On the FAQ section of his website Wynton Marsalis writes: "When we [Jazz at Lincoln Center] started [late '80s-early '90s], nobody was thinking about Duke Ellington’s music and the seriousness of jazz as an art form." Curious. No check that. Not curious. Straight up untrue. Two options: 1. Ignorance, or 2. Strategically fudging the truth. …
Continue reading On the Construction of Wynton Marsalis’ Cultural Authority
Well, the Grammy Awards are just under 10 days away, and if you're like me you're quite underwhelmed with a bulk of the jazz nominations this year. I'd argue that institutions like the Grammys (although the jazz awards are not aired on the broadcast - which I won't be watching) have a canonizing effect (especially …
Continue reading My Thoughts on this Year’s Jazz Grammy Nominations
Iain Anderson's 2007 book, This Is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture, successfully examines who decides the value of jazz and its meanings, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. His book focuses on the increased popularization of jazz and its acknowledgment, or designation, of it as “America's art form”; the construction of …
