Here are the most recent publications and other work reported by the extremely active members of the Jazz Journalists Association. We never sleep!
Gregg Akkerman‘s new book, The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story (“Studies in Jazz, ” Scarecrow Press), was officially released July 3 to commemorate the singer’s 89th birthday. To mark the release, on June 23 Akkerman appeared for three hours on Bill McCann’s “Saturday Morning Edition of Jazz” on WCDB in Albany. Visit www.johnnyhartmanbook.com for more information.
Nancy Barell‘s 188th edition of “Spotlight On Sinatra” is airing. She has been broadcasting for 6 1/2 years and have garnered a vast listening audience, ranked 24 out of over 400 jazz stations on Live365.com. The station plays Frank Sinatra and jazz singers and instrumentalists who have recorded the great standards and straight ahead originals.
Andrea Canter served as Twin Cities Jazz Festival photographer (June 28-30) and recently attended the Healdsburg (CA) Jazz Festival, covering the event with photos and written review for Jazz Police.com and JazzINK.com. She recently published an interview with composer Ann Millikan on the JazzINK site.
Brett Delmage is currently running a community fundraising campaign for the jazz news site he is publisher of, OttawaJazzScene.ca. It’s believed that this campaign could be the first of this kind to support jazz journalism in Canada.
Yvonne Ervin, JJA Vice President, has a feature on pianist Bruce Barth in the July issue of Hot House. The first weekend in August, she will head to the Telluride Jazz Celebration where she will emcee, and moderate a panel.
J. Scott Fugate hosted the JJA Jazz Awards party in Atlanta, produced a video, and published an article to honor Atlanta’s JJA Jazz Hero Award winner Danny Harper. He will be serving as the new jazz writer for Artsatl.com, is producing video content for BestofAtlantaConcerts.com, and likewise produces weekly radio podcast for Soulandjazz.com.
Steve Griggs wrote a feature on a new venue in the Seattle area, Bake’s Place, for Earshot Jazz.
Geoffrey Himes has profiled the following jazz artists for the following publications in recent months: Jack DeJohnette (Jazz Times), Jimmy Owens (Downbeat), Dan Rosenthal (Downbeat), Esperanza Spalding (Offbeat), the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Paste), Paul Motian (Downbeat), Luis Perdomo (Downbeat), Spectrum Road (Downbeat), Fabian Almazan (Washington Post), Anat Cohen (Jazz Times), Bill Frisell (Jazz Times) and Phil Schaap (Jazz Times).
Thomas Jacobsen had the pleasure of speaking to the students at the third annual New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp on June 13. The title of the talk was “Whither Traditional Jazz? Some Thoughts about ‘Exposing Traditional Jazz to a Larger Audience.'” There were more than 100 adult students in attendance from 14 different states (the largest contingent was from California) and seven foreign countries.
Matthew Kassel reviewed “Three Things of Beauty,” a new Bruce Barth album, for The New York City Jazz Record. He also live-tweeted the JJA Jazz Awards gala in New York. It was exhilarating.
Wolfram Knauer is the editor of the book Jazz. Schule. Medien. (Jazz. School. Media) which deals with different aspects of bringing jazz to both a general and a young audience. The first part of the book looks at educational aspects; the second part discusses how jazz is seen and reported about in (German) daily newspapers, blogs, etc.; and finally, musicians themselves have a say and talk about their strategies to reach their audience. The book is published by Wolke Verlag, Hofheim, Germany (German language edition only).
Bill Leikam will be attending a number of jazz concerts at the Douglas Beach House aka the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay, California, considered by Downbeat Magazine to be one of the top 150 venues worldwide, drop in on several unsuspecting new jazz musicians who I have my eye on and possibly write live reviews about them for JazzWest.com and All About Jazz and work with two jazz musicians and their groups.
Robin Lloyd was guest narrator for the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s all-acoustic Jazz of the Harlem Renaissance concerts on June 16 and 17. Robin read excerpts from the Geoffrey Ward/Ken Burns book Jazz and other sources to paint a word picture for the audience of the time and place where the music of Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb and Jimmie Lunceford reigned.
Rudy Lu photographed the Tiziji Munoz Quintet at the Sancturay for Independent Media in Troy, NY, the Tom Dempsey/Tim Ferguson Quartet in Athens, NY, the JJA Awards in Schenectady, NY, the Schenectady Luca Ciarla Quartet performance, Brian Patneaude in Glens Falls, NY, and the Freihofer Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, NY for albanyjazz.com. He also photographed the Clearwater Festival in Croton on Hudson, NY and submitted additional photographs and a review of the Luca Ciarla Quartet performance for nippertown.com.
Steve Monroe‘s June Jazz Avenues column for the Mid-City DC edition of capitalcommunitynews.com featured preview information on Marc Cary, Reginald Cyntje, Fred Foss, Kenny Garrett and others performing in the final days of the DC Jazz Festival, as well as reviews of the University of the District of Columbia Calvin Jones Big Band Festival, and Atlas Peforming Arts Center events featuring trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and the Gil Evans at 100 concert with the Brad Linde Orchestra.
Dailey Pike has just finished production of a “jazzumentary” about jazz photographer Bob Barry. Over the last two decades he’s dedicated his life to memorializing John Pisano’s Guitar Night that takes place every Tuesday in Los Angeles. The storyline of the film is a simple one. Once upon a time a father gave his son an old Kodak camera. That boy grew up to become one of the greatest jazz photographers of his generation. A trailer for the film can be seen at http://Jazzography.net
Ed Trefzger, editor/publisher of JazzWeek, has resumed publishing a jazz radio chart effective June 4. JazzWeek had published monitored airplay data from Mediaguide until the demise of that ASCAP subsidiary on Feb. 29; the chart is once again compiled from reports submitted by terrestrial and internet stations as it had been prior to Nov. 2004. With the chart relaunch now complete, JazzWeek will soon begin a new editorial focus on the business side of jazz, including radio, records and promotion. JazzWeek’s annual JazzWeek Summit will be held in Detroit on Aug. 30 and 31.
Joyce M. Wilson has three interviews and a much-anticipated review of a celebration to take place at the Hollywood Bowl. She is interviewing two local bass players and waiting for confirmation on the third, one of jazz’s legendary sax players.
Use our JJA Member Directories to find JJA members qualified to contribute to your publication or production or to assist you with your jazz-related project. The directories can be searched by name, area of expertise and geographic location.
If you are a JJA Member and want your update to be included in next month’s roundup, send it to membernews@jazzjournalists.org by August 1, 2012.
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