finches (Mr. Otis regrets that he is the lunch today!)

Oscar Pettit Fours

Jimmy Heath Bars

Percy Heath Bars

Tootie Heath Bars

Ted Heath Bars

Sylvie Courvoisier

Marty Napoleon Brandy

Andrew White Owl Cigars

Executive Chef Emeritus: Will Marion Cook

Chef: Willie Cook

Fry Cook: Fats Waller

Pastry Chef: Chet Baker

French Pastry Chef: Josephine Baker

Culinary Intern/Sous Chef: Jr. Cook

Poultry Chef Intern: Henny Youngman

Sommelier: Herbie Steward

Food prepared on an Ornette Coleman Stove

Table lighting: George Coleman Lanterns

Musical entertainment by the Harlem Hamfats

Theme Song: Kitty On Toast

Master Of Ceremonies: Soupy Sales

Staff wardrobe courtesy of Illinois’ Jacquets

Security services provided by Sheriff Jimmy Nottingham

Location recording by William Savory for Tomato Records

Announcer’s cough button courtesy of the Smith Brothers

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“And don’t forget your Special Password to gain Instant Entry to next week’s Festive Banquet: Satchmo Sends Me”

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Mortimer Jones Finkelstein, III
Mighty Mort Management
(WEG) ETU-GIGS
[email protected]

July 7, 2020

Larry Truberg
4736 E. Randolph Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60000
(333) 765-1313
[email protected]

Larry, boychik:

Did I get to be The Mighty Mort without being able to make like Fats Waller when he went out shopping and ran into Joe Turner‘s cat?

As in, “What’s that smell?”

“Something fishy!”

There are people named on that menu who weren’t even born in 1927!

Is this another one of your pranks? I know that you want to be Joe Venuti when you grow up. I know that that girlfriend of yours used to wear a red white and blue picture of Kate Smith for a tramp stamp and shmeerd honey all over herself while she jumped up and down shrieking The Bear Went Over The Mountain and called the performance artful, but did you really think that I was going to swallow this one? So to speak?

So what are you up to? If this is a hoax you two cooked up, it’s even more underdone than Clifford Irving’s Howard Hughes shtick and the Hitler Diaries combined.

Are you now going to tell me again that you O.D.’d on an augmented bowl of Slim Gaillard’s recipe for avocado seed soup like you did that time when you missed the deadline for the article about the role of maize cob imagery in pre-Columbian management system hieroglyphs and had that purported doctor friend of yours, Bazooka Birnbaum, write an excuse letter on the back of a place mat from Terrific Tacos with burrito goosh stuck all over it? That once again you were still in a weakened state when a real hustler posing as a prefab hepcat palmed it off on you because the effects of the other seeds, those Morning Glory seeds your cat accidentally knocked into the seasoning mix hadn’t worn off and you were still psychedelicized silly?

If that’s the case, then you need a new riff to blow.

You really want to repay my faith in you? Then get back to work on LoxTopus Versus HamAconda. You’ve got me seriously wondering what a flying bagel with an eight-headed set of bongo drums ringed around it looks like, and between your fabulistic chops and my consummate negotiating skills I’m sure we won’t have any trouble persuading Warner Animation Group and Warner Music Group to produce a superhero yarn with an origin story rooted in Catskills Cubop that creates ancillary multicultural fusion foodstuff merchandising possibilities.

Think about it.

As soon as you’re capable of thinking straight again.

In the meantime, I have a fruit farm to run. It’s lonely, being top banana. Remind me about The Kong Revelation if you can have your documentation certified by at least three experts who don’t also gig on illusion-of-reality shows.

Your Primary Primate,
Morty

PS Jackie and Tina send their regards. They’re looking forward to connecting with you again.

 

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Chicagoans Lee Shamberg and Mark Shamberg are brothers. Screenwriter-Producer Lee has produced jazz and blues concerts, and been a disc jockey. His career began with his stint as the Film And Music Editor of a magazine published by Chicago’s legendary Hull House Theater. Mark presented New & World Music as a founding Nomad Of Modern Music and Producer for their Southend Music Works. None of these entirely legal activities necessitated the wearing of masks: rather, the Shambergs now strive to set an unimpeachably cool example for those among us who still need to be convinced of their necessity after having read Lee’s piece, “The All American Girl Next Door Writes A Letter To Santa,” in Jerry Jazz Musician. “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 HipMan Letters, vol. 2: Dear Morty.”

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Art

Photo of Joe Lovano by Giovanni Piesco
The Photographs of Giovanni Piesco: Joe Lovano...Beginning in 1990, the noted photographer Giovanni Piesco began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world. Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition features 1999 photographs of the saxophonist Joe Lovano.

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Excerpts from David Rife’s Jazz Fiction: Take Two – Vol. 11: “Chick” and “Hen” Lit...A substantial number of novels and stories with jazz music as a component of the story have been published over the years, and the scholar David J. Rife has written short essay/reviews of them. In this 11th edition, Rife writes about the “chicks” (energetic women, attractive, and open to experience) and “hens” (older women who have either buried or lost a loved one, and who seem content with their lives) who are at the center of stories with jazz within its theme.

Interview

photo by Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress
A Black History Month Profile: The legendary author Richard Wright...In a 2002 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Richard Wright biographer Hazel Rowley discusses the life and times of legendary author Richard Wright, whose work included the novels Native Son andBlack Boy

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On the Turntable — The “Best Of the ‘Best Of’” in 2024 jazz recordings...Our annual year-end compilation of jazz albums oft mentioned by a wide range of critics as being the best of 2024

In Memoriam

photo via Pexels.com
“Departures to the Final Arms Hotel in 2024” – poetic tributes, by Terrance Underwood...2024 produced its share of losses of legendary jazz musicians. Terrance Underwood pays poetic homage to a handful who have touched his life, imagining their admittance to the Final Arms Hotel, a destination he introduces in his prelude.

Community

Stewart Butterfield, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Community Bookshelf #4...“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (September, 2024 – March, 2025)

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Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 23: “The Wave”...In this edition of an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film, Douglas’ poem is written partly as a reference to the Antonio Carlos Jobin song “Wave,” but mostly to get in the famed Japanese artist Hokusai’s idea of the wave as being a huge, threatening thing. (The poem initially sprang from listening to Cal Tjader’s “Along Came Mary”).

Short Fiction

Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons/blur effect added
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #67 — “Bluesette,” by Salvatore Difalco...The author’s award-winning story is a semi-satirical mood piece about a heartbroken man in Europe listening to a recording by the harmonica player Toots Thielemans while under the influence of a mind-altering substance.

Interview

Interview with James Kaplan, author of 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool...The esteemed writer tells a vibrant story about the jazz world before, during, and after the 1959 recording of Kind of Blue, and how the album’s three genius musicians came together, played together, and grew together (and often apart) throughout the experience.

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photo of Lester Young by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
Jazz History Quiz #179...Throughout his career, this saxophonist was known as the “Vice Prez” because he sounded so similar to “Prez,” Lester Young (pictured). Who was he?

Community

Nominations for the Pushcart Prize XLIX...Announcing the six writers nominated for the Pushcart Prize v. XLIX, whose work was published in Jerry Jazz Musician during 2024.

Publisher’s Notes

photo by Rhonda Dorsett
On turning 70, and contemplating the future of Jerry Jazz Musician...

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“Are Jazz-Hop Instrumentals Jazz?” – an observation (and playlist) by Anthony David Vernon...Google “what is jazz-hop?” and the AI overview describes it is “a subgenre of hip-hop that combines jazz and hip-hop music. It developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” In Mr. Vernon’s observation, he makes the case that it is also a subgenre of jazz.

Community

Notes on Bob Hecht’s book, Stolen Moments: A Photographer’s Personal Journey...Some thoughts on a new book of photography by frequent Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writer Bob Hecht

Art

“The Jazz Dive” – the art of Allen Mezquida...The artist's work is inspired by the counterculture music from the 1950s and 60s, resulting in art “that resonates with both eyes and ears.” It is unique and creative and worth a look…

True Jazz Stories

Columbia Records; via Wikimedia Commons
“An Evening with Michael Bloomfield” – a true blues story by David Eugene Everard...The author recounts his experience meeting and interviewing the great blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield in 1974…

Short Fiction

photo via PxHere
“The Magic” – a story by Mark Bruce...Most bands know how to make music. They learn to play together so that it sounds good and maybe even get some gigs. Most bands know that you have your chord progressions and your 4/4 beat and your verses and bridges. Some bands even have a guy (or a woman, like Chrissy Hynde) who writes songs. So what gives some bands the leg up into the Top 40?

Contributing Writers

Click the image to view the writers, poets and artists whose work has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and find links to their work

Coming Soon

An interview with Sascha Feinstein, author of Writing Jazz: Conversations with Critics and Biographers;, Also, a new Jazz History Quiz, and lots of short fiction; poetry; photography; interviews; playlists; and much more in the works...

Interview Archive

Ella Fitzgerald/IISG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Click to view the complete 25-year archive of Jerry Jazz Musician interviews, including those recently published with Judith Tick on Ella Fitzgerald (pictured),; Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz on the Girl Groups of the 60's; Tad Richards on Small Group Swing; Stephanie Stein Crease on Chick Webb; Brent Hayes Edwards on Henry Threadgill; Richard Koloda on Albert Ayler; Glenn Mott on Stanley Crouch; Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom on Eubie Blake; Richard Brent Turner on jazz and Islam; Alyn Shipton on the art of jazz; Shawn Levy on the original queens of standup comedy; Travis Atria on the expatriate trumpeter Arthur Briggs; Kitt Shapiro on her life with her mother, Eartha Kitt; Will Friedwald on Nat King Cole; Wayne Enstice on the drummer Dottie Dodgion; the drummer Joe La Barbera on Bill Evans; Philip Clark on Dave Brubeck; Nicholas Buccola on James Baldwin and William F. Buckley; Ricky Riccardi on Louis Armstrong; Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands on Erroll Garner; Maria Golia on Ornette Coleman.