{"id":2410,"date":"2018-01-28T23:01:22","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T04:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=2410"},"modified":"2018-01-29T21:19:45","modified_gmt":"2018-01-30T02:19:45","slug":"jazz-congress-winter-jazzfest-shape-of-jazz-to-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2018\/01\/jazz-congress-winter-jazzfest-shape-of-jazz-to-come.html","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Congress, Winter JazzFest, shape of jazz to come"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first Jazz Congress<\/a> co-hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center and JazzTimes magazine Jan 11 and 12, 2018 and the 14th annual\u00c2\u00a0\"\"<\/a>Winter JazzFest<\/a> Marathon produced in downtown Manhattan Jan 12 and 13, offered contrasts and prompted crosstalk. It wasn’t like these were conventions of different parties, but different narratives were going down.<\/p>\n

The Congress’s sessions included JALC managing and artistic director Wynton Marsalis speaking on race and jazz, women in jazz announcing “yes, we’re here,” and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar keynoting about his love of the \"\"<\/a>music. It was a schmooze fest for\u00c2\u00a0managers, publicists, presenters, musicians, writers, photographers, recording company execs and die-hard fans, who enjoyed themselves in JALC’s comfortable and scenic spaces.<\/p>\n

The WJF produced by Bryce Rosenbloom’s Boom Collective presented some 100 concerts in 11 venues, showing rather than telling who’s doing what in the marketplace of rhythmic-driven vernacular songs and improvisation. It was flush with fervor, attended by folks with obviously wide-open ears.<\/p>\n

Here’s Marsalis despairing that black people don’t support jazz, that the young are ashamed of the swing beat, that black music is willfully ignored by music\u00c2\u00a0 conservatories, that white people can’t dance. Pianist\/writer Ethan Iverson mostly nods in agreement, announcing that jazz is black music but we’re all Omni-Americans<\/a> (the late Albert Murray’s admirable assertion).<\/p>\n