| I plan to continue living. That's the central idea. | | | | |  | Jason Moran in Turin, Italy, Nov. 7, 2018.
(Giorgio Perottino/Getty Images) | | | | | "I plan to continue living. That's the central idea." | | | | Jazz Hands
Next to the hundreds of millions of bucks investors are handing out like candy to rock, pop and R&B stars of yesteryear (and their heirs) for their publishing catalogs, the $2 million total that the Atlanta nonprofit SOUTH ARTS is distributing as grants to 52 jazz musicians might feel like pocket change—leftover scraps for artists who actually need to work for a living. (And I don't mean "need" only in the financial sense.) But by any other measure, it's a hell of a lot of money. Which of these sounds like the more meaningful contribution: the one designed to enrich music's one percenters and Wall Street speculators, or the one designed to support the ongoing, life-affirming work of music's vibrant middle class? Which will result in the creation of better music? Which will do more to sustain that creation, and enrich the rest of us, in the years ahead?
Hat tip to PIOTR ORLOV for pointing me to this news, which got some play in the jazz press but not much, if any, in the general music press (I'd missed it, too). The grants, administered through South Arts' Jazz Road Creative Residencies program, are going to artists across multiple generations of jazz, from JAIMIE BRANCH and DAMON LOCKS to DONALD HARRISON and KIP HANRAHAN. The recipients represent a broad swath of what jazz means, or could mean. The awards range from $25,000 to $40,000 and will support a variety of projects that fall under the general umbrella of residencies, all described here. It isn't the kind of money that artists can retire on or buy a house with. It's the kind of money that can keep them working and creating, which seems especially impactful at a time when so many artists' livelihoods are in jeopardy. Branch's funded proposal for an audiovisual work about Red Hook, Brooklyn, for example, will "allow a highly professional recording process to follow which also enables branch's full ownership of the master recordings." Which is, you might note, the exact opposite of what those moneyed Wall Street investors are offering.
South Arts' main mission is to support Southern art and artists because it "believes that the arts elevate the region, increasing connectedness and inspiring meaningful change in the process." You can donate here.
Shots in the Dark
Two-thirds of active American music fans support vaccination mandates, according to a poll by marketing research company MUSICWATCH. No Americans are ERIC CLAPTON, who's not only singing and speaking out against vaccine mandates while expressing skepticism about the vaccine itself, he's also bankrolling anti-vaccine efforts, according to this deep dive by Rolling Stone's DAVID BROWNE into the guitar hero's history of deeply problematic politics. It's an informative read and a biting rejoinder to the magazine's own history of putting Clapton on its cover eight times over the years—a stat that Browne himself points out. The story ends by asking if it's "still possible to enjoy" Clapton's music. It leaves the question unanswered... After being reminded of Clapton's history with racist, anti-immigrant British politician ENOCH POWELL, feel free to cleanse yourself by reading DAVID REMNICK's New Yorker profile of PAUL MCCARTNEY, in which we learn that an early version of the BEATLES' "GET BACK" was meant as an attack on Powell... If this account by Puck's MATTHEW BELLONI of industry trade HITS selling positive editorial coverage for enormous sums of money is true—and Belloni appears to have one very detailed receipt—it's probably time to unsubscribe... BILLBOARD's 21 Under 21.
Rest in Peace
DEON ESTUS, longtime Wham!/George Michael bassist who had a top 5 pop hit of his own with 1989's "Heaven Help Me"... English Beat drummer EVERETT MORTON... Bush Tetras drummer DEE POP... Piedmont blues guitarist WARNER WILLIAMS... SCOTT KOENIG, who brought Slayer and Trouble to Def Jam Records and went on to manage metal bands including Fear Factory and Biohazard... Bee Gees, Sonny & Cher and Cream publicist BEVERLY NOGA... JEM TARGAL, singer/bassist of Detroit psych-rock band Third Power... TONY JACOME, singer/drummer for Canadian metal band Shallow North Dakota... YEVGENY KULESH, an opera extra killed in an onstage accident during a performance at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | R. Kelly's Been Found Guilty, But What's the Verdict for the Music Industry? | | by Naima Cochrane | | The guilty verdict included an unspoken co-defendant, one that the public is now turning to with questions: the music industry. | |  | | The New Yorker |
| | Paul McCartney Doesn't Really Want to Stop the Show | | by David Remnick | | Half a century after the Beatles broke up, he's still correcting the record-and making new ones. | |  | | ABC Australia |
| | Sony Music was warned about the toxic regime of Denis Handlin. It stuck by him for decades | | by Grace Tobin, Ali Russell and Lucy Carter | | Senior insiders break their silence to expose what they endured at Sony Music under the reign of Denis Handlin - decades where appalling behaviour was normalised and ignored. | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | Our biggest pop stars keep falling for lowercase letters (AND CAPS LOCK, TOO) | | by Chris Richards | | These stylizations may have seemed superficial and annoying at first, but now that we've stared at them long enough, our listening experience is beginning to change — and in ways that vary from artist to artist, song to song. | |  | | Rolling Stone |
| | Eric Clapton Isn't Just Spouting Vaccine Nonsense--He's Bankrolling It | | by David Browne | | Eric Clapton went from setting the standard for rock guitar to making 'full-tilt' racist rants to becoming an outspoken vaccine skeptic. Did he change? Or was he always like this? | |  | | American Songwriter |
| | Who Was Rocker Tina Bell? And Why It Matters | | by Jacob Uitti | | In Seattle, an important, perhaps genre-defining conversation has been going for the past six months about one local artist more than any other. | |  | | Cabbages |
| | Robert Glasper's Electric Sliding Doors | | by Gary Suarez | | Nobody on this planet should be permitted to cover Radiohead, save for Robert Glasper. | |  | | Puck |
| | 'Hits' Magazine Will Give You Great Coverage for Just $150,000 a Year | | by Matthew Belloni | | I'm no Pollyanna when it comes to the trade press. But I've never seen a quid pro quo as explicit as this proposed contract sent to a major talent agency. | |  | | Music Industry Blog |
| | Did July 1st 2019 mark the end of Spotify's music creator dream? | | by Mark Mulligan | | On July 1st 2019, Spotify announced that it was closing its system that allowed artists to upload their music directly to Spotify. The move came in the wake of fierce opposition from record labels who had let Spotify know, in no uncertain terms, that they were not going to let it compete directly against them. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | Don't feel guilty about the divorce, Adele. And the songs might help | | by Sophie Heawood | | Lyrics on her new album explain the end of her marriage. She wonders how her son will react to hearing them. | | | villains (also wear white) |
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|  | | Culture Notes of an Honest Broker |
| | The Jazz Origins of James Bond | | by Ted Gioia | | Almost every element in James Bond's persona reflects a jazz sensibility-and that was by design. | |  | | Vulture |
| | How Billie Eilish Rethought the James Bond Theme Song for a New Generation | | by Amos Barshad | | She built a blockbuster in a bedroom, so it makes sense she'd record "No Time to Die" on a tour bus. | |  | | Okayplayer |
| | What the Music Industry Can Learn From the Success of Video Games | | by Adam Aziz | | In a streaming and playlist first world, albums have become less of a critical component of success for the industry. There is, however, opportunity to revive what is a dying format. And the blueprint comes from video games. | | | | Billboard |
| | Kobalt At 20: Execs on Two Decades of Disruption and the Future of Publishing | | by Dan Rys | | Kobalt Music Group's founder/chairman Willard Ahdritz and CEO Laurent Hubert reflect on the publisher's 20 years of disruption and its influence today. | |  | | Music Business Worldwide |
| | Beggars Group saw revenues dip slightly in 2020 to $79.2m… but profits nearly doubled | | by Tim Ingham | | Catalog sales are up. Marketing and promotion expenses for new music is down. | | | | The New Yorker |
| | The Tense, Turbulent Sounds of 'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' | | by Alex Ross | | Terence Blanchard's new opera, at the Met, deftly captures the churning inner world of its protagonist. | |  | | them. |
| | Black Queer Artists Are Shaping 'Gospel' Music In Their Own Image | | by Mary Retta | | Artists like Lil Nas X and serpentwithfeet are subverting Christian ideals to pave their own queer future. | |  | | Black Music and Black Muses |
| | The Club | | by Harmony Holiday | | A look at what a nightclub is, has been, and might become in order to stop being a threat to the survival of love and great music. | |  | | The Intercept |
| | Shuttered Venues and Theaters Are Being Denied a Financial Lifeline by the SBA | | by Bryce Covert | | "We did our part, we closed our doors, our business has suffered. Quite honestly, the government has an obligation to help us survive." | |  | | INSIDER |
| | Why Quinn left the hyperpop scene to make experimental music | | by Kieran Press-Reynolds | | Quinn became the face of a music genre before she was old enough to get a driver's license. | | | | | | Sophie Huber's 2019 documentary, originally released in conjunction with the label's 80th anniversary. | | | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" | | |  | | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator | | |  |
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