JazzTimes - May issue

I've been reading, saving, devouring jazz mags since the early 1950s. Each and every copy, when I dip back into them, brings back memories of concerts, records, interviews, information on instruments, playing techniques. Each one a gospel in an ever expanding bible.

Melody Maker, Metronome, Jazz Journal, Jazz Monthly, Crescendo, DownBeat, Jazzwise, JazzTimes are but some of those publications who have provided the words and the photos to the Holy Grail of jazz.

However, in all my years of reading jazz lit., not one of them comes within a bebop mile of the controversy that the May issue of JazzTimes will stir. Indeed the new regime's inaugural April issue's Wayne Shorter obituary resulted in most of the old guard being shown the door - a bit like some recent UK government shenanigans! 

I'm not going to nail my flag to the mast, I'll leave that to others but it has given myself and the rest of the jazz community something to think about many of whom have vented their spleen on social media - those bizarre platforms of our times where you can shoot the shit without the risk of getting beaten up in a dark alley.

The layout is great, the photos fantastic and, even with the typos (which musician/blogger has never played or written a 'bum note/word'?) the articles are compelling reading.

There's even a Charlie Parker based crossword on the back page although, if Jo Jones had been around, the compiler would have had a cymbal thrown at him - the answers are on the previous page!

I look forward to the June issue. Maybe at last we're getting a jazz mag that tells the truth! Lance