"Jazz in the Global Imagination: Music, Journalism and Culture," the day-long, public and free symposium at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism auditorium on Saturday, Sept. 29, is evidently the first international conference of jazz journalists to take place in the U.S. Why did we wait so long? Even if there's been one before, the slam-bang panel discussions sponsored as final compent of the 10-day Columbia/Harlem Festival of Global Jazz by the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia, in partnership with the Jazz Journalists … [Read more...]

Zawinul (1932-2007) is a world-renowned keyboardist-composer who considered himself in the lineage of classic musicians emerging from his birthplace, Vienna, Austria. Once backstage after a performance circa 1980 he stormed at Down Beat editors who'd come at his command to "discuss" a bad review of Weather Report's just-released album 8:30 -- "You do not give Beethoven two stars! You do not give Zawinul two stars!" No, he wasn't Beethoven, but his music lives beyond his personal mortality -- so yes, Joe Zawinul is one of the immortals. … [Read more...]

Guelph, Canada - a pleasant university town nestled in the forrested low meander of the mis-aptly named "Speed River" is invigorated by its weeklong jazz festival, scholars' colloquium, and $4 million research grant from Canadian governmental forces, devoted to study of music improvisation's relation to social change and community-sustenance. … [Read more...]

Since such last gasps of New York's summer jazz convocations as the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival -- my trip to the Chicago Jazz Festival -- this week's colloquium at University of Guelph titled "People Get Ready: The Future of Jazz is Now!" coinciding with the 14th annual Guelph Jazz Festival -- and the first international conference of jazz critics to be held in the U.S., "Jazz in the Global Imagination: Music, Journalism, and Culture" produced for the Columbia-Harlem Festival of Global by George E. Lewis, newly named director of Center for … [Read more...]