Not Quite an Infinite Number of Monkeys

As a jazz journalist I never have been a fan of the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA), an
organization whose premise is that people who write about jazz deserve to get paid more money
than they are worth because they write about truly creative people. It is the concept that the parasite
is worth more than the host. For example, when was the last time you were at a jazz gig in a hole in
the wall to catch one of the most creative improvisors in the country and the jazz critic in the
audience who filed a story about the gig was paid less for the story than anyone on the gig received?
You know the answer to that one. The jazz critic would not even be at the gig. It wasnt even a
trick question.
Yes, there are a few admirable active jazz journalists in the U.S., but you can count them on the
fingers of a 1930s cartoon character. Too many jazz journalists are ill-informed historically, have
only the most rudimentary command of the English language, show no significant evidence of
artistic discernment, and/or rarely have anything constructive to say about the music or the
musicians. And always--always--no matter what the premise of the published article might be, the
article invariably really is about the writer. I have limited space/time for this essay. Therefore
detailed elaboration of the complaint will not be found here.
But one piece of evidence may suffice. Turn to the critics poll winners for any recent year in either
Jazz Times or Downbeat. I point to these lists to some extent because the premise of the polls is
that the best jazz journalists write for these magazines, and the people who vote in the polls are the
very best of the best in the world. Before you take a look at any of those poll lists, make up your
own list of the greatest living three or four improvisors/jazz musicians in the world for each of the
instrumental categories. Because Im anticipating that you are a real jazz fan who seeks out the best
creative new music, you should have no trouble coming up with such a list. In fact, you may object
to the idea of coming up with only three or four people in each category. But Im trying to keep
this thing simple. OK, go to any of those Downbeat or Jazz Times critics poll lists. Next, write a
checkmark next to each of your choices that also is found in the critics poll list.
Here comes the math. What percentage of all the people in your list of musicians have checkmarks
next to them? If the percentage is greater than 15%, you probably have been in a coma for the past
half century. If you delete the drums category from your list, the figure should drop below ten
percent. Or you could put your list aside and examine the critics poll list, asking yourself the
perhaps unanswerable question, How did these boring improvising musicians get on any list?
Think about it. Can you imagine a torture greater than having to catch the music of all the top votegetters in the critics poll list (even if you are paid to write about it)? I include all the vote-getters
because that would make the pain even worse. For example, can you imagine following a solo Roy
Haynes performance with the intellectual and spiritual mush offered by almost everybody in the
entire list?
The problem is not the musicians. There are plenty of wonderful musicians who warrant praise. As
for the rest, the majority of musicians of any type (jazz, serious composition, country, blues, etc.)
are not very good. And none of them should be celebrated as among the the best by selfappointed pundits. The problem my fellow jazz journalists is not in your payment fees. It is in the
mirror (for those of you who are able to discern an image).
Return with me now to the Jazz Journalists Association, whose penchant for writing about
themselves may be surpassed only by their fascination with lists (the more self-serving the better).

In April the JJA announced the Jazz Heroes awards, a type of annual celebration of people who
(similar to themselves) are not creative in the realm of sonic art but create and sustain jazz
support activities. These heroes are people for the most part involved in perpetuating
organizations in which any form of high level jazz performance is peripheral to the ongoing cycle
of hand-shaking and back-slapping among the organizational leadership. Now and then the
members of the JJA make a mistake. One of those mistakes this year involved our own Mark
Harvey, ironically a man who has spent decades working constructively on behalf of jazz
performance in the Boston area. However, where the JJA really screwed up is that Mark is far more
important to jazz than any do-gooders. He actually creates jazz as a trumpeter and leader of one
of the most important bands in the U.S. How he snuck by the nominating committee is a puzzle.
Somewhat amazingly there are other people on the list whose primary contributions to the planet
are the creation of substantial music. Perhaps in the future the JJA can fix things and come up with
a list of Jazz Heroes completely devoid of creativity. It is possible that the leadership of the JJA
discovered the error too late to affect the voting. But maybe there was a subtle attempt to fix
things. I merely skimmed the list but bumped into one award recipient whose name was
misspelled. Take a guess, do you think the person whose name is misspelled is a do-gooder or a
creative musician? Good guess. But the lists keep coming.
In May the JJA announced its Jazz Awards, awards that are given to people who make music.
These are the awards that seem to be a product of examination of actuarial tables (i.e., Lets not
get caught giving a post-mortem award), a review of the Jazz Times and Downbeat critics poll
results (of course we know how relevant that is), and names found on albums reviewed by JJA
members during the past twelve months (and we know that the best music being performed right
now is invariably documented on CDs released during the past year; in case the sarcasm did not
register, keep in mind that at least half of the most important creative improvisors did not even
release a CD during the past year).
But the JJA saved the best list (i.e., the most important one) for last. This month the JJA
Excellence in Media awards were announced. The winners included Lifetime Achievement
Award winner Neil Tesser (who ironically is both a nice guy and actually shows up to gigs
featuring musicians who challenge ones ears) and a catalogue of jazz writers who either are JJA
members or people whom the JJA wishes were members. This best list for last approach has
other plusses. It is win-win all around. First, jazz journalists are celebrated. Hey, I didnt win this
year, but maybe next year. Or even better, I won this year. What a great organization the JJA is.

But there is a darker, perhaps Judeo-Christian side to it all. As you may know, the Judeo-Christian
theological tradition probably is the only one in which the Supreme Being tells man that he is more
important than any of the other creations. In Genesis we find God telling Adam that he has the
plush job of naming all the animals that God had created. Thats a unique Judeo-Christian special.
By giving humans the power to name, God gave man the power over all that he defines by naming.
So we have the right (the duty?) to kill other creatures for sport, strip mining is a lark, and so forth.
You get the idea. If not, consider the motive for African Americans particularly since mid century
to change their given names. For us, culturally/theologically naming is owning. Malcolm X (exslave and more) and Amiri Baraka (not simply theological). Thats a rather lengthy way of saying,
By naming you Super Jazz Writer of the Year I assert my power as an influential jazz journalist.

If there were a jazz journalist organization consisting of people focussed on the music of the now, I
wouldnt be writing this. But that organization does not exist, and it is unlikely to materialize. The
only people--with very few notable exceptions--who understand what Im writing about are too
damn busy creating music of profound substance to pontificate about it month after month in slick-and sadly many not so slick--magazines. And what about the gentleman whose honorific award
initiated this essay? I suspect that Mark Harvey is working too hard nourishing and creating for
Aardvark to spend much time pondering where to hang another plaque on the wall of his office at
MIT
- Copyright 2015 Stu Vandermark