David R. Adler has begun writing feature profiles for Premier Guitar magazine, beginning with Free Form Funky Freqs (Vernon Reid/Jamaaladeen Tacuma/G. Calvin Weston) and Norwegian guitarist/composer Hedvig Mollestad. He also wrote a memorial tribute to guitarist Mick Goodrick for WRTI.org.
Michael Ambrosino sent out the JJA Music Journalist survey to the first wave of participants. The goal of the survey is to get a sense of how folks in the business feel about the current state of music journalism. He recently wrote the liner notes for two albums, Anthony Branker’s What Place Can Be For Us? – A Suite in Ten Movements and Joe Locke’s Makram, both expected to be released next spring.
Matty Bannond interviewed baritone saxophonist Lauren Sevian for the December issue of The New York City Jazz Record. He also wrote about the new album from Mark Guiliana on the Free Jazz Collective website. His reviews of releases by Basher, Emma-Jean Thackray and Blueblut were published by Jazz Journal last month.
Nedici “Gagy” Dragoslav, the photographer from Timisoara, Romania, shot two festivals in November: the 8 Timisoara Jazz Festival and Serbia’s Pancevo Jazz Festival. Because Timisoara will be one of three European Capitals of Culture for 2023, Gagy and other photographers have formed a group to collaborate with local organizers and authorities in preparation for covering all official events.
Ken Franckling reviewed three CDs in the December issue of OffBeat: pianist Garth Alper’s Spider’s Web, drummer Wayne Maureau’s At the Water’s Edge and pianist Lawrence Sieberth’s VooDooTek. Ken also previewed pianist Laszlo Gardony’sBirdland Theater performance in the December issue of Hot House. He was December’s featured photographer in Seeing Jazz,JJA’s interactive master class. At month end, he was putting the final touches on his comprehensive look at 2022: The Year in Jazz for All About Jazz as well as the Final Bars of 2022.
Doug Hall is currently in Taiwan and checking out jazz venues and writing reviews of the jazz scene in Asia. Recently he published a review of The Yuppy Bookstore, a jazz venue located in the capital city of Taipei. He also just caught a performance by the Robert Glasper Trio at the Tokyo Blue Note in Japan. A review of this venue is forthcoming in AllAboutJazz.
Geoffrey Himes this year wrote about jazz for Jazz Times and Paste Magazines. For the former, he wrote a profile of Sam Rivers and continued his series on instruments uncommon in jazz. This year he covered the harp and cello. His story on the accordion will run in March. For Paste, he wrote about the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, the Montreal Jazz Festival, Trombone Shorty and Nikki Giovanni.
Howard Mandel ended the year with blog posts about early acoustic-electronic improvisation, and Louis Armstrong’s arrival in Chicago 100 years ago (four articles co-written with photographer/historian Kent Richmond, originally for the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s member newsletter). He gave Jimi Hendrix’s live recording from L.A., 1969, five stars in DownBeat, produced and posted “Seeing Jazz” videos at the JJA YouTube channel, hosted Ken Franckling’s “Seeing Jazz” session, and edited articles for JJANews.
Luciano Rossetti‘s last months were really very intense. He did photographs for Downbeat, All About Jazz, the August JJA Masterclass, Sammy Stein’s book The Wonder of Jazz, ECM CDs by Duo Gazzana and Fred Hersch & Enrico Rava, the Isole che parlano Festival, photographic exhibitions at the Padua Jazz and Forli Open Music Festival, and several others—all of which can be seen at his website.
Carol Sudhalter is still reeling from having played baritone saxophone in the world premiere in Bloomington, Indiana of pianist/composer Mickey Tucker’s 1970s composition for jazz saxophone quartet and Symphony Orchestra. Sudhalter is off to a three-week Italian tour with dates in northern, central, and southern Italy after the long pandemic absence.
Scott Thompson PR is working two-time Grammy® nominee, Guggenheim Fellow and Steinway artist Elio Villafranca’s release Standing by the Crossroads on ArtistShare. He is introducing Spoken Word/Jazz artist Lisa Marie Simmons’ NOTESPEAK. His clients’ releases OVISION and Roc Flowers’ Always Searching For Freedom won Gold and Silver respectively at the Global Music Awards.
Michael J. West wrote a feature on Fred Hersch for JazzTimes, along with pieces for the magazine’s “Chops” and “Overdue Ovation” departments. He’s just become acting editor-in-chief of JazzTimes!
