Things I’m working on right now:
I’m reading Taylor Branch’s three-part history of the civil rights movement. The first volume was published in 1988, covers the period of 1954–63, and runs to almost 1100 pages. I’m over halfway through it, through the summer of the Freedom Rides, 1961, the first year of the Kennedy Administration. It is incredibly absorbing reading, would be so at any time, but seems all the more urgent in 2025.
I have an essay on Bill Evans that I have been approaching and re-approaching for more than a year. But there’s new life in it because I was lately pointed to some records that I didn’t know very well: Everybody Digs Bill Evans (recorded December 1958, with Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums) and Portrait in Jazz (recorded one year later, with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums). They are fascinating to listen to back to back or side to side.
I have various essay drafts on “free” improvisation in several flavors. I have a long essay responding to Ethan Iverson’s provocative dictum that “jazz is not improvised.” Got to get these sorted out some week soon.
And there’s lots of new music in my inbox that I plan to write about in various levels of detail. Just this week I got new work from Caroline Davis and Emma Dayhuff, and I am looking forward to talking more about Matt Ulery’s Mother Harp and other appealing records from the Chicago scene.
So: this is going to have to do for this particular Thursday.
If you, dear readers, have things you’d like me to write about, you can feel free to comment to that effect, or just email me directly. I think that’s easy to do, yes? OK. Signing out for tonight.