At the beginning of last month, Createquity Writing Fellow Jennifer Kessler posted a round-up of efforts underway throughout the jazz community to modernize and broaden its relationship to audiences. Since then, several new publications and articles shed further light on the ongoing evolution of one of this country’s bona-fide homegrown art forms. First up, anRead More
It Don’t Mean a Thing (If There’s No Audience to Swing): Jazz Audience Development in 2011
My earliest memories of attending live jazz events as a child include my father taking me to hear alto horn player Dick Carey at a club in LA, and an outdoor jazz festival with hundreds of Hawaiian-shirt clad middle-aged people swaying to the grooves on stage. For the past 3 years, I’ve spent a goodRead More
Postcard from Japan
A little late, but what the hell: So, I spent two weeks in Japan at the end of October and the beginning of November. Besides the culinary adventures (most joyously at a 90-minute all-you-can-eat deep-fry-it-yourself-at-your-table joint in Osaka, and most weirdly involving pig heart and some kind of pickled, fermented yuzu fruit), the trip providedRead More
Justice for Jazz Artists?
(Image by Flickr user hitchica, Creative Commons license) A while back, an intrepid reader of this blog got in touch to inform me of the American Federation of Musicians Local 802’s Justice for Jazz Artists! campaign, which seeks to establish pension payments for jazz musicians who play at venues in New York City. The campaignRead More
What Do I Mean By An Artistic Marketplace?
In a recent post here, I threw around this idea of an artistic marketplace, as distinct from the market itself. I had thought I came up with the idea in one of my Thoughts on Effective Philanthropy posts from last year, but perhaps not surprisingly, I discovered that Adam Forest Huttler had articulated it muchRead More
Professionals vs. Amateurs
Back when I was working for the American Music Center, one of the most common and maddening riddles that would come up with respect to our members was “what does it mean to be a professional composer?” The normal sense of “professional” implies earning one’s living from one’s work in that field; but only aRead More