What's in a Jazz Award?

>why is there so little video coverage of jazz anywhere. And I wonder, too

Twelve years ago, when the Soviet-era semi-official Minister for Jazz in Russia, Yuri Saulski, was still around, he was asked by one impudent young journalist why on Earth there was no jazz on Russia's nation-wide Culture TV -- where none but Mr. Saulsky was at that time responsible for music coverage. Mr. Saulski, being part of a jazz musician himself (and a well-established traditional pop composer,) said that "it is very difficult to film jazz properly, it requires more experienced cameramen and skilled sound technicians that we have at hand, and is overall too expensive, and I stand firmly against allowing badly pictured and poorly recorded jazz on the TV." Simply saying, no jazz video was better for him than badly produced jazz video. As a result, almost no Russian jazz from 1992 (when he took that position) to 1998 was documented on video -- because Saulski, who undoubtedly wished a greater good, just banned "poorly produced" jazz programming from the nation-wide TV.

HM: An inspired decision. We wouldn't want the music's purity disgraced by mediocre camerawork. This must explain why even today the US Public Broadcast System stations, MTV/VHI and other cable stations refuse to give jazz a spot on tv (kudos to chef Emeril Lagasse for his courage in featuring New Orleans-based percussionist Doc Gibbs & band, who seem pretty comfortable in the studio setting that has indeed most often seemed to work against jazz artists' comforts and spontaneity).

Television? hmmm "television" ... rings a bell somewhere. Oh wait, that's that twentieth-century technology that crumbled when the media monopolies fell to the blog channels in the early Naughties, right?

Instead of a cakewalk followed by crowning the Zulu King, couldn't we do something really innovative like having Wynton Marselis and Ornette Coleman trading fours? Oh, wait, no, that was done before, wasn't it, back in the '50s ... on television. Jack Smight's "Seven Lively Arts" only it was Basie and Monk, New Orleans trading fours with swing trading fours with hard bop. Nonetheless, I'm sure it didn't cost nearly as much to produce and was so landmark and educational, the film still makes the playlist today, 50 years later.

If you ask me, instead of awards, we should launch more general and gentle awareness education programs. Already I see on YouTube how there are more high-school jazz bands (and of a higher calibre) than ever before, and that's not from some gameshow spectacle dazzle, it's from the simple fact of experience, the experience of jazz in their lives. I watch Jack Smight introduce Miles, Trane and Gil Evans and I think, "Man, what ever happened to tele-Vision?"

Just before we finally switched off the box for the last time, there was a new pay-per-infliction channel that called itself Cool-TV or somesuch other. It was full of old cliches and adverts for pop swag. I was so disappointed. All I wanted was a camera and mic on that club where Ethan Iverson just sat in with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian, the chance to be there with them, see the living breathing jazz as it happens.

HM: I'm with you on all this, Gary -- and may I mention that Paul de Barros of the Seattle Times has done excellent coverage of local high school bands in his paper, which sent him to NYC a couple weeks ago to cover the Essentially Ellington competition that Jazz at Lincoln Center sponsors -- guess what, three of the Seattle bands took high honors. Paul has persuaded his editors that his coverage is akin to coverage of local high school sports teams, which has intrinsic local interest. . . .Now that citizen journalists are supposed to be able to podcast at will, maybe coverage of such high school bands is coming right up. But your question is essentially why is there so little video coverage of jazz anywhere. And I wonder, too.