What Now?

It seems there's been a welcome change of plans. I've been writing for a while about the imminent demise of Cadence Magazine at the end of the year but they've now sent word there's been a reprieve. Someone has decided to step up and take on the task of continuing to publish Cadence after 2011. The plans right now are for 3 online issues plus one print one a year.

Frankly I had gotten myself adjusted to the idea of a break from reviewing but I'm more than happy to continue writing for the magazine and I've told them so. I was especially glad to keep doing it when I opened my new review package of CDs and saw stuff from Joe Morris, Terri Lyne Carrington, local phenom Brian Settles and the trio Farmers By Nature. Being able to hear and share my feelings on music like this is why I love doing this job.

Malaise

Well I was going pretty good for a while, putting an entry onto this blog at least every one or two weeks but since mid-April I've been afflicted with the condition depicted above. The words just haven't come.  It didn't help that for a while every DVD I put into my player was either skipping, freezing or not playing at all.  Finally it dawned on me that my player was ten years old. So I went out and bought a new one and solved that problem.  I've gotten back to seeing movies more regularly the last couple of weeks. I've been returning to my various box sets of Charlie Chase, cartoons, and Thriller and I've seen a couple of feature films that really impressed me, A Marine Story and, just today, The High And The Mighty, but nothing has inspired me to write yet.

Then too I'm probably a little down because I just received my final package of review CDs from Cadence and I know that once I write these up, that will be my last work for the magazine.  They're ending things in style though. They sent me 32 CDs in just about every Jazz-related genre imaginable:  free improv, piano, blues, large ensemble, vocal and God knows what else.  There are a few names I know in the pile like Archie Shepp and Marc Charig but most are by people I never heard of before, which I love.  Discovering new musicians has always been one of the most fun parts of reviewing for me. 

Hopefully I'll pull out of this mental tailspin soon. Something I see or hear will start the creative synapses firing and I'll be back here writing about it. When that will be though, I can't say for sure.

Going...going...

A few days ago I got some unpleasant news that I knew was coming but was still dreading. Cadence, the jazz and improvised music magazine I've been writing for almost 20 years, has announced it will cease publication at the end of this year.

The reasons why are obvious. The last few years have been a tough time for all printed publications with increasing hordes of people deserting them to read things online. A small, independent magazine about an increasingly marginalized music genre would find it tougher going than most. The fact that one of their major newsstand venues, Tower Records, went out of business didn't help matters either.  In 2008 the magazine tried to save itself by changing format from a fat little monthly to a quarterly publication the size of an oversized paperback book. I talked to Bob Rusch, the magazine's publisher, at a concert a few months ago and he reiterated what he had been saying in his editorialsfor a while, that times were tough and he didn't know how long they could continue. Now the closing date has been set.

I'm really bummed about this. Cadence is a unique publication, low on trendy graphics but full of information. Its long interviews with various musicians are more like oral histories with the subjects discussing their careers, experiences and philosophies in unexpurgated fashion. As for reviews they covers a vast sweep of music, from blues and trad jazz to the farthest out there improv. I know I got to review a great variety of work, a lot of it by people I had never heard of before.  The reviewers could be insightful or argumentative but usually they had interesting opinions. I don't know of another magazine around that covers the territory they do, the closest probably being Signal To Noise, but Cadence's demise is going to leave a hole in the musical conversation even if most people don't realize it.

I'm still trying to figure out what this means for me personally. Writing reviews for Cadence has come to take up much of my spare time over the years. It's really what I structure my evenings and weekends around. I guess I'll look around for another magazine or website to write for but I don't know how many options there are that way.  I should have more time to devote to this blog and do other things like go out to concerts and performances but we'll see if that happens.  I don't know how many more CDs I'll be sent for review past what I'm now working on, if any. After that I'm going to have a bunch of extra time on my hands.  I'm just grateful right now I still have a regular day job to keep a roof over my head.