Rosenwinkel, J4JA Updates, James P.: The Friday Link Dump

by Patrick Jarenwattananon

I might mention that I stayed up to watch guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel guest with The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night. I even wrote some words about the whole thing for NPR's pop culture blog Monkey See. (Which is honestly one of my favorite things on the Internet, I must say.) Look for more cross-bloggage (bloggaging? blogolalia?) in the near future.

--Reports From The Justice For Jazz Artists Protest: The Times' City Room blog has photos and descriptions of the AFM Local 802 protest on Tuesday. Heartbreaking stories here. For those who aren't following the Justice For Jazz Artists story, here's some background, and here's the J4JA site.

Again, though: clubs and non-union musicians are not speaking up here. In the face of such a pressing need, they can only look bad speaking out, even if their complaints are valid. For me, it's a question of actual logistics. How exactly does a musician qualify for the pension plan? How would non-union musicians get paid pension contributions -- and what if they would rather have that money immediately? Clubs are barely solvent as it is, and probably have no infrastructure for doing all this accounting and disbursement (especially the smaller ones): who will help them set this up? The principle is well-established: what about the practice?

--The Kids Don't Stand A Chance: Composer Andrew Durkin, who is preparing his Industrial Jazz Group for a big ol' East Coast tour, has taken Jazz Now a step further: playing jazz music for his grade school students. Their reactions here. Here's a favorite reaction to something I picked (probably the weirdest of my selections, FYI): "It's horrible it sounds like monkeys."

--Why I Love Jazz: Twenty Dollars has some personal reflections that ought to bolster the spirit.

--The Liveliest UK Jazz Blogs: As listed in The Telegraph.

--In Search Of James P. Johnson: Ethan Iverson writes: need I say more? That preceding link has to do with this event, which is happening at Smalls in New York City this Sunday afternoon and evening.

2:40 PM ET | 10- 2-2009 | permalink

comments |