Good news to share: I'm pleased to report that at yesterday's Jazz Journalists Association Awards ceremony at the Blue Note, I was presented the HELEN DANCE-ROBERT PALMER AWARD FOR WRITING IN 2011. A complete list of awards, for musicians and journalists, can be found here. I tend not to think too much about awards for things like writing and making music, though I vote … [Read more...] about blumenfeld honored at jja awards
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treme in ny, jazz in june
If you're in NY this summer, you've got plenty of chances to hear New Orleans music that, as you await next season, offers insights into the sight, sounds, and characters of HBO "Treme." You can find my piece in today's Wall Street Journal with something of a roadmap to that effect. And something I wrote for the current issue of the Village Voice, looking back on June's wave … [Read more...] about treme in ny, jazz in june
endless war?
What I've learned since writing that WSJ piece is that, Dave Douglas's comment aside (as well as those of musicians I did not quote in print), the "jazz wars" are still to a fair extent alive and relevant to a degree I no longer thought true, though the term "jazz war" itself may be a trivialization of something far more complex: By that I mean that there is still a good deal … [Read more...] about endless war?
not saved
"Can Jazz Be Saved?" worries the headline to Terry Teachout's piece in Sunday's Wall Street Journal. Terry cites some new statistics from an NEA survey to bolster what has now become a long-standing trope: The jazz audience is "withering away." I'm not so sure the research and the conclusion are solid. Sure, jazz was but will never be"popular music," at the center of American … [Read more...] about not saved
if you missed that wall st journal/lincoln center talk…
...the one I hosted with trumpeter Terence Blanchard, singer Tammy Lynn and Ira Padnos, founder of Ponderosa Stomp, you can see it all on video here. … [Read more...] about if you missed that wall st journal/lincoln center talk…