The November issue of JazzTimes magazine is the first created (not just published) under the imprimatur of Madavor Media, LLC imprint, and the periodical looks very much the same as before its hiatus last spring. Editors Lee Mergener and Evan Haga remain, columnists Nat Hentoff and Nate Chinen are present, most if not all recent editorial contributors remain on the masthead and features — drumming being the issue’s loose theme — are by regulars, though Fernando González, former editor of rival Jazziz, came onboard to write the story on Guggenheim Foundation and MacArthur fellow Miguel Zenón.
Mr. Teachout gets the word: Jazz’s Swing Era popularity past
Biographer of H L. Mencken and (coming soon) Louis Armstrong, ArtsJournal blogger and scribe for the Wall Street Journal Terry Teachout has raised a fuss by pointing to the National Endowment for the Arts‘ study citing declines in jazz audiences from 2002 to 2008 (and indeed from 1982 to 2008). That this data was released in June and been reported on earlier, elsewhere, (like at Jazz.com by editor Ted Gioia) without getting much attention suggests either the broad reach and high profile of Murdock-owned media or it’s August and a writer getting outraged about ho-hum “news” can stir otherwise becalmed straits.Â
But seriously: Mr. Teachout has stumbled into a very old trap, forecasting the death of jazz.
Colbert’s tin ear
Steven Colbert plays a pointed dance on the funny-bone, but misled his “nation” unintentionally at least once  last night in the segment “Who’s Not Honoring Me Now.” At 12 minutes into the show, he sniffed at the MacArthur Foundation’s award of a $500,000 fellowship to saxophonist Miguel Zenon, tongue-in-cheeking “Never give money to a jazz musician — they’ll just blow it on heroin and berets.”Â
Then he listened to a moment of Zenon’s mellifluous style, boppin’ along to it. But: “It’s not genius level jazz if it sounds like music,” Colbert went on; “Ask Pulitzer Prize-winning saxophonist Ornette Coleman.” Ten seconds of Ornette, from his Pulitzer-Prize winning album Sound Grammar. “God, that’s unbearable. Ergo, it must be ‘good.'”
Slight correction: the “unbearable” excerpt featured Ornette playing violin, which even for fans of jazz beyond jazz can be an acquired taste. That’s okay, we know the truth, as opposed to the truthiness, of this bit. Colbert loves jazz — enough to make fun of it.Â