Thanks, everyone, for all the celebratory greetings and well-wishes on my first anniversary as a blogess/blogette, and special thanks to Mr. Rifftides for doing so publically on his blog — if you are a new visitor sent via Rifftides, welcome. I hope you’ll become a frequent visitor. And if you are one of my regulars and have never been to Rifftides, shame on you and go there now. Today Mr. Rifftides has taken on the not-so-Jazz Fest.
Well April, which was Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM), is over, but never over is our love for jazz. My love of jazz, however, has its limits, or rather some definition. I do not include in my embrace anything that smacks of smooth jazz or programs that purport to be jazz while pandering to the lowest common denominator
Sadly, Ramsey Lewis’ television series on PBS falls into both of these categories. According to one of the show’s musical guests, Ben Ratliff’s April 4th review in The New York Times “nailed it.” Ratliff describes the interview questions as “doggedly polite, basic and weirdly resistant to subtlety and insight,” reminds us, parenthetically, that “(Jazz is so cerebral, you know. It scares people.)”, and concludes with this:
In all its mainstreaming and common-denominator sense, the show seems to want to deny that jazz issomething people care deeply about. But jazz is deep. It is about sound and resonance and great passion. There is a reason people become nearly religious about it. You’d hardly know from watching this.
One of the more unusual JAM activities that caught my attention last month was news of a Tavis Smiley radio special to be taped before a live audience at Smithsonian Institution in DC on April 7th. Tavis said he was going to “lead a discussion with jazz artists, scholars and historians about the birth, evolution, support and survival of jazz in America and around the globe.” I haven’t heard it broadcast yet nor have I found mention of it on his web site. If I hear more about it I will let you know.
On April 12th I barely caught the end of a piece on PBS’ NewsHour program and it had something to do with jazz — I think it was an interview with someone from the Smithsonian; …ah, Jazz Appreciation Month, I thought. Unfortunately, the online archives for NewsHour yield no mention, so I can tell you no more and only hope that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.
I’ll leave you today wih something you can hear for yourself. Over at the ITConversations website you can listen to (or download a podcast) titled The Future of Jazz. It’s a talk by Marty Ashby who, having produced numerous concerts and GRAMMY®-winning albums, as well as being an accomplished musician himself, has a lifetime of experience to share. He sits down to reflect on his past and to offer some insight on the future of jazz, both as a business model and as a vital art form.