What if there’s more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz – and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz – could enrich your life?<\/p>\n
\nWhat if jazz is the subtle, insightful, stylish, soulful, substantive guide to successful navigation of today’s big and little challenges? What if jazz is more than a tune in the background, the cult of the cool, an old hipster clich\u00c3\u00a9 – but rather a window on and mirror reflecting society as understood by artists who regard individuality, originality, innovation, integrity, virtuosity, collaborative skills and community concerns as essentials, fundamentals? What if jazz is an infallible bs. detector and transmitter, as immediate as the Internet, of beauty and truth?
\nJazz Beyond Jazz is of the mind that jazz as we know it is fine, but what’s happening right now – and escaping most notice — is jazz beyond<\/i> jazz. That phrase is meant to cover not only new developments in music born of urban America, now spread world-wide, but also the news, gossip, hype, buzz, analysis, speculation and fantasy that threads throughout the world of jazz and the worlds jazz bring to light — personal and public, current and historic, improvised and otherwise.
\nOh, I’ll write a lot about music I like, much of it jazz, though also blues, r&b, soul, contemporary chamber and orchestral composition, electronic music and indigenous musics from all over the globe. I’ve found that New York City offers incomparable access to music of almost every type from almost everywhere, and I listen with pleasure, professionally, to music too broad to pigeonhole or label.<\/p>\n
\nWhat to call<\/h5>\n
<\/b> <\/p>\n
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But there’s more to music journalism than music reviewing, more than the artist profiles, business news and trends pieces conventionally taken as music journalism. Something about print vs. e-postings, about publishing and copyrights, the perverse pleasures and predictable pitfalls of hustling byline-to-byline, the realities of freelancing and academia for adjuncts, biking in Brooklyn, crime writing new and old, movies, tv, birdsong, music theater, parenting an incipient cellist . . . Thinking about jazz leads beyond the jazz one is thinking of. What if there’s more to jazz than you suppose? What if jazz demolishes suppositions and breaks all bounds? What if jazz – and the jazz beyond, behind, under and around jazz – could enrich your life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-about","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2552,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2019\/01\/2018-jazz-blues-and-beyond-deaths-w-links.html","url_meta":{"origin":24,"position":0},"title":"2018 jazz, blues and beyond deaths w\/ links","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"January 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Cecil Taylor, March 15, 1929 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c April 5, 2018, photo by S\u00c3\u00a1nta Istv\u00c3\u00a1n Csaba Not a happy post, but a useful one: here are the hundreds of musicians and music industry activists who died in 2018, as compiled by photographer-writer Ken Franckling for the Jazz Journalists Association. Ken scoured local\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CecilTaylor-nea-jazz-master-2014-santa.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/07\/italy_here_i_come.html","url_meta":{"origin":24,"position":1},"title":"Italy here I come","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"July 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Siena Jazz Workshop has me present my book Miles Ornette Cecil - Jazz Beyond Jazz (buy it for your Kindle!) Sunday, July 25 at 10 am (yes, in Siena, Italy).\u00a0Can you suggest unmissable music in Tuscany (or Vetirbo through July 31? In Siena I'll talk and show brief bits\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"siena square.jpeg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/siena%20square.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2007\/07\/the_makers_of_jazz_beyond_jazz.html","url_meta":{"origin":24,"position":2},"title":"The Makers of Jazz Beyond Jazz","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"July 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the course of three decades, I've been privileged to get behind the scenes and meet heroic creators of jazz as well as up-and-comers, innovators and exemplars of many other genres. Please enjoy these archival interviews and articles. William Parker, DownBeat, July 1998 Maria Schneider DownBeat, July 2007 Sonny Rollins\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "interviews"","block_context":{"text":"interviews","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/interviews"},"img":{"alt_text":"audio_icon.gif","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/audio_icon.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1813,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2015\/04\/guggenheim-fellows-include-jazz-beyond-jazz-creators.html","url_meta":{"origin":24,"position":3},"title":"Guggenheim fellows include jazz-beyond-jazz creators","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"April 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Four stellar jazz-beyond-jazz musicians -- orchestra composer-leader Darcy James Argue, trumpeter Etienne Charles, saxophonist Steve Lehman and scholar-composer\/improviser-electronics innovator-trombonist George E. Lewis, all practiced stretching the definition of \"jazz\"without breaking it\u00c2\u00a0-- have been\u00c2\u00a0named 2015 fellows of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, among 175 \"scholars, artists, and scientists [a]ppointed on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/etienne.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1647,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2014\/07\/jazz-and-beyond-jazz-nyc-to-chicago.html","url_meta":{"origin":24,"position":4},"title":"Jazz and beyond “jazz” — NYC to Chicago","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"July 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Jazz above and beyond established conventions of jazz in and around NYC last month was super\u00c2\u00a0abundant -- and I'm going to miss a lot about this scene when I move base of operations to Chicago in mid-July. In the past 30 days I heard: \u00c2\u00a0The Eric Dolphy Freedom of Sound\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ornette-threadgill-murray-roney-e1404264891893.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ornette-threadgill-murray-roney-e1404264891893.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ornette-threadgill-murray-roney-e1404264891893.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ornette-threadgill-murray-roney-e1404264891893.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ornette-threadgill-murray-roney-e1404264891893.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ornette-threadgill-murray-roney-e1404264891893.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":124,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/09\/jazz_and_politics_show_of_hand.html","url_meta":{"origin":24,"position":5},"title":"Presidential politics and jazz: Show of hands","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"September 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Google \"Obama\" and \"jazz\" and this\u00c2\u00a0Jazz Beyond Jazz\u00c2\u00a0post\u00c2\u00a0comes up second! 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\nWhich is what I’ll report on – via jazz, yes, but including its industries, institutionalization, ad hoc fan-base and critical questions. Like — if it’s so popular, why ain’t jazz rich? And how popular is it, anyway? What’s behind the imminent demise (or will it be another reorganization?) of the Jazz Alliance International, a basically bankrupt lobbying group established to function on the model of the far better positioned Country Music Foundation? Is it true Jazz at Lincoln Center loses money every time it has a show at 1000-seat Rose Hall, even if all tix sell out?
\nJazz, yeah, but: Jazz prescribes inclusivity not exclusivity, embrace of change rather than resistance to it. Jazz beyond jazz is the result — conclusions reached after absorption of something new, realizations that are different, insistently innovative and illuminating, not a shadow of or reminiscence about the way things used to be.
\nJazz beyond jazz will be the default theme of this blog. It will come complete with hot tips, recommending live concerts in my vicinity<\/a>, new releases, old favorites, and information from other sources.
\nSo here’s to jazz, and the jazz beyond it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"