Jason Bivins

Been enjoying the solo Eskelin on Hat, the new Melford on Enja, and the latest Schlippenbach/Parker/Lovens on Intakt.

RIP, Mr. Coleman.

RIP.

Paul beat me to it. First thing I thought of was Let My Children Hear Music. But Scott, I bet you'd dig the Either/Orchestra. Check out More Beautiful Than Death.

Man, I'm sorry to hear the health news too, but gratified that DG seems to be on the mend. One of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure to meet, and I've also been lucky enough to play with him. As both a trumpeter and composer, he deserves far, far more attention than he's gotten. And yes, tons of great stuff recently. I, too, would single out the beautiful Hymn Project.

Thank you so much, David. I'm gratified by that praise. And Cliff, you are too right. In fact, I make such a plea/petition in the introduction! Hopefully many more books will be written on this subject, which deserves the widest possible attention.

Thanks again to all for the interest. Jim, don't think it affects anything in that area. David, I think I'm going to be speaking at OSU sometime in the upcoming year. Would be great to meet at last if that shapes up.

Thanks all for the interest.

Allen, I largely don't deal with those particular intersections. On the good advice of my editor, I resisted the urge to try for complete coverage and so consequently had to make some decisions as to what could be pared. As there's already lots of good scholarship on the kinds of topics (and the period) you mention, I wanted to focus thematically on not just religious traditions, but ritual, communitarianism, cosmology, etc. My goal was twofold: to argue for the seriousness of jazz as a subject of reflection in Religious Studies (my discipline) and to complicate/broaden the discussion of "religion" or "spirituality" in Jazz Studies. Jim, cool anecdote. Thanks for the interest, all!

Hi all, Several of you know about this already, and my friend Ghost of Miles was kind enough to feature me on his Nightlights show last month, but I would like to announce the publication of my new book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spirits-rejoice-9780190230913?cc=us&lang=en&# This one has been a labor of love for a long time (and a refreshing change from writing about religion and politics).

A favorite here as well. Not many people seem to get into those two discs. (You have to like Irène.) Yeah, agreed. But in addition to the awesome instrumentation (Barry Wedgle!), there's something about the distant quality of her vocals that really accentuates the Creeley poems.

I've been listening through all my Lacy lately, going chronologically, and the breadth of his work and his development across different formats/instrumentations continues to blow me away. I maintain my soft spot for Futurities (I'm in the 1980s now) but you simply cannot argue with Blinks, Cliches, or Morning Joy.

Damn. RIP.

Thanks for the music, Mr. Wheeler. RIP.

First bump of 2014, loads of new stuff!

Thanks for the music, Mr. Haden. RIP.

Yes, and thanks for the interest. As more than a few people on the board know, my day job is professor of religious studies. There's never been a decent book written on jazz in American religions, so I've written one. Oxford will be publishing it in 2015, likely in the spring. I'll start some kind of self-promotional thread when the time comes, I suppose, but Carter appears in a chapter focused on musicians who engage African-American religious history as such (so, Carter, Ellington, Marsalis, and in a different inflection, Mingus, Roach, Shepp, and Fred Ho).

Enthusiastic agreement on Carter! I've just been writing about Roots and Folklore for a book I'm completing and I can't believe how criminally overlooked Carter remains.

RIP, Roy.

RIP.

Bump.

Big bump with loads of new stuff.

Congrats, Pete!

Bumpity-bump.

Virelles with Stanko!