Our series begins with Twins Jazz, one of Washington, DC’s most vibrant jazz clubs, located on bustling, re-born U Street N.W., upstairs at 1344 U.  After years of presenting all manner of jazz artists — from emerging talents to NEA Jazz Masters — Twins Jazz has embarked on the development of a not-for-profit foundation as a means of further spreading its tentacles into broader service to the art form and sustaining the audience for jazz. 

Twins Jazz was developed by the twin Ethiopian sisters Kelly and Maize Tesfaye ("Jazz found us," says Kelly).  Kelly’s daughter, Love-Leigh Beasley, is spearheading the Twins Jazz foundation, and we turned to her for some history and update on Twins Jazz.  [Full disclosure: Willard Jenkins serves on the board of directors of the Twins Jazz Foundation.]

What is the history of Twins Jazz?

For over twenty-three years, Twins Jazz Club and [sister venue] Twins Lounge have worked to conceptualize and develop a friendly environment wherein jazz lovers can congregate in geniality and ambiance, sharing our love and celebration of jazz.  Twins Lounge, Twins Jazz uptown sister club located at 5516 Colorado Avenue N.W., opened as an Ethiopian restaurant in 1986 in a 50-seat space that previously featured jazz and blues music.  Several musicians would continue to patronize the Lounge and insisted upon the continuation of showcasing live jazz performances.  By 1987, Twins Lounge opened their stage nightly to live jazz performers.

Twins Lounge closed in 1999 due to building condemnation, and re-opened as Twins Jazz along the famous U Street Corridor, also known as Black Broadway back in the day.  Twins Jazz perpetuates and cultivates "authentic" straight-ahead traditional jazz, and features a combination of Ethiopian, American, and Caribbean cuisine. 

Twins Jazz strives to not only be a jazz venue, but a social and economic force in the local and regional community via our newly formed Twins Jazz Foundation.  We not only feature popular staple jazz artists, but also offer opportunities for young, aspiring musical talents attending Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Georgetown University, Howard University, Catholic University, American University, University of Maryland, and George Washington University.  Music students are encouraged to participate in our weekly jam sessions to learn their craft from more experienced musicians.  We aim to bring greater appreciation and understanding to jazz from traditional to contemporary, via festivals, forums and workshops.

Kelly & Maize Tesfaye, the "Twins" in Twins Jazz

How did your mom and aunt come to develop Twins Jazz?

The development of the Twins Jazz brand was certainly not an overnight discovery.  Twins has evolved from a live music "mom & pop" shop to "Washington’s Top Jazz CLub" through the hard-work and dedication of our staff, and respected counsel from jazz industry professionals.  Over the years we have worked to establish a solid, unmistakable identity by working to remain current in jazz as well as researching the ever-evolving trends of the social entertainment consumer. We are continuously working to gain a market presence via web and social portals, newspapers, radio, and other media outlets, and we certainly have learned over the years that a loyal patron goes a long way.  We thrive on creating an environment that is actually friendly and meaningful, so that our patrons and artists continue to comee back and support our establishment, as well as the music we love.

What have been some of the highlights of Twins’ history?

The restless iconoclast Peter Brotzmann has touched down at Twins Jazz with his Die Like a Dog Quartet

The original Twins Lounge, Twins ll (our temporary location on Moore St. NE), and the current club Twins Jazz, have been host to many performances that have since become regarded as legendary milestones in DC jazz lore.  Twins has also showcased a great variety of younger talent and acts that have later gone on to national (if not international) fame.  And Twins is still the local venue of choice for many established jazz greats who make their homes in the DC metro area.  The Twins venues featured some of the last DC appearances of many of the great artists who have passed on, including Shirley Horn, Keter Betts, James Williams, John Hicks, Malachi Thompson, Kenny Kirkland, Walter Bishop Jr., David "Fathead" Newman, Cecil Payne, and Ronnie Wells.

Some landmark events fondly remembered by our regulars include the Twins-sponsored "Piano Summit" at the University of the District of Columbia, the 2001 grand openinig of Twins Jazz at our current location featuring Barry Harris and Charles Davis, acclaimed poet Amiri Baraka reading his always-provocative poetry written for jazz accompaniment by groups led by (trombonist) Reginald Cyntje, and (saxophonist) Rene McLean; many appearances by the versatile Hamiet Bluiett — always bringing different groups and very different musical concepts — active veterans Gary Bartz and Larry Willis re-united for two sellout evenings; the late Shirley Horn sitting in with the late James Williams’ band ICU; rare DC appearances by such international acts as Peter Brotzmann’s "Die Like a Dog" quartet; the Jean Michel Pilc Trio, and the Moutin Reunion; the 2007 NY-DC exchange series of new music organized by Reggie Workman (culminating in a great performance by the Workman-Hal Galper-Rashied Ali trio); David Murray offering (in addition to his well-known instrumental talents) a unique vocal twist on "When the Saints Go Marching In"; and our festive New Years Eve celebrations for jazz purists — featuring the likes of Larry Willis, Bruce Williams, Miles Griffith, and the late Cecil Payne.

Reggie Workman’s New York-to-DC connection series was a Twins Jazz highlight

Twins is also proud to have hosted performances that helped launch the careers of young artists once based (or schooled) in the DC ara, who have gone on to success, such as pianists George Colligan, Benito Gonzalez, and Allyn Johnson; saxophonists Antonio Parker, Tim Warfield, and Kelly Shepherd; drummer Aaron Walker; and bassist Kris Funn and Corcoran Holt.

Talk about your plans for the Twins Jazz Foundation.

The Twins Jazz Foundation was formed in an effort at stimulating a renewed, living relationship with America’s rich jazz heritage for younger audiences today, at the same time providing vehicles for students and less-established musicians to extend their mastery of the forms and reach newer audiences.  The Twins Jazz Foundation aims to preserve and promote jazz, to provide education funding assistance to deserving students, and to create opportunities for students and young aspiring musicians to play and perform.  We strive to bring greater appreciation and understanding of jazz from traditional to contemporary, via festivals, concerts, forums, workshops, and jam sessions.

The key activities of the Foundation are:

    – Annual Jazz "Mini-Tour" series

    – Annual Town Hall Event

    – Annual Jazz Achievement Awards Gala

Twins Jazz has launched a new and improved website: www.TwinsJazz.com.

Twins Jazz Foundation activities are underway.  Please visit www.TwinsJazz.org to remain current on upcoming events.

Gene Seymour

Our series of conversations with black music writers discussing their craft, including obstacles and pecularities which may or may not be related to issues of ethnic identity, continues with veteran scribe Gene Seymour.  My first opportunities to read the witty Seymour’s prose came during his lengthy tenure as jazz contributor to New York Newsday.  He has written for numerous publications, including as columnist for the late African Amerrican magazine Emerge and is the author of the valuable volume Jazz, the Great American Art (pub. Franklin Watts, 1995).  Gene Seymour, who also writes about film, is based in Brooklyn.

What motivated you to write about this music when you started?

For as long as I can remember, my imagination has been stimulated more by what I heard than by what I saw, even though my very first ambition was to be a cartoonist.  (Another story for another time.)  Sound, as opposed to noise, has been my Muse, my joy and, every once in a while, my terror.  (Pitched at just the proper angle, the memory of a lone sound of a muted tympany, accompanied by an ominous voice during a radio or recorded fairy tale could keep me awake all night.)  Living in a four-room housing project apartment, it was easy for all manner of sound to seep into my bedroom, even with the door closed.  So when my father would play Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Clifford Brown, Lee Wiley, Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, Gerry Mulligan, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan and others while I was supposed to be sleeping, I was highly susceptible to their facilities and their force.

From that time on, music became both a wellspring and a refuge, a place where I could shape my own dreams and narratives to fit the soundtrack.  Still, it never occurred to me that the sounds themselves could be subjects for my own narratives until I haphazardly encountered such myriad texts as Baraka’s Blues People, Martin Williams’ The Jazz Tradition, Ralph Ellison’s Shadow Act, and the sundry, scattered journalism of Hentoff, Balliett, Gleason, Feather, Gitler, Morgenstern and others.  And it wasn’t until I found even more idiosyncratic sensibilities writing about jazz and popular music, from Al Murray to Bob Christgau, from Lester Bangs to Al Young, from Andre Hodier to Greil Marcus, that I started believing that music in general and jazz in particular could be places where the critical imagination could run wild and free.  I wanted in.  Somehow, someway, I still do.

When you first started writing about music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about serious music?

It always seemed to me more curious than enraging when I was growing up to find printed discourse on African American music in which African Americans themselves rarely, if ever, participated.  (And this applied to just about every other subject you could think of beyond, say, one’s personal experiences of Being Black in America.)  Most of the problem was that we were rarely, if ever invited to participate — which shouldn’t have stopped us from joining in anyway.  At no time did it ever occur to me that I couldn’t or shouldn’t express myself about jazz in any forum. 

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of black musicians making serious music but so few black media commentators on the music?

Look around and tell me if you see ANY mainstream outlets with ANY regular commentary about jazz.  And the few music publications that are left look as if they’re nervously staring over a precipice — which they are.

And let me tell you what they’re up against: For as long as I’ve been professionally writing about the music, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time struggling to convince readers and editors alike that jazz is neither a trip to the dentist or a complex code whose secrets are out of reach to all but either select or mutant beings.  (And, just so we’re clear, it’s not just white folks who show resistance.)  Sometime in the midst of my Newsday years, I did a multi-page section introducing jazz and its glories to novice readers.  A decade passed, then five more years before another editor, a black woman, said to me, “You know, we really should do a take-out, introducing readers to basic jazz, etc.” as a condition for writing more jazz articles.  So it was and so it shall continue to be for the dwindling years of print journalism’s primacy.  In fact, for whatever it’s worth, I think it’s precisely this attitude towards jazz that has helped push print to the brink.  (Again, another discussion for another time.)

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American jazz writers contributes to how the music is covered?

Let me here cite two quite different, yet equally important books by African American writers that have come out in the last couple of years: George E. Lewis’ A Power Stronger Than Itself and Robin D.G. Kelley’s Thelonious Monk: The Life and Timees of an American Original. Both are historical works, one (Lewis’) written from within the inside and the other (Kelley’s) written mostly from the outside.  Yet both achieve greater legitimacy as jazz history because they are written from a black perspective.  Has any white critic more passionately or incisively evoked the thrust, diversity and legacy of the Midwestern black avant-garde than Lewis?  Could Monk’s somewhat complicated family life, both as a child and as an adult, receive more empathetic treatment from a white writer than from Kelley?  It’s possible, but even if that hypothetical writer were able to gain the trust and access from Monk’s family, I’m guessing (s)he would still find more psychic territory closed off.

My overall point here is that without a greater African American presence in jazz history OR journalism, the intimate and profound transactions between black culture and jazz music would be undervalued, if not undocumented.  Looking back over several decades.  I’m struck by how much of that emotional transaction has been more thoroughly covered by generations of African-American poets than by journalists.  Langston Hughes and Amiri Baraka are the most obvious examples.  But one also thinks of Larry Neal, Bob Kaufman, Michael S. Harper, Jayne Cortez, Al Young, Quincy Troupe, Nathaniel Mackey, Cornelius Eady and many more who have had an unsung influence on their white counterparts, many of whom have in recent years engaged jazz tropes, imagery & subject matter.  (Which, by the by, is yet another aspect of jazz history that could only be brought to light by an African American sensibility.)

Since you’ve been writing about this music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others, and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

Not so much now as I might have if I’d made this career, say, sixty, fifty, or even thirty years ago.  As the first century of jazz wound down, it became clearer that all of us — musicians, producers, journalists, afficianados of varied colors and creeds — were all crammed together on the same shrinking sea craft and whatever wave caught it had to either carry all of us… as long as it didn’t sink us. 

In other words… I mean, come on.  At this late hour, are we really going to begrudge Diana Krall for getting all the gigs & love that Dianne Reeves doesn’t?  Because, from where I sit, neither one is really getting the props they deserve.  (Let Krall play more piano and do less retro-purring.  If the latter is the best that music marketers can do with her, then they deserve everything that’s been coming to them over the last couple decades.)  I’m far more frustrated that neither Don Byron OR Anat Cohen can attract more attention, not just for re-energizing jazz clarinet, but for their freewheeling electicism and witty showmanship.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards jazz, despite the fact that so many African American artists continue to create this music?

My “sense” is that African American publications never felt truly, madly, deeply obligated to cover jazz or any other serious music beyond those artists whose level of wattage made them impossible to ignore, making them as culpable as other mainstream magazines.  Hell, I didn’t learn about Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, or Cecil Taylor from reading the John Johnson publications [Ebony, Jet, et. al.].  I learned all that stuff from Chicago’s other mid-20th century publishing tycoon-visionary: fella by the name of Hugh Hefner, whose Playboy jazz poll was more conscientious about keeping tabs on the annual rise and fall of jazz’s fortunes than any other mainstream publication.  (See?  Some of us DID read the articles.)  In fact, when I had my monthly ”Just Jazz” column for the late, lamented Emerge magazine, my editor George Curry compared what we were doing to Playboy of the 1950s and 1960s.  For all the good it did us, in the end.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how serious music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

I don’t mind idiosyncracy or even bias in anyone’s writing as long as they can back it up with something besides Attitude.  When they can’t, then, as Lenny Bruce would say, “Frig it, man.  I walk!”  (Yes, even Lenny watched his mouth once in a while.)

In your experience writing about this music what have been some of your most rewarding encounters?

At the risk of sounding overly sappy, I still have to pinch myself every once in a while when they let me have a decent seat in a club or concert hall and pay me to tell others what I saw and heard.  I also feel privileged to have found myself on the front lines of the jazz scene in the last decade of the 20th century when the passion, energy and even some of the anger reached its (so far) final great flowering.

Perhaps this is the best way to characterize the rewards: One damp December day in the early 00s, I had finished casting my votes as a member of the New York Film Critics Circle.  At the time, Newsday was more interested in stressing my film reviewing than anything to do with jazz music.  (About which, more later.)  Yet, I was still getting invites to clubs and concerts and stuff, including, that particular evening a Christmas party at Blue Note Records.  Even though I hadn’t been able to get much of anything in the paper about their records, the artists, producers and executives all welcomed me to that evening as if I were a part of the family.  As many movie stars, directors and writers as I’d met by then (and would meet in the near future), I never felt the warmth and fellowship from that crowd as I felt and continue to feel whenever ten or more jazz people are gathered.  So what if jazz no longer occupies the center of the universe?  It’s still a great place one is proud to call home.

What obstacles have you encountered — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering this music?

For the most part, it’s easier to talk with musicians than it used to be.  They’re younger, more media savvy and more articulate about the elements of their craft than their predecessors might have been.  (I remember, especially, a dismal phone interview I had with Benny Carter in which almost every reply was curt, monosyllabic or evasive.  Hey, what did I expect?  The man was in his ninth decade and had better things to do that morning than talk with me.)  What remains soomewhat of a problem is musicians’ belief that we journalists can’t possibly be as sophisticated or as knowledgeable about the music as they are and, thus, are suspect.  I used to tie myself in knots over this issue until I eventually realized that, in the end, I wasn’t writing for these musicians, I was writing about them for people like me who were simply curious about the music they loved without reason.

What have you heard on record recently that you’ve enjoyed? 

Recently I was visiting Washington, DC and was listening to the local Pacifica station [WPFW] when I heard a track from Regina Carter’s forthcoming album [Reverse Thread, a recasting of ancient African folk songs to be released in May].  All I can tell you is that it sounds like the music I’ve been rooting for her to record for more than a decade; rich, alluring, challenging and inventive all at once.  It makes me anxious for May to get here already so I can hear the whole album.  

Of 2010′s new releases that have come my way so far the one I’m having the most trouble keeping out of whatever player I’m using at the moment is Allison Miller’s  Boom Tic Boom, named for the trio she leads with pianist Myra Melford and bassist Todd Sickafoose.  It’s limber, loose, and packed tight with both intelligence and energy. 

JJA Prez Howard Mandel

In light of recent postings in our ongoing series Ain’t But a Few of Us: Black music writers telling their stories, friend and colleague Howard Mandel, President of the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA www.jazzhouse.org) wrote the following open letter to stress the organization’s diversity mandate.

Dear Willard,

Thanks for your column "Ain’t But a Few of Us", highlighting jazz journalists who are of African-American heritage.  In a recent posting you mentioned the Jazz Journalists Association’s "Clarence Atkins Fellowships," a mentoring program for emerging music journalists from minority backgrounds, saying it was "short-lived."  However, that program basically continues, although it has evolved from principally "mentoring" (which sounds pretty paternalistic) to an initiative more along the lines of collaborations with equal professionals, which is what the people in the original Atkins group — several of whom you’ve featured [editor's note: Ain't But a Few of Us contributors Bridget Arnwine, Robin James, and Rahsaan Clark Morris] — have become.

As it has been since you first convened and co-founded the organization in the mid 1980s, the JJA is still on the lookout for and welcomes music journalists interested in jazz of all ancestry.  The organization doesn’t currently have the funds to sponsor journalists to five-day conferences in Los Angeles, as we were able to do in 2005, thanks in great part to sponsorship funds from BET Jazz that helped produce that year’s JJA Jazz Awards, also 2005 was the first and only year the National Critics Conference was produced, by a coalition including the JJA, the Music Critics Association of North America, the Dance Critics Association, the American Theater Critics Association, and the US chapter of the International Association of Arts Critics.  However, the JJA in September 2007 welcomed K. Leander Williams, Greg Tate, Stanley Crouch, Ashante Infantry, Ron Scott, and 28 other jazz journalists from around the world to participate in "Jazz in the Global Imagination," a day-long symposium at Columbia University, produced by that school’s Center for Jazz Studies (directed by George E. Lewis).  

The JJA’s January 2010 conference, five days of programming during the annual convention of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters included John Murph, Greg Thomas, Bridget Arnwine, Ron Scott, Norm Harris, Sheila Anderson, Martin Johnson, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and yourself as participants in town hall-style meetings, attendees at our party and guests at a luncheon prepared by the National Endowment for the Arts (where Farah Jasmine Griffin was one of three speakers).  I am in occasional correspondence with Atkins fellows Rahsaan Clark Morris, Michele Drayton, Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, and Robin James.  The JJA seems to have lost track of Sharony Green [author of the Grant Green biography] — the last I knew she was at University of Chicago getting an advanced degree [drop us a line Sharony!].

Forrest Bryant (who first came to a JJA program at an International Association of Jazz Education conference) is a JJA board member and arts director of Jazz Notes [the JJA publication].  Though she’s not a journalist, the JJA has encouraged Meghan Stabile’s "Revive da Live" music productions, featuring her artists who cross jazz and hip hop at the 2008 Jazz Awards.  Ms. Stabile, Greg Tate, and Robert Glasper were panelists at one of the Jazz Matters meetings held at the New School (we’ve revived those meetings as of March 9 after a hiatus of two years).  Reuben Jackson, a former JJA board member, W.A. Brower, and Ron Scott are among the members who have been on our panels and their writings (as well as Bridget Arnwine’s) in the pages of Jazz Notes or on www.Jazzhouse.org. 

Working with the folks at WBGO is not exactly helping "emerging" journalists, it’s just collaborating with fine broadcasters, and the JJA has a history of doing that with many other broadcasters from elsewhere — Bobby Jackson, Richard Steele, Eric Jackson, Clifford Brown Jr., and Mark Ruffin come to mind.  Photographers, including Chuck Stewart and Javet Kimble, are highly regarded friends of the JJA (as are A.B. Spellman and James Jordan from the world of arts funders).  The JJA has issued standing invitations to officially join us to many other black journalists who cover jazz among other things and have contributed to association projects.

But to get back to my original point, the struggle continues!  Some progress has been made in identifying and collaborating with the many (at least, more than a "few") journalists and jazz-identified activists (don’t forget the JJA’s A Team Awards recipients) of African-American heritage.

These details are meant to be informative, as you may not know how the association’s work has spread.  Whenever you run into a black writer, photographer, broadcaster, or new media professional who would benefit from JJA contact, I hope you will point them our way.  Same goes for any Asian, Hispanic, or Caucasion man or woman or LBGT person who wants to work on jazz/blues journalism, but the JJA is especially alert to identifying and encouraging African-American journalists or hopefuls.

The Jazz Journalists Association is right now consolidating its membership list, creating a new web platform, restructuring our journal Jazz Notes as a JJA news feed, and applying for funds for a January 2011 jazz journalism conference.  We’re producing the 14th annual JJA Jazz Awards next June; fundraising and ballot distribution is also on deck.  I offered arts presenters at the APAP conference JJA assistance in identifying and inviting appropriate jazz journalists in their local areas to come into their spaces to present enhancement programs during April Jazz Appreciation Month, and we seem to have a couple of takers on that project.  As you know, there’s much useful work to be done!  Thanks for your efforts on jazz journalism’s behalf, and best regards.

Howard Mandel, President, Jazz Journalists Association 

According to Arnold, "I’m not really a "jazz writer," though of course I have written about it; I tend to cover music of the diaspora, which is black music, Latin music, Caribbean music, African music, hip-hop, soul/funk, and various hybridized and fusionistic forms thereof.  It’s hard for me to separate music into "serious" and "non-serious" categories; I tend to look at it as a whole.  I think the seriousness comes from how folks approach the subject — to me, the recent album of jazz-funk covers of Wu-Tang songs was as serious as, say, the last Joshua Redman album."

What motivated you to write about music in the first place?

When I was in college I read LeRoi Jones’ "Blues People" in my African American Music course, taught by Nate Mackey, a professor who was also a jazz DJ.  At that time I was also DJing, on the college radio station.  I started writing for the school paper and just went from there.

When you first started writing about music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about this music?

Not really. That became obvious later on.

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of black musicians but so few black media commentators on the music?

That’s a big question.  I think there’s always been a certain amount of cultural appropriation going on with respect to black music; you can look at Baraka’s essay "Jazz and the white critic" for a historical reference.  There are so few black-owned media outlets — that’s one reason.  And for most white editors who want to cover black music, I don’t think they really see a problem with having non-black writers do it, because they’re not really aware of the cultural nuances.  Cultural appropriation is not really somethiing white people take seriously; there’s no impetus or motivation to be culturally authentic.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American jazz writers contributes to how the music is covered?

Absolutely.  A lot of times, the whole notion of race as it relates to music is de-emphasized or tokenized.  I think this extends past jazz, into all genres of black music.

Since you’ve been writing about this music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others, and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

That’s kind of a leading question.  You’d have to be more specific about who gets "elevated."  In general, the lack of cultural diversity among music writers affects a lot of aspects of how music is perceived, what can be said — and what isn’t said.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards this music, despite the fact that so many African American artists continue to create this music?

The easy answer is, they’re all sellouts who chase the economic bottom line and don’t really have an investment in their own cultural traditions.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how this music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

Well, I don’t think that’s contention but fact. Let’s just say something gets lost in translation culturally.

In your experience writing about this music what have been some of your most rewarding encounters?

Hmmm, good one.  Hearing Oumou Sangare jam with a bunch of folks in a small club in Morocco was pretty special [Editor: Indeed!].

What obstacles have you encountered — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering this music?

The worst is when you pitch a story to a newspaper and they pass on it, and then some time later one of their white staff writers writes a story [on the same or a similar topic] that’s not as good as what you could have done.  This happens a lot.

What have been the most intriguing records you’ve heard over the last several months?

 Ironically, I’d say Quantic and His Combo Barbaro.  Quantic is a white guy from England who went to Columbia and recorded a bunch of native musicians; that album is really good.  I like some of the Afrofunk stuff that’s come out lately — Sila & the Afrofunk Experience’s Black Presient is really good.  The Mulatu Astake – Ethiopian jazz guy — anthology is amazing.  Iike the Amadou + Maryam album, and Sister Fa — she’s a female MC from Senegal. 

Robin James has written a jazz column for several years at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, the Twin Cities African American newspaper.  She has continued to contribute to various prints, including a rare interview with Ornette Coleman that she wrote for DownBeat magazine.

What motivated you to write about this music?

At first it was curiosity, which stemmed from attending two jazz concerts in Minneapolis.  The first jazz concert I attended was with Joshua Redman and his band in 1996, the other was the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in 2000.  Both men, both concerts changed my thinking about jazz and what this peculiar American art form means to this country.  But even before these experiences I had a history with jazz.  My grandmother had told me stories about how her husband, a Pullman porter, had developed friendships with jazzmen like Hot Lips Page, Buck Clayton, and Dizzy Gillespie.  It took some time before I would learn about who they were.

At the concerts I noticed that there were hardly any women or people of color in the audience. It concerned me.  So I wrote about those concert experiences after I was given the tremendous opportunity by the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, an historic Black newspaper and the oldest minority owned company in Minnesota, to write a jazz column, which I began in September 2000.

Then I heard a selection from Joshua’s Spirit of the Moment: Live at the Village Vanguard album on the radio and it pulled me in.  I remember diggin’ the music and then becoming curious about it.  It was an inspirational moment for me.  Then I found out he was on his way to town, so I asked for an interview and, luckily, got one (on his birthday). I was a new reporter and my interview went over its alloted time.  But he was very kind to me over the phone and in-person.  At the time, I knew nothing except that I was falling in love with the music.  And I loved the way it made me feel.

The second jazz concert I attended was the LCJO with Wynton Marsalis.  I was dating someone that had spoken very highly of Wynton and the band.  During my first trip to visit him in New York, I bought him Wynton’s book, Sweet Sing Blues on the Road as a Christmas gift.  Beyond that, I knew nothing about Wynton or his orchestra.  But I was deeply curious.

When the band came to town I attended and reviewed the concert.  After the concert, at the venue I met Wynton.  Someone introduced us and took our picture. 

Immediately, he was very warm and his spirit was very welcoming.  After seeing LCJO and Wynton in action, I began to question why more people like myself didn’t feel drawn to the music.  Although I feel very strongly that jazz chose me, I still have a curiosity that drives me.  It makes me want to share my experiences with readers.  I hope that someone out there will get curious and inspired to learn more, and explore the music more fully for themselves, in much the same way that I did.

About a year later, I was at the Book Expo America in Chicago where I had traveled to work with book authors.  I was a publicist at the time.  Wynton’s book Jazz in the Bittersweet Bluees of Life was being released, so it was being promoted there.  He played a concert to help with promotions.  Briefly we were re-acquainted at the book publisher’s after party.

A month later I was back in Chicago for the Ravinia Festival, where the LCJO and Wynton were performing.  It was there that he read aloud my first column where I stated my concern about why more women and people of color were not feeling drawn to jazz.  After he read my piece, he offered me encouraging words that inspired me to keep writing about jazz.  Wynton also recognized and acknowledged how difficult it is to write.

For someone so accomplished like that to take an interest in me and make time to read my work, at such an early stage, well it made me want to keep going.  Keep writing and learning about jazz.  I am forever grateful.  That meeting changed my life.

After this initial meeting with Wynton, I got in touch with Bob Protzman, who at the time was one of the only full-time jazz writers at a major daily, the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  He helped make it possible for me to write jazz previews and reviews for the newspaper.  Plus, Protzman was hosting a show on our jazz station KBEM, Jazz 88FM.  I listened to him and learned a lot.  After that, at my first Jazz Journalists Association event in New York City in 2003, I reached out to veteran jazz writers Ashley Kahn and Gary Giddins.  Both were very supportive and also helped me along the way.  Due to a referral by Gary, I received my first and only assignment from the Village Voice.  I wrote a CD review.  My experience working with Village Voice editor Chuck Eddy left a lasting impression on me as well.  He taught me how to say something with 250 words or less.  Ashley encouraged me by teaching me how to craft pitch letters.  I also reached out to Stanley Crouch.  He too offered me encouraging words of wisdom andd instruction.

When you began this quest were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about this music?

No, I had no idea.

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of black musicians making this music but so few black media commentators?

I suppose it comes down to power, access, and interest.  Having knowledge of and access to art is powerful.  But first you’ve got to have interest, interest in art.  Interest in the artist, interest in an audience.  All it takes is one voice to spark something great, which can then inspire individuals and a nation.  That’s power.  But it goes even deeper than that.  And as far as I know, the people who’ve been in this business the longest, who have benefited the most, have yet to fully explain their process.  Until that happens, and that news is documented or talked about openly, by African Americans and all of those who know the difference, we’re not going to get very far.  Very little light has been shed on the subject for whatever reasons.  Too much time is devoted to and focused upon everything but the real important issues, which relate directly to economics.  People in positions of power feel more comfortable with the same people writing the same things and in the same way.  I would welcome a healthy discussion by veteran jazz writers, authors, and editors from jazz publications, and African American-oriented publications in the near future.  What it boils down to is that we’re talking about the human condition and humanizing that condition.  The music, it’s sources, and implications.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American writers contributes to how the music is covered?

Absolutely.  From a cultural enrichment standpoint, there’s a lot that has the potential to get missed and/or misunderstood, which can lead to miscommunication.  When you’re documenting what’s happening now, you’ve got to be careful about how the information is transmitted.  When you’re considering future generations with respect to African American history, I know I strive to get the perspective right, because it may be my one and only shot at doing so.  By shaping the now, you’re shaping the future and how it gets viewed later.  It’s like African American folklore.  When the truth doesn’t get told, you have alternative stories going, that then can get viewed as being myths.  The truth doesn’t always get the forum it deserves.  Some things get lost in translation.  Yes, that’s unfortunate.  And yes, that’s 100% preventable.

Since you’ve been writing about this music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

At first I used to wonder and question, but now I don’t.  I get it.  Editors are key here.  How they think matters.  Or, we’ve been conditioned to believe that.  Sure, they get pitched by writers, which in turn helps shape their decision making process.  But it still comes down to how they think, which directly relates to what gets covered and who covers what.  Again, that leads to economics, and relationships.  I don’t know how much a writer’s actual talent, and abilities, or interest adds to the equation.  I suppose all of that ought to be considered.  In my case, I’m very fortunate in that I write a jazz column and so, my editors let me have free reign.  My position is extremely unique, I realize this and feel very grateful to have the freedom to pretty much write about whatever I want to.  Of course, I’m asked to be mindful of our audience when I do make my choices.

You are one of the few who have written about the music for an African American-oriented publication.  What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American publications towards this music, despite the fact that so many African American artists continue to create the music?

Again, it comes down to economics.  I imagine, other publications have to consider their overall space, content, and advertising budgets.  With MSR, the publisher made a conscious choice to devote space to jazz, in good and not so good economic times.  We still have a long way to go in this arena.  I definitely don’t see a lot of coverage being devoted to jazz [elsewhere], which is very disappointing and troubling to me.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how this music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

The way and tone of how serious music is covered has everything to do with who is covering it.  It’s like comparing Ben Ratliff’s coverage of Wynton Marsalis to Nate Chinen’s coverage of Wynton.  Here we’re talking about individual experience.  Individual taste, so an individual’s background, experience and education comes into play.  It’s all very intimate in nature.  And you can sense the enthusiasm level a writer has for the piece he or she has written.  It’s inescapable.

In your experience writing about serious music, what have been some of your most rewarding encounters?

Besides my encounters with Wynton, interviewing Ornette Coleman for a cover story for DownBeat has been a major career high point.  Meeting Kenny Burrell and Charlie Haden  at the Jazz Bakery.  Having Gary Giddins refer me for a CD review for the Village Voice. Receiving the Clarence Atkins fellowship award and attending the National Critics Conference, and from that experience meeting David Ritz, from whom I still seek advice.  Co-hosting and creating the jazz radio show Sweet on Jazz with KBEM’s music director Kevin O’Connor.  With his invaluable guidance and support I was fortunate enough to interview artists such as Jackie McLean, Lou Rawls, Sonny Rollins, Patrice Rushen, Nnenna Freelon, among others.  Writing for the Village Voice and EQ magazine.  Becoming a contributing writer for DownBeat.  Having had the opportunity to write about jazz for a weekly, a daily, a national jazz magazine, and to broadcast a jazz show, I feel extremely fortunate.  All these experiences fuel my passion to keep moving in positive directions with the music.  Building long-term relationships with musicians of all calibre and earning their respect and trust is of the utmost importance to me.

What obstacles have you run up against — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering this music?

MSR is a weekly newspaper so I encounter a number of obstacles.  My mail gets lost.  Sometimes I don’t always get clips out to the labels who don’t have clipping services.  I don’t always receive invites to music-related functions.  My name doesn’t always appear on regular reviewers mailing lists so I don’t get CDs to review from all record companies releasing jazz or jazz-related music in a timely fashion.  I understand the timing that’s involved when it comes to reviewing a CD, but I’ve learned to just keep doing the best I can to get the news out.  I’ve come to accept that doing some extra leg work is necessary if I want to keep up and stay on top of the news.  It’s tough, but well worth the effort.  A column might get bumped, or a front page story could get eliminated or delayed.  It all depends on developing news.

If you were pressed to list several musicians who may be somewhat bubbling under the surface or just about to break through as far as wider spread public consiousness, who might they be and why?

Dana Hall and Winard Harper are two terriffic drummers out there who don’t record a lot or get a ton of gigs, but they are rich on talent.  They deserve more exposure as they have demonstrated commitment and a deep understanding of the music and how it relates to the times we live in now.  Jeremy Pelt is another extraordinary talent that you just don’t see or hear enough about.  He’s very history-minded, yet future-minded and presents a balanced view of both while he’s telling his story.

What were some of the most intriguing new records you heard in 2009?  

Christian McBride’s Kind of Brown featuring his acoustic jazz quintet Inside Straight stands out.  It’s a deluxe package.  It grooves, swings, it’s bluesy.  Speaking of Jeremy, his debut recording Men of Honor for HighNote came out in January, its beautiful.  I had the honor of writing the liner notes.  All of my writing experiences have brought me to this important assignment.  I have a lot of respect for David Ritz who has won several Grammys for his work on liner notes.  

        Bill Francis

    The son of a saxophone-playing Tuskegee Airman, Bill formerly covered Kansas City’s legendary jazz scene as a feature reporter and jazz columnist for The Kansas City Star.  He has also hosted an FM jazz radio program which was heard around the world on the ‘Net.  Bill writes regularly about the artists and the thriving jazz scene in Brooklyn.

What motivated you to write about this music?

My father was a jazz musician, as well as one of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen.  From an early age, jazz has been part of my world.  In college, playing in a jazz fusion group, and hearing and meeting some of the greatest jazzmen of the day (e.g. Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard), I realized that jazz was much more than a music genre, it was a culture and important part of African American history.

When you first started writing about music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about this music?

When I began writing about music professionally, as a reporter and music columnist at The Kansas City Star, there seemed to be few African Americans getting mass exposure for writing about any serious subjects.  At the time Baraka’s Blues People was my only inspiration for thinking I could make a difference as an African American jazz journalist.

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of Black musicians making serious music but so few Black media commentators on the music?

There is no mystery for the disparity.  It is a direct result of African Americans and other minorities being greatly underrepresented in the ranks of publishers, editors, and producers at newspapers, magazines and in television.  Whether it’s jazz, culture, or everyday life, African American stories are seldom told in the media, and even less often written or produced by African Americans.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American jazz writers contributes to how the music is covered?

The lack of African American writers, who understand the culture that jazz sprang from and who feel jazz rhythms in their souls, certainly has influenced how the music has been represented.  Look no further than the preeminence of ‘smooth jazz’ on concert lineups and what is left of jazz radio. 

[Editor's note: Smooth jazz radio stations are dropping like flies; that "preeminence" is over, at least as far as radio is concerned; though in fairness to Bill he submitted this contribution before so many smooth jazz radio stations across the country began summarily changing formats.] 

With so few African American jazz writers being read, it’s not surprising that ‘smooth jazz’ — less challenging, more appealing to white writers, media executives, and audiences — has become the definition of jazz for much of America.

Since you’ve been writing about this music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others, and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

Which musicians and artists succeed commercially and which do not is a popular subject of conversation for those of us who write or cover music, particularly among African Americans.  Of course, the answer is pretty obvious when viewed in the larger context of the lack of cultural diversity among those who decide which stories about art, culture and music are written and which artists get hyped and marketed in America.  Even more than a lack of African American writers with jazz in their souls, it is the lack of Black editors to champion greater diversity in the stories assigned that relegates blues and jazz to second class status commercially in America.

[Editor's note/ Rhetorical question department: When was the last African American in an editorial position at the most prominent jazz prints, DownBeat or JazzTimes magazines (throw Cadence and Coda in that mix as well, and for the sake of modernity, the web-based publications All About Jazz and Jazz.com as well)?  Just as we thought...]

What is your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards this music, despite the fact that so many African American artists have been historically prominent in the music?

Black publications reflect their readership.  Unfortunately, for reasons often debated, African Americans haven’t supported jazz as popular music since its earliest days.  Go to any jazz club or jazz concert in America and you will be saddened by the lack of African Americans in attendance.  Of course, Black publications could take the lead in educating and promoting jazz, as not only America’s only true original art form and important part of our heritage, but as an unrivaled improvisational music experience.  But the marketing realities in America require deep pockets and a deep committment on the part of minority publishers whose bottom line is usually more tenuous than their white music publication counterparts.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how this music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

Ask most African American jazz musicians and they will express gratitude for the white writers at leading jazz magazines who love the music and write about the Black jazzmen who aren’t on the jazz charts and whose names aren’t Herbie or Wynton.  I have no doubt, however, that if there were more African Americans writing about the music and being read, the tone of jazz journalism would be far different and more accessible to read.  Think of what major league baseball was before Jackie Robinson or the NBA before Connie Hawkins and Dr. J.  That’s what jazz journalism for the most part is like today, without the major influence of Black writers.

In your experience writing about this music, what have been some of your most rewarding encounters?

As a resident of Brooklyn, I’ve frequently written about the vibrant jazz scene there, including several articles about the wonderful Parlor jazz phenomenon of top-flight live jazz being hosted in people’s homes.  Being privileged to hear, get to know and spread the word about incredible artists such as Mem Nahadr, Carla Cook, Cal Payne, or Onaje Allan Gumbs, whose music and talents warrant much greater recognition than they have, has been among my most rewarding encounters as a writer.

What obstacles have you encountered — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering serious music?

Convincing publications that stories about jazz and jazz musicians can be compelling for their readers is a constant frustration to overcome.  Like jazz musicians, jazz journalists who are committed to writing about the music and must constantly work to stay positive in the face of the reality of their standing in the music marketplace and journalistic hierarchy.

What were a couple of the most intriguing records you heard in ’09?

EclecticisM by Mem Nahadr (LiveWired Music)…  To fully experience and appreciate her extraordinary talent you must see this striking African American, dread-locked albino live.  However on her latest appropriately titled CD, this jazz and performance artist diva with the incredible vocal range proves that there is nothing she can’t do vocally, from jazz ballads to funky pop.

Watts from Jeff "Tain" Watts (Dark Key Music)… Tain is a monster drummer and his playing here as a leader is ferocious but controlled.  With frequent collaborators Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, and bassist Christian McBride in top form, the CD mixes some tongue-in-cheek humor and social commentary with a hard swinging mix of bop, funk, and blues.  Proving that jazz can still be relevant, as well as music of the highest order.

   Matana Roberts

Black folks and Jazz Music?  Why don’t I see black folks at my shows or even on the stage for that matter?  Is there a legacy of shame involved?  Well sure — I’d agree in some small respect that this shame is definitely part of the music’s legacy… the drug culture of the music lent itself to that.  But honestly for me personally that was never really an issue.  I grew up hearing some of the styles of music that I in fact play today and was surrounded by kinfolk that had a certain reverence for art in all it’s forms.  My family loved music and art.  Now does that mean my family encouraged me to be a saxophonist?  Absolutely not, but they never discouraged me either.  I grew up under the assumption that I could be anything I wanted to be.  I grew up in an environment to believe that as long as I enriched my mind, there would be no limitations in how I could enrich my life.

    My grandfather, a WWll vet, was a postal worker by day and a philosopher, poet and father of 3 by night.  My grandmother was a secondary school teacher and an avid student of many, many subjects that interested her as well as a  mother of 3 by night.  These day jobs they had represented very respectable professions for people of color in the ’50s.  I don’t get the impression that they or anyone else in my family – on both sides for that matter — looked at the job of a musician as being shameful, but I do suspect they did see it as being within the box of what White AmeriKKKa said was acceptable for black folks — and that would be to ENTERTAIN.  And if there is one common theme I have seen in my family research so far on both sides was a silent fight not to be confined to a box of what white folk deemed acceptable.

    If there are black folks discouraging their children from playing this music I think it would have more to do with that legacy than anything about playing so called "devil’s music".  (Though one can argue about all the bling associated with black pop music — but that’s another essay.)  In my opinion there is an economic status thing at play too.  My maternal grandmother pulled me aside every chance she could get to tell me that the kind of presence I had was one that only a high powered lawyer could posses.  I would just smile at this, but frankly sometimes when I’m freaked out about how exactly I’m going to make my rent, I wished I would have listened to her for purely economical reasons; as my last argument with a somewhat nasty student loan collector went something like this:

collector: "so ms. roberts, what exactly is it that you are doing with your life?"

Me: "Well sir, I’m trying to make a contribution."

collector: (insert smirk here) "by playing in a band ms. roberts?"

Me: "um… well if you want to put it like that, then sure."

collector: "you should be ashamed of yourself…"

 That’s basically where my shame has come from so far in this lifetime in relationship to music.  Isn’t that something?  I’m pretty sure my ancestors were not betting on that scenario.  My shame has come in the throes of trying to get a college education in the U.S.  In America, where descendants of the folk that actually helped to build some of these financial empires from the bottom up can’t afford to finance their own education.  Isn’t that sad?

    The legacy left in most American black families like mine is a legacy that requires a certain pride in self-sufficiency… you leave the field negro mentality behind and you surpass the house negro mentality by having your very own field and your very own house that you can do with as you please.  I’m pretty sure every black person in this country felt a strong reminder of that watching the Hurricane Katrina disaster on CNN.  It definitely showed that if you ain’t got some extra change stashed somewhere, your "can’twealljustgetalong" black ass might end up floating down a river too…  I know I felt that…

    But also a part of that legacy is to strive to surpass innovation, to surpass the standard already set.  In jazz music black folks have already done that in many ways.  We surpassed a standard for musical creativity and made it our own, and I think that some of us are continuing to do that.  My family always encouraged me in very silent ways (by example) to reach and not be afraid to grab and hold on despite the obstacles.  I think because of this past history of what black folks have already done in regards to this music has created an atmosphere of where now most black folk find the music boring — except for those iconic heroes like Coltrane.

    I personally think the lack of black folks at my concerts and on the stage has more to do with the legacy of ghetto economics.  And frankly the way jazz has become embraced by educational institutions does not make the ghetto economist leap with joy.  What negro would pay close to 30 thousand dollars a year to essentially learn to be black?  (This is a wide generalization I know, but work with me here please, I’m having fun.)  Well this negro did, and I do regret it to some extent. 

    I was able to fund a chunk of it thanks to a few small scholarships and grants, but since I didn’t really fit neatly into any particular musical box where my professors would go "well that Roberts, sounds like Bird!!! — let’s give her some money!!!"  I all but got ignored until towards the end of my institutional music collegiate experience where I finally ran into some teachers who understood the importance of original voices and it’s history in this music.  But regardless, I still have somewhat of a greenpapered bounty on my black ass thanks to my pursuit of knowledge — american style — hence the nasty psychological collector conversations I pretty much experience on the regular; a modern ball and chain if you will.  Something that my family fought hard to free their descendants from, but I guess I took the bait because I felt that getting a college education as a black american was one of my duties and so I did it, and at this point there’s no turning back now.  Life is full of little ironies.

    What I mainly see is a lack of diversity in music education institutions  — from the bottom up.  I’ve been on the bottom and I’ve been on the up.  I guess what hurts the most about this stuff sometimes is I actually gave people some money to tell me I wouldn’t be an artist.  (Thank God for the AACM, Chad Taylor, Josh Abrams, and Vonski.)  I had one professor seriously say to me "the only way you are going to get some gigs is if you marry a musician", and another who encouraged me to find another profession as I just wasn’t "getting it" — and this was only two out of a team of nitwits. 

    Seeing as no musician in his right mind has stepped forward to bound my finger with a shiny trinket I’d say that professor was projecting some of his own bullshit on me.  [Editor's note: would that be in the classic "those who can't..." parlance?  Just wondering aloud...]  And the second guy — well perhaps he just wasn’t getting me.  Though some of these early experiences definitely destroyed my self esteem for a time, I will say, now looking back in retrospect, that my family’s silent way of encouraging me to persevere anything actually helped.  First off by passing me some of the stories that I speak of in my COIN COIN project [details coming in The Independent Ear], showing me that if you fight and stand up for yourself you can survive.

    I’m only just beginning to find out what tremendous thing this has done and is contiuing to do for my artistic psyche.  And then in some ways an unspoken guideline in most black households — or at least the ones I was around — was this (and please don’t get your panties or briefs in a bunch over this, it’s just a gross generalization and not necessarily one I proscribe to anymore) treat anything that a white person says that is in any position of power over you as suspect information (especially if it’s commentary on your "ability").  This included teachers.  As a kid I had already been singled out negatively a few times by white teachers and I will always be thankful that my parents immediately sensed the problem was with the teachers and not with me.  My parents, grandparents did not ever come out and say this little credo exactly to me, it was always in the familial air; passed down generations through stories of our kinfolk…  Know what I mean?

    I’ve had many white teachers in this music and a good bulk of them I very, very much value.  But in order to deal with some of the idiots — as I described above — who were both white, I think now in retrospect I learned my family history in some ways as a coping mechanism.

    Now back to the lack of diversity in jazz education, which feeds jazz performance venues, which feeds jazz record labels, which [fed] the International Association of Jazz Education that [had] to have a "Black Caucus ” — is that not fucked up?  It’s because the music on a purely educational level is not diverse?  That’s so sad.  I’ve taught workshops to audiences that were completely filled with upstanding young white men, no students of color, sometimes not even any women.  It’s crazy.  (But maybe not so crazy since technically according to my last entries I’m white too, which means that possibly some of those upstanding young white men that I have taught have a negro or two dangling in their family trees too… so then that means the workshops were probably diverse… but just secretly diverse!  what?  whoo, my definiton of race is definitely changing…  I’m definitely having some fun here… 

    Anyway, I digress again…  I basically can report that on a cultural peer level it’s god awful lonely.  But for me it’s not really about schools anymore, or color, that’s done, now it’s about the work, and for better or for worse my saxophone was a tool given to me to get through all the madness and do the work.  It’s a tool for me to try to make sense of the madness, and perhaps a tool for me to create just a little of my own.  I can gladly report to the ancestors when I make that final transition that I stayed outside the box, maybe not in the way they may have hoped for, but I stayed and that I felt it pertinent to bring them closer to me to make it a little easier to deal.

…just some random thoughts.

             Fiercely independent aptly describes MATANA ROBERTS 

 One of the more compelling young artists to have arrived on the scene the last few years is saxophonist-composer and AACM member Matana Roberts.  She wrote recently to express her appreciation for the Ain’t But a Few of Us Independent Ear series conversations with journalist-author-educator Robin D.G. Kelly, he of the monumental and much-discussed recent book Thelonious Monk: An American Original.  Matana’s remarks at the time begged further inquisition, particularly regarding music writers she’s encountered along the way and her sense of the black audience for her music.

In your comments you say that you "rarely get interviewed by a music journalist who focuses on creative music exclusively that is female of any color."  Is that a suggestion that you’ve indeed been interviewed by female music writers of color in the past, though they have not specifically been writers who cover music in the more "creative" vein?  Or are you saying that your encounters with female music writers of color in general have been few and far between?  I ask that because clearly female music writers of any color — be they identified as critics or journalists — are in short supply, unless you’ve had other experiences.

I have been interviewed by female music writers, journalists and scholars on more than one occasion but I can count only being interviewed by a female writer of color twice within the last 8 year period, and that would be most recently — by Carolle Trolle of the New York Examiner and recently abroad by Sylvia Arthur of the UK’s Lucid Magazine.  You can read both of those articles online.

Let’s say in a more balanced world you were to be interviewed by a female music writer of color — a female creative music writer — how do you suppose that would ultimately affect reader perceptions of you and your music?  Are you implying that perhaps a female creative music writer of color might more thoroughly get it as far as why you choose to express your music in the ways you do?

Well, the only thing I would say about a female music writer of any color is that I think inappropriate questions related directly to my biology might possibly be avoided(?).  Though that’s a generalization as ignorance does not have a sex-specific identity and I have experienced this both from writers and journalists of all colors regardless of gender, but the nice thing about working with a writer of color is that sometimes (not all of the time) they will understand certain cultural nuances, in terms of references, etc. that other folks might not get. 

    Sometimes working with some female writers, regardless of the color line, there have been situations where I felt like they were really trying to lock me into a corner — just to get an overly staunch feminist soundbite from me.  Have I been mistreated by men in my profession?  Yes.  Have I experienced discriminatory and lecherous behavior by men in my development as a musician — a very loud and resounding YES.  Really as soon as puberty hit I got to learn first hand about all these imbalances.  Most of this nonsense has fallen to the wayside, though there are still some residuals for sure.

    I think in this day and age just stating the obvious feminist trappings (of which I am quite proud of by the way) of my work choice is frankly passe.  It’s a tired dialogue that focuses solely on the victimization of women’s choices and it doesn’t open the dialogue up enough for a new understanding and progression.  In the name of art I have been victimized yes, but I refuse, in the name of art, to be a victim.  Those are two very different aesthetic choices if you examine them close enough.  I have actually in the past few years tried to shy away from gender-specific interviews — particularly in academia — because of this.

    But in a general sense I have found female writers to at least have a bit more tact overall in terms of approaching sensitive questions that revolve around the sphere of what womanhood is or isn’t supposed to be.  And though it’s not necessary, it’s a nice bonus if it’s a woman of color who understands the extra baggage attached to female artists of color that get boxed into almost a simpledom arena just because of the visual.  I try to stay away from that baggage as much as I can, but it is difficult when doing some of the work I am doing now, particularly about the history of my ancestry.  As I am discovering in real time exactly how that baggage got packed in the first place.

In our recent exchange you said that you don’t see significant numbers of black musicians playing creative music.  Is that related more to the cutting edge, where one might closely identify your music, or in general?  I ask that because I continue to see young black musicians of your generation playing what some might characterize as the more traditional forms, but perhaps not necessarily in the freely experimental or cutting edge mode where you operate.  Is that a fair assessment?

That’s a fair assessment.  There seems to be a steady supply of African Diasporic-looking musicians playing the more traditional forms for sure, some of them are among some of my closest friends, and some of them are very open to playing all types of music.  Good music is good music.  But in my observation (over my somewhat short career) within the cultural framework of how musicians relate to each other, I have observed a strange disparity between them and musicians of color that are doing the more experimental forms sometimes.  I think this exists partly because, in my opinion, there is possibly a silent shame there(?).  In the history of this music the more experimental forms appear to be championed by young white audiences more than black and vice versa.  The more traditional jazz forms seem to have been supported over the years by the black bourgeoisie.

    I think there is a direct correlation between traditional jazz and organizations like the NAACP/DuBois’ talented tenth model and the experimental musics that seemed championed by organizations like the Black Panthers for instance.  And this is an old and tired model to bounce off in some ways but just for the sake of examples I will use them.  My parents were following a radical strain in the 70s; my father from a poor family, a Black Panther for a very short time…  There was always Sun Ra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Revolutionary Ensemble, Albert Ayler records playing all the time in my home, because my parents found those experimental musicians inspiring in a time that seemed experimentation was more necessary for the progression of race understanding.  But growing up on Chicago’s southside I straddled both of these spheres (the black bourgeoisie and the black radical movement) because there are parts of the southside that are very, very conservative.  Michelle Obama’s upbringing is a good example of this in many ways.  Even though I feel over the years in the black community jazz musicians were looked down on sometimes because of the drug issues of the age, I believe at least their take on cultural refinement through presentation and musical style was more acceptable than the stand up, experiment for the sake of experimentation, fight the power-type that essentially put the Art Ensemble’s kids through college.

    I also think playing the more experimental forms is sometimes seen as a certain nod to "Uncle Tom-ism" of days past — an extension of an African American buffoonery tradition in American pop culture and beyond.  Where the traditional construct is still romanticized in the African American community as a respected art form, but in my opinion can still extend to areas of buffoonery and Uncle Tom-ism — showing once more that black folks know how to "stay in their place".  The radical black voice has not always been celebrated, even more so if there is any hint of co-option outside of the African American community.  As much as I love the history of this music there is nothing radical and force forward moving anymore about playing racist tin pan alley tunes.

    I mean look at who the Obamas invited to the White House to start their jazz series — the one and only Wynton Marsalis.  What does that say about the progression of this music?  In my opinion… not much.  Why showcase someone typical, in this new age why not expose the public to the untypical; it’s a lot more interesting and thought-provoking.  Wynton Marsalis?  Why not some experimental elder iconoclast like Bill Dixon?  You know it’s a generational thing too; my generation was inspired by a different form of experimentation that bloomed from jazz in many ways and that would be the legacy of R(hythm) A(nd) P(oetry).  And a lot of the musicians of my generation went that direction — perhaps that was a smarter move as Lord knows my music is not paying the bills right now.

    In my humble opinion the African American soundmaker who is out there trying to create sounds that defy category is the musician who is actually reaching for what was the real tradition of jazz is in the first place; the tradition of being creative first.  Being creative with as much purpose and originality as one can muster.  I believe many of my heroes are spinning in their graves at the idea that there are people out here propogating the art form as their "originality" when it is really a shell of someone else’s historical life.  And for the record, I’m not trying to paint myself as some utopic model — I am far from it and have a lot more to do before I can really be considered someone pushing those boundaries, but I say this all in defense of those that I know who do, I am only scratching the surface now but I strive to get where they are.

After this initial response to the question, I told Matana about an interview I had with the late, great NEA Jazz Master vocalist Betty Carter.  When the subject of the more experimental forms of jazz came up Betty dismissed much of it by pronouncing that dissonance is simply not part of the black experience, therefore black folks simply ain’t hearin’ free or experimental jazz.

The thing is, I believe dissonance is so interwoven in the African American experience in ways that are just too painful for folks to remember or tackle.  A musician friend who plays the more traditional, accepted form of this music once said to me that "at the end of the day, it’s so hard being black in America, why would anyone want to listen to music that is essentially a polemic in sound on the underlying issue".  I’m paraphrasing there, but essentially the more traditional forms allow our people to relax and forget just how hard life can be(?).  I don’t agree with this, mainly because I grew up in a household where speaking up was an imperative so speaking up in creativity is imperative as well.  But unfortunately this means I get boxed into the avant garde, because there’s no room for questioning the status quo anywhere else these days.  But especially now, with a dared-to-be president named Obama, we as artists across color lines making experimental art have to protest even more loudly than before with our work.  What it means to be a person of color in America is changing before our very eyes… time to celebrate, document, cherish, yet question and challenge as well… the same old answers won’t work anymore.  I am a traditionalist at heart but why keep beating the same old traditions?

What would you recommend as far as developing a larger black audience for the more experimental side of the music?

I’ve been at a loss on this one for awhile.  I’m not sure if it’s possible; perhaps the music is just not inspiring enough anymore to support a culture that no longer neeeds to be reminded that we have the power to move a country.  With Obama in the White House we obviously already did!

                Stay tuned to The Independent Ear for another forthcoming contribution from Matana Roberts.

Hear MATANA ROBERTS on The Chicago Project. 

Look for her next release, recorded live in Europe,

in the spring…

RAHSAAN CLARK MORRIS (center) with Amiri Baraka and William Parker

I first encountered Chicago-based writer Rahsaan Clark Morris a few years back when working with the Jazz Journalists Association to establish fellowships to a journalist conference in California in the name of my late friend and colleague, the Harlemite jazz writer Clarence Atkins.  Rahsaan was one of the young African American writers who were supported through this effort to attend the conference.  Rahsaan’s writings have appeared at Jazzhouse.org (the JJA site), the Jazz Institute of Chicago publication, the Great Black Music Project, JazzReview.com, and Creativity Magazine among other sources for his thoughtful voice.

What motivated you to write about this music in the first place?

I guess the thing that motivated me and got me thinking about writing in the first place was Amiri Baraka’s essay "Jazz and the White Critic" published in his collection of essays entitled Black Music from 1968.  The thought occurred to me that Black folks should be in control of their own culture and how it is appraised and critically approached.  I always thought it was the highest order of cultural arrogance to assume that someone from outside a group that had been culturally dispossessed could come in and present criticism of that culture, especially because of the pre-60s American separatism that had gone on for so long.  Baraka’s argument made the most sense to me, especially if you go from the lead point that this music comes out of the Black experience in this country.

When you first started writing about music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about this music?

After reading the mastheads of certain jazz publications and reading the names of a lot of liner note authors, I could guess that there were not that many writers of color, and because they were so few in number, I could tell from the tone of the writing and some of the allusions in the writing, that there weren’t that many brothers — or sisters — writing about the music.

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of black musicians making this music but so few black media commentators on the music?

I think it has something to do with power: the power to put certain people into writing positions, the power to put certain people into editorial positions.  If the publications are of the commercial nature, as most are, and they are owned by white media conglomerates that live on sponsorship and backing, how can we expect an independent Afro-centric position to be put out before one that will safely further the commercial interests of the publication or media conglomerate?  I’m not saying I like it, but I am saying that’s the way it seems.  Then, there must be some networking from the journalism departments putting out writers at Berkley, NYU, Columbia, and Northwestern, and I can’t think of many who are African American males. 

    I left Denison University after my junior year to make a living in theater and always enjoyed music and writing.  But the jobs are given to graduates because, I suppose, it looks better to the employer if a resume is degree-laden.  Do you know a lot of degree-laden brothers who choose to write about Ornette Coleman or the AACM… besides maybe George Lewis? 

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American jazz writers contributes to how the music is covered?

To some extent yes.  But, you do have certain publications like Wire, or Wax Poetics that do a good job of covering other stories that wouldn’t necessarily be covered in Downbeat or Jazziz, like a story on the development of the Fania record label, or how Creed Taylor put together the sound that became CTI Records.  {Editor’s note: those treatments appeared in issues of the estimable Wax Poetics]

Since you’ve been writing about this music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others, and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

In my experience, it has been up to the editor who gets covered.  I write about, or "cover", anybody I choose and then it is up to the editors or people putting the pubkication together to include my pieces or not.  Sometimes, there are two African-American musicians’ CDs to be reviewed and only space enough for one review.  A white writer does one review and I do another.  I don’t think lack of cultural diversity ends up determining who gets published first, but it definitely could be a factor.  We all like to think the better piece gets published and if it is not mine but the other writers’… so be it because I know mine was good or I wouldn’t have handed it in.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards serious music, despite the fact that so many African American artists continue to create serious music?

Now that is a multi-faceted question which could be explored for a while.  Most of those publications are market-driven.  Secondly, this form of Black music is not the most popular form.  At least, it seems, among American Blacks by and large.  So the publications appear to push music product that is (a) commercially viable and, (b) musically popular and/or accessible, so that months’ copy of Essence or Jet can move off the shelf.  Things may be changing, but it can’t come fast enough as far as I’m concerned.  The National Association of Negro Musicians held its convention here in Chicago andd there wasn’t a rush to get tickets.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how this music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

That’s pretty much true of whatever topic you’re talking about.  I found some Black folks who go to hear serious music regularly who could probably write about it better than some Black writers who never get to that kind of show.  But, of course, a writer who comes from the same background as the artists involved would by nature be more sympathetic to what the artist is up to than someone who does not come from that environment.

In your experience writing about this music what have been some of your more rewarding encounters?

This actually happened before I actively started writing about the music.  I had gone with my wife to New York in the late 80s to see some plays, particularly Denzel Washington’s Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of Richard lll.  We were waiting in the line with our vouchers, which is what you have to have to get a ticket, and I was playing a cassette I had recorded probably 10 years earlier of Ornette Coleman and Dewey Redman playing live at the Jazz Showcase here in Chicago.  As we were waiting I spotted Ornette walking with his daughter through the park by the theater.  He heard the music playing and came over.  He remembered me from the Showcase concert because I had given him the master and dubbed a copy for myself that night.

    Another time later on, I was doing the lights for the Chicago Jazz Festival one year and I had been talking to Famoudou Don Moye about doing an interview with he and Lester Bowie, calling myseelf covering their performance of Brass Fantasy.  I didn’t know it, but as I was watching the rehearsal in the afternoon a woman wearing a light straw hat came down stage right in a wheel chair.  I recognized her almost immediately — it was Melba Liston.  I found out later from Dr. Bowie she had done a lot of the charts for the band and she was just checking out the rehearsal.  I asked if I could take her picture and she graciously consented.  After I got my camera out Lester and Rufus Reid came up and I took a shot of all three of them.  It is one of my favorite shots.  I noticed people asking each other, who was that woman in the wheelchair and I just smiled to myself.

What obstacles have you encountered — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering the music?

Even though I am in the stagehands union and can get backstage to most events anywhere in this country, security is a problem and a lot of the time I will have credentials but some folks don’t believe me when I tell them I’m a freelancer for different publications.

What have been the most intriguing records released so far this year?

I still love the music of and have a lot of hope for the alto saxophonist Matana Roberts [Editor's note: check The Independent Ear for more on Matana].  She’s originally from around [Chicago] but I think she spends more time now in Boston.  She recently made a splash with her trio Sticks and Stones on Thrill Jockey Records.  Then there is the lithe singer Ugochi (full name: Ugochi Nwaogwugguw) with Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Ensemble.  Her coming out will probably take somee time, but she has a remarkable voice and a great talent for delivery.  (Go to the archives at www.greatblackmusicproject.org for a review of a poetry performance by Ugochi at Malcolm X College here in [Chicago].  There is the young drummer Isaiah Spencer, who works with Ernest Dawkins’ New Horizons Ensemble and the Fred Anderson Trio.  (I call him Young Elvin because his style is as energetic and flowing as Elvin’s was.)  He also leads jam sessions every Sunday night at Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge.  Then there is the wordsmith Khari B., AACM saxophonist Mwata Bowden’s son who plies his trade with Ernest Dawkins’s Big Band, the Chicago Twelve, creating provocative poetry both with that ensemble and at other poetry slams.  I love the playing of vibraphonist Jason Adesiewisz, he of the young avant gardists helmed by Ken Vandermark and Hamid Drake.  Then of course the bassist Darius Savage, who sometimes shares the stage with Isaiah Spencer. 

    Nicholas Payton’s Into the Blue; Christian McBride’s Inside Straight with Steve Wilson, Eric Reed, Carl Allen & vibraphonist Warren Wolf, Jr. Kind of Brown; Nicole Mitchell’s Black Earth Strings Renegades on Delmark; Oliver Lake Organ Trio Makin’ It on Passin’ Thru Records; Hamid Drake and Friends My Blissful Mother on Tribal Records.

Additionally Gregory Thomas has taught jazz education at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Thurgood Marshall Academy, and the Frederick Doublass Academy for the Jazz Museum in Harlem’s Harlem Speaks Education Initiative.

As an electronic journalist Greg details his web-television exploits below.  He has hosted radio specials on WBAI (99.5 FM, Pacifica Radio in New York City), where he hosts a regular jazz show the first Monday each month from 9:00-11:00 p.m.

Writer-Producer-Broadcaster

Gregory Thomas

What motivated you to write about this music?

The foundation was the music my parents listened to which included jazz, and my deep study and enjoyment of the giants of jazz I’d been listening to very intently since high school.  Inspired by a high school stage band concert, I began to play the alto sax at 15 years old.  I took lessons with a local Staten Island legend, Caesar DiMauro; studied music theory and saxophone method books; played in various classical and jazz ensembles; tuned in regularly to WRVR and WBGO; and minored in music at Hamilton College, where I also hosted a jazz radio show for three years.  Sharing a melody line with trumpet icon Clark Terry there, on April 17, 1984 in the college chapel, was an epiphany, a mystical experience of musical ecstasy.

    A few years after graduating from Hamilton I met Keith Clinkscales and Leonard Burnett, later of Vibe and Savoy, who launched their first publication, Urban Profile, in the late ’80s.  I was more troubled by how relatively few black folk attend live jazz performances than by the dearth of black writers about jazz.  So Keith and Len published my very first professional piece: "Why Black Folks Should Listen to Jazz."  I became a staff writer for the Brooklyn-based City Sun a few years later, and wrote about jazz and other subjects.  Since then I’ve free-lanced for many publications.

    My initial goals as a jazz journalist were to report accurately, and educate readers gently, while describing a recording or a concert so the reader felt that he or she had experienced it too.  Usually if I don’t like a performance, live or on record, I just don’t write about it.  I’m not into bashing artists to feed my ego or further my career.  My major objective now is to share my knowledge and adoration of the music on as many platforms to as many people as possible — in print, on radio, on stage at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and on the internet and mobile through the TV series I host, Jazz It Up!

When you started covering the music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about serious music?

Well it wasn’t as bad then as it seems to me now.  I’d read pieces on jazz by Stanley Crouch and Greg Tate in the Village Voice, Gene Seymour in the Nation and New York Newsday, as well as jazz writings by Harlemite Herb Boyd, and a contemporary of mine, Eugene Holley, in various publications.  Playthell Benjamin wrote about jazz (and a whole lot more) for the Voice and other periodicals.  All of these guys were in New York in my early years as a writer, as were the ever-looming presence of the elder grand masters — Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity — where you have a significant number of black musicians playing this music but so few black jazz media commentators?

I suppose that most black commentators who focus on music generally deal with more popular genres.  And in 2009, there are less and less publications that even cover "serious music" anymore.  The glaring disparity has to do with black musicians being acculturated early on to the cultural power and appeal of jazz expression, particularly since their ancestors founded and innovated the blues idom vernacular called jazz, versus black media commentators who privilege popular forms (and the career benefits that could bring) over jazz, a fine art that they may not even like or feel qualified to write about.

      Pop and youth culture hold a powerful sway.  You have to go deep in the woodshed to write about jazz with substance.  Most black commentators, even those in the academy, apparently aren’t ready, willing or able to go that deep in the shed about the musical form at the very pinnacle of their culture, as developed in the United States.  With some notable exceptions, this has been the case through the entire history of the music.

{Editor’s note: on that academy tip, one wonders if we will ever see the likes of such leading black scholar-intellectuals as Henry Louis Gates, Cornell West, or Michael Eric Dyson write extensively on the subject of jazz music, with the same degree of vigor with which at least West and Dyson have taken up the pen to wax rhapsodic on black pop.  Still waitin’…]

    But hey, on the other hand, perhaps writing about the fine arts, about "serious music," considering our difficult history in this land, was aptly viewed as a luxury until more recent times.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American writers contributes to how the music is covered?

    Sure, but I think we can only take that point so far.  Most writers covering jazz readily admit the black American roots of the music, so that’s a commonality.  But there are different views on the value of certain styles or sub-genres, and so different emphases arise based on stylistic preferences.  These and other factors such as those I detail later play an important role in how the music is covered as much or more than race.

    As in politics, where race doesn’t necessarily determine whether one is, say, liberal or conservative, African-American writers won’t share the same opinions about the music based solely on their cultural identification.  Anyway, white and other writers who don’t identify as "black" still share in the values and expressive content of black American culture by a sort of cultural osmosis, because that blues idiom is in the very fabric, the fiber, of American society and culture writ large.  If you consider yourself American… you part black too!

Since you’ve been writing and broadcasting about serious music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among the writers covering this music?

Yes, I have at times questioned why some musicians may be elevated over others.  And though the back story is usually more complicated than a simple "race" analysis, race being an omnipresent cancer in the body politic, does play a role.  It’s important to note that race and cultural diversity are actually two different things — the confusion between race and culture has been deadly — but I think it better to confront race in jazz to best move beyond it.  Race is ultimately trivial and stupid but to transcend it we must face the illusion/delusion of race squarely; this is especially true in the era of Obama.

    Record label and public relations support factor in such elevations, as does a need for some writers to find the "next hot artist."  So many good jazz artists labor in relative obscurity that when they get some attention, I usually don’t have a problem with it.  Cultural diversity among writers will flower more perspectives, but not a consensus on which artists deserve to be elevated over others.

    However, I don’t agree with certain musicians being called "jazz" artists when they themselves will say, for instance, that they play "instrumental R&B."  The way the term "jazz" has been marketed is problematic too, especially by festival promoters and the radio industry (i.e. "smooth jazz").  They endeavor to profit from the veneer and sophisticated brand of jazz while pulling in other genres to make more money than they could with jazz proper.  That’s business.  Kenny G, for instance, is a popular pop/R&B instrumentalists, but when he is elevated by the mainstream press as a "jazz" artist due to record sales and radio play over, say, Kenny Garrett, the most influential jazz alto of his generation, that’s hype, not an accurate evaluation of genre or of artistic weight and authority.

    Furthermore, I think there is an undercurrent of race in why artists such as Diana Krall, Chris Botti, and Norah Jones become popular performing a mellow, soothing, less-experimental style of music.  They fill a niche in the music and radio industries and for certain market segments.  But I don’t criticize those artists for that, it’s not their fault as individuals that the dumb idea of race is so entrenched that they benefit from white privilege as well as their musical style and talent as artists.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards this music, despite the fact that so many African American artists continue to creat serious music?

Jazz is a fine art and most black publications focus on popular music.  As Albert Murray says, the quality and range of aesthetic statement can be grouped into folk, pop, and fine art categories, for pedagogical purposes.  Our celebrity and profit-driven society overall doesn’t value fine art based on intrinsic or long-term value.  If it doesn’t have a big audience, then it won’t be considered relevant to most black publications because they compete in a media field where popularity and celebrity trumps all.

    This is especially sad and tragic because elder masters such as Hank Jones, Roy Haynes, Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Phil Woods, Barry Harris, Charles McPherson, Jimmy Heath, Reggie Workman, Louis Hayes, Jimmy Cobb, Ben Riley, Benny Golson, Buster Williams, Jon Hendricks, Melba Joyce, Gloria Lynne, Ahmad Jamal, and Grady Tate are still on the scene.  I could easily name 20 more living legends unknown to a wider black audience, or to the general public.  The audiences consuming black publications are aware of Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock, and even Wynton Marsalis, but they usually aren’t hip to the just-mentioned senior giants.  To re-phrase Carter G. Woodson, this is the mis-education of the black American.  These artists should be revered and honored by black publications and media outlets as a cultural and ancestral imperative.

    American Legacy magazine, for which I’ve written features on Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, is one of the few African American periodicals I can point to that delves into the historical and cultural depths beyond pop culture and contemporary hype.

    Oprah’s fame and world-wide celebrity is larger than just a black audience, so she could reach that demographic and more.  I wrote an open letter to Oprah in All About Jazz inspiring her to have more jazz musicians on her show, not just as performers, but as commentators.  Jazz musicians are some of the most worldly, sophisticated and smart people I know.  Exposing wider audiences to jazz musicians as artists and as thinkers is one way to address the low cultural moment in which we find ourselves.

    The public education system and the music industry are largely at fault for the current state of affairs, where a vicious cycle of mediocrity predominates.

    It’s incumbent upon those of us who love and value this music’s contribution to this nation and the world to be more entrepreneurial.  [The Independent Ear] is an exampole of this.  My online jazz news and entertainment series Jazz It Up! is another.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how serious music is covered has something to do with who is writing about it?

How serious music is covered is a matter of individual taste, depth of historical, aesthetic, literary and musical knowledge. native talent and disciplined application of all the above.  These factors fluctuate, of course, among writers of varying backgrounds.  How the music is covered also has to do with how the writer views his or her social and cultural function.  I recently produced and moderated a panel discussion at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem that brought together jazz critics and scholars (Gary Giddins, Howard Mandel, John Gennari) and jazz musicians (Steve Coleman, Lewis Nash, Jon Gordon and Vijay Iyer) for a dialogue.  I ventured a definition of the role of jazz criticism: to be a bridge between the artists, the art form and the public for the sake of publicity, education, and aesthetic evaluation.  That’s how I see my role, so that orientation grounds the tone and approach I take when I write about the music.

In your experience writing about serious music what have been some of your most rewarding encounters?

Getting to meet, interview and even become friends with musicians who play the music that most moves my soul has been extremely rewarding.  Of course hearing great music live that I otherwise may not have been able to afford is another.  When a reader says to me "I felt like I was there," I say to myself: "mission accomplished"!  There is also a community of academics and scholars with whom I’ve interacted as a member of the Jazz Study Group at Columbia University.  I’m grateful to Robert O’Meally for asking me to join in 1999, as I worked towards a doctorate in American Studies at NYU.  (I decided not to pursue academia as a career.)

    Last, but far from least are friendships and mentor relationships I’ve nurtured over the years that have jazz, and an abiding appreciation of black American culture, at the root.

What obstacles have you run up against — besides difficult editors and indifferent publications — in your efforts at covering jazz?

The main obstacle, other than those you’ve mentioned, is making a living covering jazz.  So, like many others, I’ve had to supplement coverage of jazz with other work to support my family.  Another obstacle has been getting due recognition in the jazz press about Jazz it Up!  Though we had a little coverage in Downbeat and JazzTimes when we launched in 2007, since then the coverage hasn’t been commensurate with what we’ve accomplished.  Jazz it Up! is the only online TV series devoted to this music, and over the course of 18 half hour episodes we’ve garnered close to 3 million viewers online.  That’s jazz news that warrants coverage.

    Ironically, the organization that produces and presents the Emmy Awards has recognized Jazz it Up! in fall 2008, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences nominated Jazz it Up! for a Global Media Award in the Long Form Entertainment category.  Not one jazz publication — online or otherwise — covered this achievement.

If you were pressed to list several musicians who may be somewhat bubbling under the surface or just about to break through as far as wider spread public consciousness, why might they be and why?

Jonathan Batiste, a young pianist from New Orleans, is a charismatic, fresh voice on jazz piano.  I’m also excited about pianist Gerald Clayton, who comes from a great family of musicians; his touch, taste and technique are superb.  Dominick Farinacci and Theo Croker (Doc Cheatham’s grandson) are two young trumpeters who deserve wider recognition for their fidelity to the tradition while attempting to forge new pathways.  Vibraphonist Warren Wolf plays jazz andd other genres of music with deep integrity and verve.  He’s a favorite of Christian McBride, so that speaks for itself.  Edmar Castaneda is an incredible harpist on the verge too; he plays the harp with a percussive virtuosity that is a wonder to hear and see.

What have been the most intriguing new records you’ve heard this year so far?

Benny Golson, New Time, New ‘Tet

Bobby Broom, Boby Broom Plays for Monk

Christian McBride & Inside Straight, Kind of Brown

Cyrus Chestnut, Spirit

Roy Hargrove Big Band, Emergence

Vijay Iyer, Historicity

Take 6, The Standard

You can check out Greg Thomas’ Jazz it Up! internet TV series and catch up with his latest exploits at www.jazzituptv.com.