Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Short end of Jazz Times’ good news

The quick revival of magazine Jazz Times by Madavor Media is a good thing, but freelance contributors whose work has already been published are being told that they’ll be paid only 50% of amounts due.

“Those checks are going out this week,” according to an email sent by Lee Mergener, JT’s editor-in-chief who is being retained during the transition in ownership, along with managing editor Evan Haga and two ad representatives. Mergner’s memo continues, “Madavor only acquired the assets, not the liabilities, of the company, leaving JazzTimes‘ previous ownership to settle its debts as best it can.”

[Read more…]

More on Jazz Times

Madavor Media company director Joan Lynch confirmed acquisition of Jazz Times magazine today, pledging to settle the suspended publication’s unpaid debts, to go for editorial continuity, to maintain its 10-times-a-year print schedule and website, and to keep its two top editors. 

 “As part of Madavor, I’m excited to have Jazz Times to work on — we think it’s just a great brand,” said Ms. Lynch by phone from Madavor offices in Quincy, Massachusetts (retained Jazz Times editorial staffers Lee Mergener and Evan Haga will still operate from Silver Spring, MD). Asked if she had concerns about entering the beleaguered music magazine field, she replied, “We’re a strong business, we have resources and we understand we’re sort of bucking the trend. But we believe in print, in the web, and in delivering the best product we can, hoping to keep Jazz Times the publication aficionados want.”

[Read more…]

Jazz mag revived?

Jazz Times, the monthly which suspended publication in May, has been bought by Madavor Media and will print an August issue produced by its familiar staff and contributors, according to today’s New York Times. Boston-based Madavor counts International Figure Skating, Volleyball and The Best of Northeast Golf among its “core titles,” having acquired Doll, a long-established UK collector’s periodical, in June 2008 and four regionally-oriented golf titles last September.

[Read more…]

Jazz health, bright moments

All is not dismal in Jazzville: Producer George Wein has found a title sponsor — CareFusion — for his jazz festivals in Newport next month and New York City summer 2010. SFJazz has announced a stellar lineup including Ornette Coleman for its fall fest, Oct. 10 – Nov. 21. 

As Mitch Myers reports from the 13-day 30th annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, diversity, provided by living legends and genuinely engaging younger talents, is the key. As James Hale reported from the just ended 11-day-long Ottawa Jazz Festival (as which he worked as a media consultant), “the personalities behind the music are as strong and creative as ever.”

So are festivals the future — or just the present — of jazz?

[Read more…]

In lieu of JVC Jazz festivals

Did you miss the “festivity” of June jazz concerts in major Manhattan venues — or did you find ways of coping without them? There’s so much fine music — jazz and beyond — in nearby festive settings, many of them out-of-doors, that the absence of a 38-year-old institution doesn’t seem to have made much stir. Perhaps you didn’t even notice? 


Here’s my most recent City Arts – NYC report on how George Wein responded to his perennial presence in New York City’s jazz summer being suspended, upcoming classic jazz alternatives in Kent, CT, Katonah NY and Tanglewood, MA — plus notes on promising “world music” events coming up free in Central Park, Battery Park, Prospect Park and the late August Charlie Parker fest, uptown and downtown.

[Read more…]

Zx1 pocket camera stars at 2009 Jazz Awards!

I love My Youtube! — now hosting video clips from my handy new Kodak go-anywhere device of jazz celebs, players and presenters at the Jazz Journalists Association’s 13th annual Jazz Awards party at the Jazz Standard (NYC) June 16, shot by debuting cinematographer R. Mandel.

Brief bits of Hank Jones, the Charles Tolliver Big Band, Jane Bunnett‘s Spirits of Havana, flutist Frank Wess, trombonist Roswell Rudd, Blue Note’s Bruce Lundvall, singers Mark Murphy and Kurt Elling. A worthy Jazz Foundation pitch and SESAC toasts all the nominees! So easy to edit I’m going to re-view early Godard for jump-cut tips. So easy to upload I’m going to rethink reporting, interviewing and self-publishing strategies and techniques.

[Read more…]

Furor over jazz sexism (continues)

Kitty Margolis, Bay Area jazz singer, Facebook and in-person friend, fired up followers re guest blogger Paul Lindemeyer’s comments on jazz’s historic bias towards men, which I contextualized with reference to Michelle Obama’s White House jazz night. Here’s what Kitty’s people wrote (names obscured except for her own and Alfonso’s — they ask to be id’d) – 

[Read more…]

Michelle Obama refutes jazz as boys’ club

There are “powerful reasons . . .we ought to consider” for why musicians and listeners “tend to be a brotherhood,” according to a self-described “middle-aged white male swing-to-bopper.” He’s identifying, not justifying . . .Then the First Lady upsets the paradigm. She brings her daughters to the gig.

I’ve got pressing deadlines, but luckily several lengthy, thoughtful responses to recent blog postings, so here’s one of a series by correspondents of Jazz Beyond Jazz. Paul Lindemeyer ia a multi-talented reeds musician/big band leader/author of Celebrating the Saxophone, Hearst Books, 1996, and offers thoughts on the ever-popular topic of what women want  from jazz, in public dialog that was begun on this blog not long ago.  His views do not necessarily represent my own, and I wonder if they’re supported by the experience of Michelle Obama, whose personal testamony to the meaning of jazz in her own life since childhood visits to the jazz-overflowing home of her maternal grandad called “Southside” brought happy tears to my eyes.

 First Lady first; Mr. Lindemeyer therafter: 

[Read more…]

Jazz, that classy music

Saxophonist Steve Wilson and I talked about “Jazz and the Class Divide” at Dartmouth College, and here’s the entire half-hour clip on foratv.com.

Wilson, a gentleman and a great player, was touring with the Blue Note 7, the band anchored by pianist Bill Charlap that’s been a big thing because Blue Note refers to the record label celebrating its 70th year in business in 2009. I get a couple chuckles out of watching myself, especially when I lose my point. . . but I do pick it up (Oh yeah – – Cecil Taylor can quote Messaein without hardly trying!). Well anyway, between the two of us some points were raised. I hope you’ll enjoy this talk. Please let me know about that with which you disagree.
howardmandel.com
Subscribe by Email |
Subscribe by RSS |
Follow on Twitter
All JBJ posts |

Happy and sad news updates

Jazz Beyond Jazz was named Blog of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association at the Jazz Awards on Tuesday — and Tina Marsh, driving force of Austin creative music, died that day, too.

I’m immersed in follow-up on both these and related issues, but details and new posts are guaranteed. As 91-year-old Hank Jones said upon receiving the JJA’s award as Pianist of the Year, “This Award is an incentive to do better .”
EnidFarberFoto_20090616_dsc_6217.jpg

howardmandel.com
Subscribe by Email |
Subscribe by RSS |
Follow on Twitter
All JBJ posts |

Jazz “bloat” gone? Phoenix rising from ashes?

Forecasts vary in the wake of collapses of Jazz Times and the JVC Jazz Festivals. Brilliant Corners exults that mid-brow music is so over and revels in New York’s Vision Fest,  while Jazz Chronicles asks what comes next — possibly something good?

I think it’s irresponsible and delusional to believe that the demise of successful mainstream enterprises like magazines, commercial festivals and oh yes, the International Association for Jazz Education, another bete noir of Brilliant Corners’ Boston-based Chris Rich (along with many others: baby boomers, jazz fusion, George Wein, Boston Jazz Week) is
 

  • a) a good thing, and
  • b) won’t affect  smaller enterprises, whether individual musicians or collective avant-garde fests, not very far down the road. (Read Barbara Ehrenreich on the impact of the recession on the “already poor” and extrapolate: the Jazz Foundation of America is already trying to help more musicians in need with fewer dollars from donations).

[Read more…]

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license