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Writing About Jazz

Fan Fare: An Investigation of Recent Jazz Biographies

April 15, 2002 By From the Archives

  • John Kruth. Bright Moments: The Life and Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. New York: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2000. x, 404 pp.
  • Gene Santoro. Myself When I am Real: The Life and Music of Charles Mingus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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Filed Under: Writing About Jazz

A Bad Idea, Poorly Executed…

January 1, 1987 By From the Archives

After all these years, I find myself unable to avoid an unhappy conclusion: jazz criticism is a bad idea, poorly executed.

Having opened with a sweeping generalization, it immediately becomes necessary to hedge somewhat. I do not think matters are really appreciably worse than when I entered the jazz world.

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Filed Under: Writing About Jazz

The Role of the Jazz Critic

January 1, 1984 By From the Archives

Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel-switch for the discovery of buried treasure,
not a birch-twig for the castigation of offenders. — Arthur Symons

The role of the critic in jazz is the same as in the other arts: to serve as a bridge between artist and audience.

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Filed Under: Writing About Jazz

Critics Have Problems, Too

August 30, 1983 By From the Archives

By J. R. Taylor

Jazz writers are a bunch of kids who don’t know anything about the music; also, they are a bunch of old men who haven’t liked anything new since Bird died. They live to put musicians down; this explains why they let record companies bribe them (sometimes outright, sometimes through paying them to do liner notes) never to write anything negative about anybody.

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Filed Under: Writing About Jazz

Afterthoughts: A Critical Matter

January 9, 1969 By From the Archives

In his most recent column (“A State of Mind,” DB, Aug. 22), Michael Zwerin delivered a sermon on jazz critics and criticism, concluding that critics are “parasites” with the sole function of explaining “the difference between noise and music to people who are indifferent in front.”

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Filed Under: Writing About Jazz

The Personal Basis Of Criticism

February 11, 1965 By From the Archives

In one of the remarks most frequently attributed to him, Charlie Parker said, “Music is your own experience, your thought, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”

This sounds like the most unexceptionable of statements, particularly when one considers the combination of genius and torment that lent authority to the speaker.

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Filed Under: Writing About Jazz

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