
Now online: this month’s column, about the NEA Jazz Masters, the Marsalis Family, and what I believe to be a certain lapse in judgment. I should note that I filed my copy to JazzTimes on Aug. 10, a few weeks before the hullabaloo caused by saxophonist Phil Woods, who announced his boycott of all future NEA Jazz Masters events. (Peter Hum covered this well over at Jazzblog.ca.)
When the Woods grievance hit the airwaves, I piped up on Twitter that I disagreed with his actions but had to acknowledge that he had a point. In response, guitarist-composer Anthony Wilson wrote this (I’ll collapse his serial installments into one statement):
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The epic birthday extravaganza has come and gone, and I’m sure we’ll continue to see commentary from those who were lucky enough to be there. Some detailed early responses came, blogospherically, via Jason Crane & Howard Mandel, among others. I avoided reading those until after I had filed my own review, but was glad to catch up later. Likewise with a blog post by Marc Meyers, who also did an excellent job coaxing reminiscences from Rollins in a WSJ preview. [Update: See also Fred Kaplan at Stereophile.]
Space constraints in the official review meant that I had to elide a few things, and shortchange others. I would have liked to devote more than a passing nod to Roy Hargrove, for instance: his sober caress of “I Can’t Get Started,” his feinting aggression on “Rain Check.” On some other night, this would have been a bigger part of the story.
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