Jazz beyond Jazz: November 2007 Archives

Rumor is the scene is gone -- but "downtown" improvisers persist: "free" music/art vs. real estate and what-have-you . . .

Richarda Abrams calls the names of performers at concerts produced by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians-New York in a proudly stentorian voice, and Friday's concert season-ender of saxophonist Mantana Roberts' quartet and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's trio was typically earnest, iconoclastic and rousing. But it's almost a cry in the wilderness. More than 40 years since its founding in Chicago and almost 25 since its establishment in NYC, the non-profit AACM cooperative still has a mostly underground reputation, though its stars have ascended to important posts in musical academia.

In a remarkable response to protest from this website (and ok, perhaps some others), New York State governor Elliott Spitzer "believes that now is not the right time to be increasing sales taxes on New Yorkers" and "has directed the Department of Tax and Finance to pull back its interpretation that would require some Internet retailers that do not collect sales tax to do so."

Bad news for those of us budget-pinched creators -- bloggers, authors, musicians, artists, etc.-- trying to tap a bit more revenue by offering links to such online stores as Amazon.com from our own websites.

Elizabeth Currid's The Warhol Economy -- "How Fashion, Art & Music Drive New York" -- argues that the creative capital conjured by artists and their ilk is more significant to the success of modern metropoli than more prosaic, dependably lucrative industries. So, she says, NYC ought to support nightlife and other semi-social structures that bring the creatives together to mix and match (simultaneously attracting the duller but well-heeled financial services types, realtors and lawyers), also subsidize artists' workspaces and affordable housing. Now wouldn't that be nice?