Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
A Love Supreme at 60: Thoughts on Coltrane’s Masterwork
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
Protesters march June 6 in Washington, D.C., following the police killing of George Floyd.
(Photo: John Murph)Closer to home for the jazz community, the newly formed Jazz Coalition partnered with The Blacksmiths (a coalition of artists, curators, producers and organizers), the Intersectional Voices Collective and The Wide Awakes to present “Juneteenth Jubilee,” a June 19 celebration in Harlem to heighten awareness of the Black queer and transgender communities, which also contend with racialized disparities and violence.
While Blackout Tuesday helped to spotlight significant systemic imbalances within the jazz community, it’s difficult to find published studies examining current issues in the music. Works like Zola Philipp’s scholarly paper “The Social Effects of Jazz” and Gerald Horne’s book Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music have explored the history of financial exploitation of Black jazz artists. But questions about disparities in wealth and hiring practices, the ownership of jazz labels, jazz media outlets, venues, and nonprofit institutions and access to education have yet to be studied in such depth.
“Historically, who owns a lot of music publishing and whose songs were they? Let’s just start there,” said Katea Stitt, program director at WPFW—Washington, D.C.’s Pacifica Foundation radio station. The daughter of late saxophonist Sonny Stitt, she also said she participated in recent protests in the capital. “Who owned the clubs? And who played inside the clubs?” she asked.
Vocalist and activist Myers recently published a book, White People Talking to White People: Broaching the Topic of Race with your White Friends, as a guide for how individuals can address systemic racism within their own homes and businesses. He, too, cited glaring racial discrimination in jazz performance spaces and the education system.
“If we do not force white people in jazz to start examining their own fragility and privilege that we as Black people have tolerated and tiptoed around for as long as we’ve been in this genre, the systemic racism within jazz will continue,” he said.
“A lot of jazz musicians are afraid to speak up about it, because they’re afraid they are going to lose some of their audience,” Myers continued. “They know their audience is a lot of white people—older white [people] at that. We as jazz musicians can no longer be in a position of playing it safe. In this moment, where do you stand? I push everyone within the jazz community to make a stand and put our own individual equity in jeopardy in the fight against racial injustices, including those within the jazz industry.” DB
“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.
Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
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“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
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Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
