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. . Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Tony Bennett, 1966 . ___ . …..We’ve lost a ton of iconic celebrities lately – stars of all ages and from many creative worlds. Among them: Tina Turner, David Crosby, Cormac McCarthy, Alan Arkin, David Bowie, Ahmad Jamal, Wayne Shorter, Sidney Poitier, Gordon Lightfoot, … Continue reading “A thought or two about Tony Bennett”
...July 25th, 2023
News about recent and upcoming features to be published on Jerry Jazz Musician
...July 21st, 2023
A visit to the Normandy American Cemetery at the conclusion of a European vacation leads to a feeling of abundant gratitude
...June 6th, 2023
The experience of meeting the poet Barbara Gaiardoni and her life partner Andrea Vanacore during my trip to Verona, Italy is shared…
...May 19th, 2023
Two completely different experiences in Vienna jazz clubs demonstrates how impresarios of the music, like the musicians themselves, see the music as being “beyond category.”
...May 7th, 2023
An account of two jazz club experiences during a recent trip to Prague
...May 3rd, 2023
. . The chalkboard in my kitchen . . ___ . . …..I live a mostly interior life. The work of editing and publishing Jerry Jazz Musician is done within my interior because it involves lots of reading, researching, listening, observing and communicating. (All stuff I love, by the way). This work is physically … Continue reading “A Letter From the Publisher…My pursuit of the exterior“
...April 22nd, 2023
The editor/publisher of Jerry Jazz Musician reflects on a major life change, and what lies ahead
...July 25th, 2022
Some thoughts about the challenges of 2021, and hopes for 2022…
...December 29th, 2021
With the aid of good fortune and health, life has a way of going on, even when external forces distract and alarm. Amid yet another flurry of extreme presidential chaos and the unending nightmare of COVID, I recently closed down the office space I have worked out of since 2000.
...December 2nd, 2020
Updates and news about content recently and soon-to-be published.
...November 23rd, 2020
I have to admit, Portland has kicked my ass this summer.
Two fires continue to rage here. I’m sure you’ve heard about this city’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have also sparked pesky vandalism by dozens of mostly White activists. While their activities seem banal enough – a dumpster fire here, a picnic table on fire there – this behavior shamefully threatens to commandeer BLM’s objectives and gives life to a cynical and evergreen pre-election message stoking White suburban fear. The vandalism tests the patience of even the most tolerant and hopeful of local citizens.
Now mix in the fires of climate change – hot, powerful winds fanning flames on a drought-laden state – and the result is living in, for now, the epicenter of the world’s worst air quality.
...September 17th, 2020
Commentary concerning the current protests taking place in my city, Portland, Oregon.
...July 28th, 2020
…..I recently went on a two week road trip.
…..A few months ago such a casual bit of news would have aroused only the slightest interest. Select friends would display a polite enthusiasm, a question or two about the destination or accommodations would be raised, and perhaps a handful of pictures would even be endured.
...July 18th, 2020
Miscellaneous news and notes to share…
...May 9th, 2020
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.
...April 6th, 2020
Miscellaneous news and notes to share…
...January 28th, 2020
Greetings, and Happy New Year, Folks:
…..Two things happen today. We bring in a new year, and with it a new decade.
…..There is great hope for the decade. We have to hold that long-term hope, right?
...January 1st, 2020
February and early March have been consumed by my work as Board Chair of PDX Jazz (Portland, Oregon), the presenting organization of the PDX Jazz Festival, which this year took place Feb. 15 – 25. Immediately following the Festival, I spent some time out on the road with a dear friend, exploring the clubs and museums of Kansas City and the surrounding prairie. Some highlights of the Festival events and
...March 12th, 2018
George Cables is 69 years old today. The great bebop pianist — who played with Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper (who called him “Mr. Beautiful”), Sonny Rollins, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, and countless others — continues to be an important contributor to jazz, but especially so during the 1970’s, when bebop was not the easiest musical genre to find on recordings of the time. When I was breaking into the record business in the late 1970’s, his Contemporary Records recording Cables Vision was a fixture on my turntable — a record that featured Hubbard on trumpet, Ernie Watts on sax, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, and Peter Erskine on drums. To this day it sounds fresh and invigorating and irresistible.
...November 14th, 2013
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.
...October 2nd, 2013
Ever since Patrick Jarenwattananon of the NPR Classical Music blog Deceptive Cadence published a story called “Why Jazz Musicians Love ‘The Rite of Spring'” in May, there has been a lot of traffic on the Jerry Jazz Musician page devoted to the meeting of Charlie Parker and Igor Stravinsky. NPR linked their readers to our “Great Encounters” page called “When Charlie Parker played for Igor Stravinsky,” where Jazz Modernism author, the late jazz scholar Alfred Appel, tells the story of how “Stravinsky roared with delight
...September 27th, 2013
I recently published an interview with John Goodman, author of Mingus Speaks, a terrific book of interviews Goodman conducted with Mingus in the early ’70’s.
The following is an interview fragment…
...September 25th, 2013
“As an influence, Navarro was important almost immediately after he first made his presence felt in the mid-1940s Billy Eckstine band. Kenny Dorham was affected early in his career and you could hear Fats in Red Rodney too. Then, of course, came Clifford Brown and through him Navarro has indirectly influenced so many of the young trumpeters playing today.”
...September 24th, 2013
For years, we have been publishing work by poets from all over the world who are dedicated to putting into words their relationship with jazz music. Our most prolific poet is Roger Singer, a living, breathing example of fire and love and brilliance. His contribution to the art of jazz is here – all 26 pages of it – in full glory, waiting for interested readers to discover.
Here is a new poem of his, just published today…
...September 20th, 2013
There is no disputing the fact that the power of jazz lies within the music itself. Giants of the art like Armstrong, Duke, Basie, Dizzy, Bird, Monk, Miles and Coltrane ushered us into this music with a display of genius so great that an entire lifetime isn’t ample space to fully absorb all their passion.
...September 16th, 2013
For 11 years, Jerry Jazz Musician has sponsored 33 Short Fiction Contests resulting in 30 different contest winners. During that time, I estimate that I have read and considered over 3,000 short stories.
The stories vary in content and quality, of course, and it has been my goal to publish the best story regardless of its theme. This has at times led to confusion by some writers over the years who believe that, since Jerry Jazz Musician’s focus is on jazz history – and in particular within the confines and culture of mid-20th Century America – the winning story should always be about jazz or a character within that setting.
...September 12th, 2013
![back cover of Diana Krall's album "The Girl in the Other Room" [Verve]](https://i0.wp.com/www.jerryjazzmusician.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/krall240.png?fit=240%2C205&ssl=1 "Short Fiction")
