Not Just Fooling

Among the hundreds, possibly thousands, of spoofs appearing on the internet today is one in a column by Jack Bowers on the All About Jazz site.

Using words such as “unprecedented,” “mind-boggling,” “preposterous” and “what the s–t is going on here,” the editors of BummedOut magazine, the country’s leading Jazz periodical since the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded “Livery Stable Blues,” expressed their utter shock and disbelief this week when ballots submitted in the magazine’s umpteenth Annual Critics’ Poll listed not a single American-born musician among the winners or also-rans. What made the unparalleled result even more implausible is the fact that 98.6 percent of BummedOut‘s critics and reviewers live either in or around New York City and had never before voted for any musician west of the Ohio River.

Bowers nicely carries off the April Foolish conceit of the piece, which beneath its playfulness conceals a truth about the global maturity of jazz. The “poll” amounts to an interesting list of thoroughly accomplished musicians–and there’s not an American on it. To read the whole thing, click here.