skip Heller wrote:
on 3/18/03 6:26 AM, Perfect Sound Forever at perfect-sound@furious.com wrote: To turn this on its ass, tho, and be fair to the critical community, it's probably wise to point out that there has always been kind of a gap between jazz writers and jazz audiences. There was never anything like a fanzine revolution in the jazz world the way there was in the world of punk rock, where the journalism was written by the guys who booked/promoted the shows or, in some cases, played in bands themselves. As a result, the immediacy of that kind of journalism did/does not as often find its way into the pages of a jazz mag.
Why do you think that is? Just curious.
In the old punk rock days, things did not have the luxury of factionalism, because there simply were never enough bands to represent any one faction to the point where that faction could become its own subculture, and, as a result, the sheer amount of education we all got was bountiful, because the people who wrote about the Blasters were the same guys writing about Siouxsie.
True but there's factionalism in rock writing too. People complain about revivals and feel compelled to defend their turf (purists) and such. I think the same thing happens with any style that's been around for more than a few years and has had time to develop different strains of music. Plus, more than any other type of music writing I've seen, rock writers revel in snipping at each other. On the other hand, with the publishing market going down the tubes like most other markets, I think a number of writers are finding that to make ends meet, they have to be flexible about what they cover as there are less and less opportunities out there.
Jazz reportage has always been factional (go back and look at old DOWNBEAT's), and it still is. You rarely see the guy who writes about Zorn writing about David Frishberg, and, when you do, it's pretty clear that he prefers one to the other. Whereas the old punk rock fanzine guys seemed enthused about having different kinds of musicians within the scene.
I think that's actually a healthy thing though. When they used to have two columnists review a new Coltrane release for example, you saw how divisive (and important) that album was and that there wasn't only one way to view it. Now because of shortened space, this is hardly ever done any more. It's a shame because it's a tremendous service/eduction for the readers.
It's terrible if the critic is just flexing the power of his ability to get into print (those of you who read the LA Weekly have probably noticed Johnny Whiteside, who is a good hang but far from a good critic).
Agreed. I get angry when I see this gone gratuitously. Some people do this just to make a name for themselves and some editors will print this kind of thing just to rile people up. Best, Jason -- Perfect Sound Forever online music magazine with warped perspectives perfect-sound@furious.com http://www.perfectsoundforever.com