Dear Diary,
Well, we made it through the Holidaze — no small accomplishment on its own — and into the unofficial jazz start to the New Year: the Winter Jazz Fest in New York, covered thus far by JJA members Paul Reynolds, Mike Shanley, and David Adler. Running concurrently, the annual conference of the Jazz Education Network (JEN) is held in New Orleans, where Mark Ruffin, winner of the JJA’s 2017 Marian McPartland-Willias Conover Award for career broadcasting, received the Donald Meade Legacy Jazz Griot Award. (Previous winners included Jimmy Heath, Dorthaan Kirk, and Congressman John Conyers, Jr.) And then, on January 20, the year’s first press conference for International Jazz Day is held in this year’s host city, Chicago; more on that, and what role the JJA may play, in next month’s JJA News.
We’re pleased to welcome two new members to the Association: Indianapolis photographer-writer, musician, and activist Wildstyle Paschall and Atlanta vocalist Karla Harris, recognized as a 2025 Jazz Hero for her work as an educator, whose latest project is noted below.
Here’s what some of their colleagues have been up to:
Larry Blumenfeld wrote a piece exploring the cultural life and politics of New Orleans 20 years after Hurricane Katrina—very much a next chapter in the long story he’s been documenting—for the January issue of The Nation.
Scott E. Brown published Speakeasies to Symphonies: The Jazz Genius of James P. Johnson, through University Press of Mississippi on Jan. 5.
Noal Cohen published an article, “Saxophonist/Composer/Arranger Gigi Gryce: A ‘Musician’s Musician’” in the November 2025 issue of Jersey Jazz magazine.
Thierry De Clemensat published an interview with Andy Emler, essays on Jennifer Roberts and the 2025 Bayou Blue Radio/Paris-Move Jazz Awards, and nine new reviews to Paris Move.
Stephanie Stein Crease and Linda Dahl will trade fours on America’s great art form, read excerpts from their works, and invite listeners to riff about jazz and its influence on American writing on Jan. 26 at Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY.
David Haney released the 51st annual edition of Cadence Magazine at cadencejazzworld.com. He also completed a music project for Parma recordings, The Waters of Nonexistence: Vishnu in New York, a retelling of three ancient Sanskrit stories put to music. Look for it in the new year on Big Round Records.
Karla Harris is pursuing a creative project called the “What-if” series. She is collaborating with various musicians to ask what it might have looked like if two well-known artists who never performed together actually had. The series kicks off with a show titled “Satchmo and Silk: the Music of Louis Armstrong and Nancy Wilson” at the Middle C Jazz Club in Charlotte, NC, on Feb. 1.
Geoffrey Himes’s book, Willie Nelson: All the Albums—The Stories Behind the Music, published in October, has received positive press from the San Antonio News-Express, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, National Public Radio and others. Fables from Italy and Beyond, his book of collaborative poems with recent Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri, was published over the summer. He recently wrote about Charles Lloyd for JazzTimes and Sarah Elizabeth Charles for Chamber Music magazine.
Rebecca Klobuchar has resumed residence in Switzerland, after her sojourn in Chicago, where —acknowledging her inability to master the piano — she has accepted a short stint at an artist residency in Venice, Italy (since the mafia doesn’t look so bad anymore).
Howard Mandel wrote liner notes for Mal Waldron’s Starlight and Stardust (featuring Sonny Stitt) and reviewed Things of This Nature’s eponymous debut album for DownBeat. He published a 1979 interview with Phil Upchurch and a rare Zoom with international jazz periodical publisher-editors on his Substack, Mandel’s Media Diet.
Dee Dee McNeil wrote, for LAJazzScene.buzz, cover stories and (in her Dee Dee’s Jazz Diary column) a feature on bassist Nedra Wheeler. She reviewed CDs by vocalist Judy Whitmore, tenor man Carl Schultz, viola master Jimbo Ross, trumpeter Paul Litteral, and singer Sacha Boutros. She also published reviews at Making A Scene and published “Orchestrated Jazz Albums: Great Stocking Stuffers” at her blog Musical Memoirs.
Natalia Rikker became one of the co-authors of the second part of Jazz Chronicles, a book by renowned jazz historian and music critic Vladimir Feyertag (1931-2024). The book, which focuses on Russian jazz life, was a joint project between the Russian publishing house Scythia and the Igor Butman Foundation. Vladimir Feyertag worked on the book until the end of his life but did not finish it. His friends and colleagues prepared the second part in memory of their late teacher.
Neil Tesser is beginning his fifth year as the producer-host of Jazz Across America — Chicago, which airs and streams Thursday nights on San Diego’s KSDS-FM. His liner essays appear on February releases from guitarist John Hart, Swedish bassist Thommy Andersson, and a unique vibraphone duo of David Friedman and Tony Miceli. He also wrote liner notes for upcoming albums by two Chicago newcomers, vocalist Isabella Isherwood and baritone saxist Jimmy Farace.
