JazzTimes confirms rumors first reported here the 38-year-old monthly magazine's deep financial distress requires it to stop publishing. Its management hopes for a brand-sale and re-emergence. But in a longer email to freelance contributors, those same managers adopt a can't-help-you-pal shrug toward the brand's freelance contributors."The brand and operation will undergo reorganization and restructuring in order to remain competitive in the current media," according to the brief note on the mag's website. In the iteration of this message … [Read more...]
Jazz Times crisis confirmed
June 5, 2009 by
An associate editor of JazzTimes "until a couple of weeks ago when I was laid off" has confirmed that the magazine is in deep trouble. "There was some hope of a new buyer coming to the rescue," he writes, "but as of my last contact with the guys it wasn't looking good." I'd heard previously that the proposed deal fell through."Hopefully that will still happen," this source continues, "but with the loss of JVC and other advertisers it's doubtful the magazine would be able to survive in its present format." Meanwhile, numerous writers and … [Read more...]
Domino effect of JVC Jazz Fest failure on Jazz Times?
June 4, 2009 by
New speculation on the jazz magazine crisis: Having no summer advertorial supplements for JVC Jazz Festivals (which aren't happening) may have hugely hurt JT's seasonal revenues. How could the loss of three consecutive monthly multi-page inserts, all expenses paid for by the client, not shake a publication's income stream?Complete disclosure: I edited the JVC Jazz Festival program books in the 1990s, when they were inserts into Tower Records' free monthly magazine Pulse!, and for a year when JVC America, responsible for the Japanese owned … [Read more...]
Blues fans grieve the Queen
June 4, 2009 by
Koko Taylor, singer and survivor of the grittiest Chicago blues, died yesterday (June 3) at age 80 following surgery for gastro-intestinal problems. She may be best known for her first hit, "Wang Dang Doodle" which she recorded in 1966 and performed with Little Walter Jacobs on harmonica for the American Blues Festival in Germany in 1967, as featured here on Youtube. But the vocal track on the clip is too far off from the visual, so I prefer this video of a song I can't identify with raunchy rhymes and for the great good humor with which … [Read more...]
Losing a jazz mag?
June 3, 2009 by
Rumors abound that JazzTimes magazine is folding -- it's laid off employees, notified writers of waits for May payments, not shipped its June issue to the printers and failed to sell itself to a new publisher. A senior contributor says he was told not to write his next column until asked for it. These are rumors, I stress: I've emailed JT's publisher and editors for confirmation or denial, comment and clarification, without response so far. It wouldn't be terribly surprising, given the economic drift and hard times for print media. But the … [Read more...]
