A Brief History of Blogging

In the beginning, there were three: Not long after I got my first Mac I discovered how much I enjoyed reading the blogs of Kyle Gann, Alex Ross, and Terry Teachout.  My old apartment only had a dial-up connection, remember those?  Part of the initial appeal of those three blogs was simply how a mostly-text page loaded so much faster than those with a lot of pictures.

I believe the first important jazz blog was Mwanji Ezana’s sadly defunct be.jazz. Soon after that the old DTM launched around the same time as Destination: Out!, Darcy James Argue, Doug Ramsey, Steve Smith, and Dave Douglas. (Apologies if I’m forgetting somebody.) Gann, Ross, Teachout, D:O!, Argue, Ramsey, Douglas, Smith, and I are all still here: In an age where making a living in the arts seems more impossible than ever, blogging is a viable option for self-promotion.

Other important players in the second or third wave of jazz bloggers included Pat Donaher, Tim Niland, and David Ryshpan. Around the same time I began reading the classical blogs of Jeremy Denk and Matthew Guerrieri. I’m not sure of the chronology but Taylor Ho Bynum had a good blog for a while, as did the mysterious Godoggo, both gone now. There were also several more avant-garde blogs that haven’t really been kept up. The best bebop-informed blogs are probably James Mahone and David Valdez. Both offer up much of technical interest, but seldom link to others or have a big blogroll. If you want to build up your blog readership, the only way to do it besides offering unique content is by lots of friendly linking. Note the post you are reading now.

Serious jazz critics besides Ramsey began blogging in the third or fourth wave. Again, sorry, I didn’t research this timeline, please don’t consider this outstandingly accurate, but Jim Macnie, Hank Shteamer, Fred Kaplan, Larry Blumenfeld, Howard Mandel, James Hale, David Adler, Peter Margasak, Peter Hum, and Willard Jenkins are all still active. When Nate Chinen started The Gig it was an event.

For a while Ted Gioia was overseeing jazz.com, but he left and now the valuable weekly updates of what’s going on are supplied by Patrick Jarenwattenon at A Blog Supreme (which is also the platform for Felix Contreras , Lara Pellegrinelli, Lars Gotrich, and others).

Gradually more musicians are taking blogging seriously. I offered up a contest two years ago to instigate activity but almost all the entrants didn’t keep it up.  The few that did are still on my blogroll. The musician who probably blogs the most of anybody these days is Ronan Guilfoyle at Mostly Music. Actually, I’m pretty sure Ronan and I disagree about nearly everything in jazz from A to Z, and look forward to looking him up in Dublin sometime and arguing all night long over some Jameson. However, his piece on Steve Coleman and Dave Holland, “The Two That Got Away," is a good explication of the musician’s perspective on an important part of the canon.  (As far as I know this is the first time this story has been told in "print.")  Guilfoyle's interview is Jim McNeely is also recommended. I encourage all those who take the time to create such big pieces to archive them in a special place on the site, so that first-time visitors always have a chance to see you at your best.

I’d like to welcome some others placed on the links page only recently:

Greg Osby is blogging.  Some interesting stuff here by one of jazz’s foremost living saxophonists.

Hello, George Colligan!  Welcome aboard.  Reading your blog made me relisten to your first trio record, 1996’s Activism with Dwayne Burno and Ralph Peterson Jr.  It's Absurd. 

Activism is not only a great place to hear George burn it up but has some simply phenomenal Peterson, too.  I don't always like Monk tunes put to non-swing grooves, but Ralph Peterson can do it, like his fearsome second-line on "Green Chimneys."  (See also "Bemsha Swing" off of Triangular.) 

Alex W. Rodriguez showed impeccable taste by backing me up on my controversial Woody Allen/Stacy Anderson takedown and suggested a book I obviously must read. 

Jon Wertheim.  So, this is how it works:  If you want to be on DTM's blogroll, link to me until I notice and put you on, just like Wertheim recently did.  It's how I got linked to by others in the early days myself.  Tenacity required. (I don't expect everybody on this page to move their DTM link url right away;  I'll need to do a few more posts like these.)

I'm keeping an eye on Wertheim.  I'm impressed with his enthusiasm and have already learned several things from this knowledgeable Devout Musician.  However, we could not disagree more about Bill Evans: he prefers to hear LaFaro more than Garrison with Evans and calls New Jazz Conceptions "pretty boring."   (That might be my favorite Evans trio album, that one or Everybody Digs.)  Of course, if we all had the same opinions, we wouldn't need to read blogs in the first place.

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Recent posts from the sphere:

Gann on possible variants in the Concord.

Ross causes spit-take, anthologizes other offenders.

DJA stormed Newport.

Destination: OUT! has obits on/ultra-rare tracks from the late Willem Breuker, Fred Anderson, and Bill Dixon.

Douglas on Steve Byram.

Margasak on Chicago, always good, see this tribute to a gone gig.

Jenkins on Orrin Evans.  Like Colligan, Evans's piano playing makes me wonder sometimes if I know anything about anything. Hey Orrin, why don't you start a blog?  I've heard rumors of some powerful Facebook action.  (Please don't make me join Facebook, Orrin.)

Myers on jazzmen playing rock covers.  A list I don't really approve of, although I love Myers's lead:  "Jazz versions of rock hits usually bomb. In most cases, the results sound like music played at a wedding reception, convention center or worse."  For me, those eight tracks are not radical enough, not far away from the convention center enough, although, to be fair, Myers is mostly dealing with the 60's and early 70's.  Two tracks that should be on that list -- i.e., straight-ahead jazz guys relaxing with a mellow pop tune back in the day -- are "Sunny" (Bobby Hebb RIP) and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" played by Hampton Hawes, Ray Brown, and Shelly Manne on Hawes's At the Piano.  Hawes could play gospel with conviction, which helps, and Brown and Manne are on boatloads of LA studio rock and pop, which really helps.  In particular, "Killing Me Softly" is a classic of the genre, exhibiting great feel and convincing emotional involvement.  Hawes would be dead within in a year; the whole album is a moving valediction.

08/14/2010

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