The 40th annual Chicago Jazz Festival, four days free to all of unfettered, usually joyous music held in beautiful downtown Millennium Park, started last night with stars of of the local scene celebrating  “Legends and Lions”. Add “Ancient to the Future” to set the tone for a weekend of exciting, civically-supported music here — and similar outpourings of jazz […]
#jazzlives weekend update: 12-day count of tweeting fans
Buzz about who played live jazz where marked with the hashtage #jazzlives flew throughout cyberspace this weekend — catch it all here. The impromptu campaign produced anecdotal evidence that a young and vigorous audience for America’s modern vernacular creative music does indeed exist, spreading enthusiastic word via the social network Twitter of sets at Chicago, […]
Social networking does its #jazzlives stuff
Start a Twitter campaign, and see what happens! Do as many people hear live jazz in a week as attended Woodstock, say? Using the hashtag #jazzlives, a rough count is underway, supported by independent jazz activists, musicians, festivals, journalists but most of all the listeners themselves. It’s a lesson in how people participate in culture […]
Domino effect of JVC Jazz Fest failure on Jazz Times?
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 fests of August
Free jazz fests across the U.S. mark summer’s glorious end. Manhattan’s Charlie Parker festival (held Saturday Aug. 23 and Sunday 24 in Marcus Garvey park uptown and Tompkins Square Park downtown), the Chicago Jazz Festival (which formally starts Thursday Aug 28 with Sonny Rollins at downtown Grant Park’s Petrillo bandshell) and the Detroit International Jazz […]