by Patrick Jarenwattananon

Doubt it.

—Can Michelle Obama Save Jazz?: While he was here at NPR yesterday, Dave Douglas hipped me to this encouraging article from The Daily Beast. Basically, it connected the dots between two thoughts that came up last Tuesday: the depressing NEA arts participation survey findings, and Michelle Obama's uplifting White House jazz event. So can the Obamas — whose aesthetics resonate with young people far more than all other presidents — spur interest in jazz again among the 18-to-24s? It's certainly possible. I'm convinced that if you simply put "going to see live jazz" on the radar of young people — and if you sweeten the deal by making jazz appreciation into youthful cultural capital — they will attend. In this age of ADD and supposedly scattershot interests (to paraphrase the venue owners cited) and many points of entry into the field, we may not all become discographers and vinyl collectors and Internet jazz nerds — or even jazz fans apart from possessing two Medeski, Martin and Wood MP3 "albums" downloaded from dormitory filesharing networks. But even if only a few more of us matriculate beyond Miles and 'Trane, and awareness rises in general — especially with so much more substitute entertainment now than ever before — that's a real victory. Yes?

—Ethan Iverson Interviews Tim Berne: This Do The Math entry is so long it needs an introduction and two different oversized posts to get it all in. And it references a whole bunch of musicians who you may not recognize if you aren't familiar with the New York scene in the '70s to mid-'90s. But saxophonist and record label owner Tim Berne's career intersects with a lot of things I see as being relevant today: coming to the jazz world as an outsider, operating an indie record label, Julius Hemphill at large. Berne comes off as a Real Human Being, and Iverson is always a great interviewer. Anyway: bookmark this one.

—Taylor Ho Bynum On Big Bands: TrumpeterCornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, who has his hand in all sorts of cool projects in modern jazz, has posted a list of five great modern-era big band records. (He plays in a few large-ish ensembles himself, most notably Anthony Braxton's groups and the avant-Latin party band Positive Catastrophe.) Is it just me, or has there been something of a resurgence of interest in really creative big band jazz in the last few years, now that it's more impractical and baroque than ever? Darcy James Argue took up the meme a while back, and he was recently soliciting more recommendations on Twitter. We may just have to post our own faves soon ...

—Barry Harris At WBGO: He is good at the piano. He performs at WBGO. There is video.

—Five Views Of 'Strange Fruit': I know this is our own story here, but Lara Pellegrinelli's Take Five feature on some choice versions of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" is pretty splendid. The Nina Simone and Rene Marie versions slay me especially. Choice listening to be had.

—The Ayatollah Likes Jazz: No, really. (Scroll to the middle of the article.) Which is a little strange, right? Because there's also this quotation:

"Whether true or not, [Ayatollah] Khamenei has long believed that the U.S. is bent on regime change in Tehran, not via force but via a soft or velvet revolution," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

See, part of why Khamenei even knows about jazz is probably due in part to the soft diplomacy of the U.S., who sent Voice of America radio and touring groups into the region in order to win over foreign hearts during the Cold War. We know there was American jazz in pre-revolution Iran; there's a reason Duke Ellington wielded a tune called "Isfahan" [EDIT: an "Ellington/Strayhorn" number, to be precise]. What this has to do with the Ayatollah's seeming mistrust of both the U.S. and the election protesters is unclear. Which is where I sign off for others to answer the question.