Random Thoughts & Theories

Jan 2 2015

Old year bleeds into the New. New year gets a heartbeat.

 

BitW square avatarSo, about 2014…

I always forget what a massive effort it is to compile these Best Of lists.  I go into them thinking, hey, this’ll be fun, talking about the best of the best music, and since I’m just writing up opinion-y synopses for each, it’ll be simple.  I can just coast through December.  And then by the end of December, I’m lucky to have the will to string together more than a couple sentences.  I love doing the whole Best Of thing, but I’m also glad when it’s over.

I forget stuff.  Like last year, I forgot to schedule my Label of the Year, Best of Reissues/Archival, my Favorite Non-Jazz by Jazz Artists column, and my Best of Previous Years Revisited.  I meant all of those to precede my Best of 2014 reveals, but, yet again, forgot.  I’ll be posting them sometime in January.  The drafts are pretty well done, but I’m going to take some time to finish putting them together.  Don’t be surprised if you see a bunch of These Are Videos That I Like posts over the next week or two.

I was caught off guard by how many albums appearing on my Best of 2014 list hadn’t been written up on my site by the end of November.  It’s not unusual for there to be a couple.  I believe I had about three each in 2012 and 2013, maybe four each.  This year, I was lucky to have enough open slots to finish writing everything up before the Best of 2014 reveals began.  And even then, I still have two that had to fall into January 2015 (Diego Barber and The Westerlies).  On some of the boards I frequent, there’s been talk of 2014 being a down-year in Jazz.  I no longer think that’s the case.  What I think typifies 2014 in Jazz is that the best music of the year is some of the more complicated albums… and not just in terms of their technical complexity, but also by their way of challenging what we consider Jazz.

One of the challenges I have as a writer about this music is providing some sort of context.  It doesn’t have to be much, but I think it helps to provide a sort of positioning reference, like a genre-GPS, of how a particular album fits in the overall landscape.  That’s difficult to do when there’s a massive sea between that landscape and the album I’m writing about.  That means I need to spend more time listening to the album and that writing about it will be that much more difficult.  I believe it’s why I had to race to get as many write-ups completed in December, and I believe it’s the quality that most signifies the best jazz in 2014… The Year in Challenging Music.

So, some of 2014 will bleed into 2015…

Coming up in January are lengthy write-ups of albums by The Westerlies and Diego Barber.  The Barber one is almost finished, though I need to email him some interview questions.  I’ve received answers to my Westerlies questions, but I still (still) haven’t yet figured out how to present everything I’ve written.  But they will be going up in January.  That’s for sure.

I’ll also be putting up columns of Label of the Year, Best Reissues/Archival, my Favorite Non-Jazz albums by Jazz Artists, and a Best of 2013 (revisited) column.  The rest of the January slots will be taken up by albums that I never got around to writing about from earlier in 2014 (like Jason Moran’s Fats Waller project), and also some albums that popped up at the end of 2014.

I’m not sure when I’ll begin the weekly recommendations column again.  In previous years, it would start showing up on eMusic/Wondering Sound around mid-January.  I’m tentatively planning on starting back up on January 14th, but I’m giving myself the out of doing an abbreviated one that week and starting back in for real on the 21st.  No news yet on a permanent home for the weekly recommendations column or whether I’ll go to a subscription service.  The next couple of weeks will see me formulating plans and approaches for that.  But for the time being, it’ll be hosted here on this site.

What’s ahead for 2015…

Diverging dramatically from past year predictions, I don’t have any real big plans for 2015.  I plan to write short-and-sweet recommendations of albums.  In some instances, I intend to take advantage of my brevity to include past albums from the same artist who has a new release out.  I have a few long form pieces that I’m working on, but there’s no ETA on those.  Other than that, mostly what you saw in October & November of 2014 is what you’ll see going forward.

I think “steady as she goes” will be my watchword(s) for the first half of 2015.  After that, well, we’ll pretty much just have to see how everything shakes out.

I’d like to end by expressing, again, how much I appreciate each of you for stopping by and checking out the site.  I really hope you’re all finding cool new music and having fun doing it.

Let’s end with a video for the Bird is the Worm 2014 Album of the Year, Fire! Orchestra.  It begins with an interview of Mats Gustafsson and then leads into a live performance of Part I of the album, Enter.

 

Here’s hoping for a very happy 2015 for all of us.

Cheers.

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Jan 1 2015

Me and the 2014 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll

 

BitW square avatarIt was my honor to participate in this year’s Jazz Critics Poll.  Begun originally by respected jazz critic Francis Davis, who used to set up shop at the Village Voice, and has now moved the entire dealio over to the NPR site.  This was the poll’s 9th edition.  I was flattered to be included again this year, my second time to cast a vote.

Here is a LINK to the amalgamated results, showing the top ten and also the top fifty, as well as some sub-categories.  It includes comments from Davis on each of the top ten results.  They also have sample tracks from each of the albums that fell in the top ten, and links to various other articles about the artists.

Davis talks about this year’s results in a column on the NPR site HERE, with an expanded take on this year’s winner, Steve Lehman Mise en Abîme.

Also, the individual ballots are compiled and maintained by Tom Hull over on his site, Hullworks.  Here’s a LINK to view them.  In addition, there’s now a list of all of the jazz critics (LINK), with each leading to their specific ballot.  My ballot (Dave Sumner) can be found HERE.

I can only imagine how exhausting it must’ve been to coordinate and compile all the lists.  My genuine respect for the work Davis, Hull and the NPR staff put into this.

(From Andrea Keller’s Wave Rider)

I have some thoughts on the results, you betcha.

So, not unlike the comparison of results from last year, my selections for the 2014 poll didn’t match up with the amalgamated list or, really, the list of anybody at all.

Here’s my ballot, beginning with my top album of the year.

  1. Fire! Orchestra – “Enter”
  2. Rob Mazurek & Black Cube SP – “Return the Tides”
  3. Rafael Karlen – “The Sweetness of Things Half-Remembered”
  4. John Ellis & Andy Bragen – “MOBRO”
  5. Diego Barber – “Tales”
  6. Hans Feigenwinter ZINC – “Whim of Fate”
  7. Andrea Keller – “Wave Rider”
  8. Angles 9 – “Injuries”
  9. Masaa – “Afkar”
  10. Roberto Negro – “Loving Suite Pour Birdy So”
  • Latin Jazz selection:  Danilo Perez – “Panama 500”
  • Debut selection:  Gonzalo Levin Octeto – “Gonzalo Levin Octeto”
  • Vocal selection:  Masaa – “Afkar”

Reissues/Archival:

  1. John Coltrane – “Offering”
  2. Jarrett/Haden/Motian – “Hamburg ’72”
  3. Jimmy Giuffre – “New York Concerts”

Not unlike the 2013 poll, most of my selections for New Releases only received a vote from myself.  My 4th selection, Barber’s “Tales” received three votes other than mine.  My 8th selection, Angles 9’s “Injuries” received two votes other than mine.  But that’s it.  My other eight selections had to settle for me being the only one to recognize their brilliance.

I’m not really surprised, though there’s a few, like Fire! Orchestra, Rob Mazurek, and John Ellis, where I would’ve expected to see a few others follow my wise lead of selecting them for consideration.  But all joking aside, it’s my sincere belief that the Jazz Critics Poll provides the opportunity for those albums to receive a second look by other critics.  The albums definitely deserve it.  And I’m thrilled to be given the additional platform of the NPR poll to provide that opportunity.

And much like last year, my selections for the various sub-categories were a mixed bag.  On the Reissues, I was in line with the critics, and that probably is due to a combination of there being less reissues than new releases, plus my own interests don’t lie in reissues, and so my experience with what’s out there isn’t as comprehensive.  I like my selections, though.

My choice for Latin Jazz, Danilo Perez’s excellent “Panama 500” made the list in 4th place.  My selections for Vocal and Debut didn’t rate on anybody else’s list.  Last year, my selection for Debut of the year, Jaimeo Brown’s “Transcendence” fell in line with other critics.  It was also my Album of the Year for 2013.

(From Diego Barber’s Tales)

So, how about that Jazz Critics amalgamated top ten?  Here’s some quick thoughts on each of them.  Some of my comments are going to be critical… harsh, even.  The thing I want each of you to take away is, please, go check these albums out for yourself.  What matters is whether you enjoy them or not, and while I may be critical about some of the albums in the Critic’s amalgamated top ten, there isn’t a one on the list that I don’t think deserves your attention.  All of them initially appeared on my own list of “potentials” when I first began creating my Best of 2014 list.  Well, except for the Sonny Rollins, but that’s a different issue I address further on down the column.  But even that wasn’t a question of music quality.

Let’s begin…

 

1.  Steve Lehman Octet – Mise en Abîme

This one got slotted at #18 on my own Best of 2014 list.  It’s a fascinating album, and it definitely possesses a cerebral quality that I look for.  But it really sort of ends right there.  Not terribly evocative from an emotional standpoint.  I find myself returning to this album quite a bit.  I’m always finding something new that amazes me.  But where it captures the imagination, it doesn’t do that so much with the heart.  That said, it’s one of the more amazing album to get released in 2014, and quite frankly, there’s very little that separates an album slotted at, say, #6 vs. #18.  I’m unsurprised to see it get the #1 slot on the amalgamated list, and the album does the jazz community proud by representing it as the champion of 2014 on the NPR Jazz Critics poll.

2.  Wadada Leo Smith – The Great Lakes Suites

Some strong musicianship on this recording and I love seeing Henry Threadgill get back in the mix (he’s one of the musicians to first get me into Jazz and modern jazz, too).  Trumpeter Smith puts out one huge project after the other, and this tribute to, yes, the Great Lakes here in the U.S., is no different.  This double-disc project didn’t make my Top 30, and was one of the early cuts of those albums under initial consideration.  This is such a joyless album.  There are some stunning moments from a perspective of technical proficiency, and the album does have heart, but the blood that flows through it is sort of lifeless and sad.  Even when the quartet shifts gears or tone, it’s not much of a sea change in comparison to what came before… it’s the kind of thing that leads to tedium.  And two CDs of this just gets to be too much.  Again, this isn’t a bad album, and as far as a music achievement, its inclusion in the amalgamated Critics list doesn’t offend me or seem out of place.  I can see why this album might capture the ear of other listeners.  But there were too many times that listening to the album became a drag, and it was easy enough to cross off the list.

3.  Ambrose Akinmusire – The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint

This excellent album didn’t make my Best of 2014 list, but that’s a reflection of the depth of the modern jazz landscape and not the quality of this recording.  Follow the LINK to my recommendation of the album (on this site).  I can’t recall exactly when I cut this album from consideration during the process, but if my Best of 2014 list covered 50 albums (instead of 30), I’m pretty sure this one would have snuck in.  Definitely check it out.  I think it was my Wondering Sound Pick of the Week when it was first released.  Gotta love the Mingus-y album title.

4.  Sonny Rollins – Road Shows, Vol.4

See below.

5.  Mark Turner Quartet – Lathe of Heaven

I liked this album well enough, though I don’t think I ever gave it serious consideration for my own Best of 2014 list.  It’s a good album, solid, but not exceptional.  Follow the LINK to my recommendation of the album (on this site).  That said, if I were to create a Best Jazz Artist of 2014 column, Turner would be at or near the top of the list.  In addition to my recommendation to check out this album, find anything else he contributed to in 2014 and give that a listen, too.  It just seemed like all of 2014 I was writing about albums where I was noting Turner’s excellent contributions to the music.  Turner had a strong 2014.

6.  Marc Ribot Trio – Live at the Village Vanguard

Likable album with some strong moments performed by strong musicians.  I like that he touches upon Coltrane’s “Sun Ship” on the same album as he performs a cover of “Old Man River.”  I never wrote about the album for Bird is the Worm, but there’s a lot of good albums that I just don’t have the time or space for.  I liked the album well enough, but I’m surprised to see it fall into the Critics’ top ten.  But the live performance electricity really comes through nicely on the recorded medium, and add to that the artists imaginative takes on the music, I’m unsurprised to discover it resonated with a lot of other listeners.  Yes, I’m surprised to see it here, but I have no qualms about its appearance.  Quality music is quality music, which means it always has a valid claim to critical praise on Best Of lists.

7.  Jason Moran – All Rise:  A Joyful Elegy to Fats Waller

This is one that I’ve been listening to regularly ever since it first came out.  It was one of the last 10 cuts when I pared my list down to the final 30.  I’ll be publishing a recommendation for it in January.  I kept thinking my perspective on the music would change, one way or the other, but I still enjoy this recording the same way since the first listen.  If you get a chance to see this project performed live, go.  I was fortunate to catch Moran do the Waller thing at the Chicago Jazz Fest a couple of Summers ago, and it’s still one of the best things I’ve seen on stage in a while.

8.  Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band – Landmarks

This one is an overreach.  I enjoy this album, and Brian Blade’s Fellowship albums are some of the very best things to ever happen to the modern jazz scene.  If I begin talking about Fellowship albums like Perceptual and Season of Changes, I will get seriously fanboy without the least bit of provocation.  Buy all four of the Fellowship albums immediately.  Follow this LINK to my recommendation of Landmarks, which is the fourth of Blade’s Fellowship recording.  Buy it.  It’s a really good album.  But it’s a step down from the excellent Season of Changes, and it also pales in comparison to Perceptual.  It’s the Fellowship band making a very Fellowship-ish album.  It’s more of the good stuff, but the good stuff doesn’t necessarily get you on a Best Of list.  Brian Blade is one of the best things on the modern scene and taken as a whole, his Fellowship albums are amazing.  But viewed individually, Landmarks doesn’t quite reach the bar set by previous recordings.  But, seriously, still buy it.  Just get Season of Changes and Perceptual first.

9.  Kenny Barron & Dave Holland – The Art of Conversation

I mean, yeah, okay, it’s a nice enough album.  You’ve got two jazz giants recording a duo collaboration in the studio, so it’s going to have some solid moments.  It just gets a little dull at times.  I think this one gets up there more on the reputation of the artists than the album itself.  Did I enjoy listening to it?  Yes, definitely.  Do I ever pine to listen to it again?  No, not really.  To my mind, if an album doesn’t have staying power, if it isn’t the kind of recording you feel compelled to return to even when your listening queue is overwhelmed with new releases, then it’s probably not a Best Of recording.

10.  Jane Ira Bloom – Sixteen Sunsets

I liked this album well enough when I first sat down with it, but nothing about it ever would’ve prepared me for seeing it receive a pretty strong consensus as Best Of album.  There are some gorgeous moments on the recording, but there are also some lulls in the action.  I first became aware that something was up when the excellent jazz critic Kevin Whitehead first vouched for it during the creation of the Wondering Sound 25 Best Jazz Albums of 2014 list.  But I can see how a sublime soprano sax album can grab the ear of a listener.  However, I was caught off guard seeing it grab so many critical ears.  I’m thinking maybe I need to revisit this one.  Interesting.

(From Hans Feigenwinter ZINC’s Whim of Fate)

Now, on to that Sonny Rollins album…

This year saw the clarification of what gets considered a New Release vs. what is considered a Reissue/Archival selection.  I’m going to refer to it as the “Sonny Rollins rule.”  The last handful of years, the jazz legend, thankfully, has been releasing some cherry-picked live performance recordings from tours that occurred over the last ten years or so… entitled Road Shows, with Volume 3 getting a 2014 release.

As you’ll notice, the third installment got slotted at #4 on the amalgamated critics list.  Y’know, whatever.  The third volume pales in comparison to the first two volumes.  It begins slowly.  The first couple of tracks are nothing special… it only picks up steam (and a lot of it) in the second half.  That alone would disqualify it from consideration from my own list.  But it also covers material that’s over ten years old.  How are you going to call that a new release?  And it’s not even the same concert.  It’s a de facto compilation album.

And what does it say about the state of jazz when you’ve got well-respected critics saying that the best Jazz in 2014 are cherry-picked songs from concerts held between 2001 and 2012 by an artist whose best work was performed in the 1960s?  It’s great that Rollins is releasing this music and it’s great that the jazz community is celebrating this jazz legend.  And there’s nothing wrong with loving any of the Road Shows volumes and there’s nothing wrong with saying, hey, this is one of my favorite things to come out in 2014… but, damn, slot it in the Re-issues/Archival section and leave the New Releases section for actual new releases.

Well, the clarification says that anything recorded within the last ten years counts as a new release, which allowed many people to include Volume 3 in their “current” releases list.  It bugs me.  I mean, look, even though I don’t agree with the rule and don’t agree with the inclusion of Road Shows Vol.3 in the Best of 2014 new releases list, I’m not going to have any problem learning to live in a world where the rule exists.  Besides, Rollins certainly has earned all of the attention and praise that he’s getting… there’s no controversy there.  It just bugs me is all.  I imagine it’s not unlike the supreme irritation that some people suffer when they see a Best Of list like mine and say, dammit, most of those albums aren’t even Jazz!  I guess there’s plenty of differing perspectives to go around.

I want to end this section by stressing that you should go check out all of those Road Shows albums, beginning with the first volume.  They’re all really really good, and you owe it to yourself to see if they float your boat.  There’s some seriously majestic playing on those albums.

About those perspectives on Jazz…

A question I am perpetually haunted by is an old one- “Is this even Jazz?”  It’s a query that could be applied to many in my Top 30… many in my top ten, even.  NPR’s Patrick Jarenwattananon was interviewed about the 2014 Jazz Critics poll on WBGO’s The Checkout podcast, and the interviewer seemed particularly exasperated that producer Flying Lotus’s electronica/fusion/beyond genre 2014 release wasn’t included on the NPR list, referring to the fact that many jazz musicians perform on the recording and that it has some similarities to Miles Davis’s fusion period of the 70s/80s.

This kind of justification is not uncommon.  However, the presence of jazz musicians on an album doesn’t make the music jazz… most jazz musicians possess an abundance of training, talent and experience that they can attain a level of excellence in any number of music genres.  The other flaw in that argument is tracing lineage back to music that was already a jazz outlier, I.E. well, this is similar to this which is similar to this which is similar to this, which kind of sounds like traditional jazz.  How long does the trail of breadcrumbs need to extend out from Jazz center before it just stops being Jazz?

With much on the modern scene, I believe we’ve surpassed that distance, and I had to quickly check my own exasperation at the Flying Lotus suggestion because, hey, I do the same thing… All. Of. The. Time.

Listen through my Best of 2014 list.  How many of those recordings are truly Jazz albums?  How many of them have a foundation in the blues?  How many of them adopt a sense of swing?  The strongest tie to traditional forms of jazz music these albums possess is heavy improvisation.  But this is one of those dog-chihuahua things… jazz requires a certain amount of improvisation but improvised music is not necessarily jazz.  And, yet, here I am lauding this great music (and it is great music) as the Best Jazz of 2014.  It’s not entirely accurate and it is a perpetual struggle within me… the jazz purist vs. the big-tent-jazz-is-music-meant-to-evolve battle.

Sometimes I regret even pigeonholing my site by using the word Jazz.  Sometimes I think I might be doing Jazz more harm than good by taking the Big Tent approach.  Ultimately, though, I just want to find the best music out there, no matter how tenuous its ties to traditional Jazz, and help get the spotlight on it.  That’s what matters most to me, and if you take anything away from this column at all, it should be that the only question that matters is: “Do I like this album?”

You come to my site and check out everything I recommend.  You like what you like and take a pass on the albums you don’t.  Easy peasy.  Matters of categorization and genre and tradition should only be a secondary concern.  I just felt like mentioning that it’s something I think about, and since this kind of blog-y Year In Review column seems to bring out the cerebral babbler in me, well, here I am typing about it.

I love my Best of 2014 list.  It’s the best collection of music you can find… no matter what you or I decide to call it.

For tomorrow’s column, I’ll talk a little bit more about my Best of 2014 list, the year of 2014 in general and what’s on the horizon in January 2015.

Cheers.

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Nov 2 2014

So, about those recent “I hate Jazz” articles…

 

BitW square avatarSo, I went on a pretty long Twitter rant.  I finally had to stop blowing up everybody’s timelines and just finish my stream of thoughts here in a post.

It began after reading this recent Ted Gioia column for the Daily Beast (LINK).  It talks about the recent surge of jazz backlash in the media.

I’m cool with his column, but whatevs.  I’ve pretty well restrained myself from commenting on any of these “jazz sucks” columns that have been popping up lately.  I guess that’s over.

Here’s some quick hit thoughts on items brought up by Gioia or just stuff hanging around my head waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

Let’s begin…

Yes, the Rollins piece wasn’t funny. Obvious.

But has anyone pointed out that the bitterness & disillusionment attributed to Rollins might be real for a lot of jazz musicians?

That jazz musicians avoid thinking things like “I wasted my life” like struggling married couple avoid bringing up the D-word?

Jazz takes enormous time & passion to excel. Creativity as a business is even harder. Fear & bitterness & doubt can creep in.  The New York Times piece (unintentionally, I believe) mocks that. Or, at the very least, is casually dismissive of it.

I mean, think of the hardships Rollins went thru in life, both creatively, but also socially & financially via racism & rock’s ascendency?

Are you telling me that he didn’t occasionally struggle with the fear of “I wasted my life” during vulnerable moments?

I don’t think Django Gold was trying to be cruel. I think his poorly crafted article may have been unintentionally insightful in this one instance.

I don’t know Mr. Rollins & I don’t know if my assumptions have any validity. But it’s understandable why other musicians might take offense.

Anyways, that’s the part I of the Django Gold piece I was offended by.

That WaPo column, otoh, was just plain stupid & lazy. I don’t mind if people don’t like Jazz, but don’t dismiss what you won’t explore.

Especially modern jazz, which isn’t explored by the mainstream as much as it should since it incorporates many of the mainstream qualities.

A lot of it sounds more “indie” than jazz. Jazz evolves. It changes. It’s always absorbed other influences, a melting pot of sound.

Each new generation of jazz musicians are different from the previous. They are influenced by new music & new societal forces.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of modern jazz sounds like stuff that doesn’t get categorized as jazz in the first place.

The identity of mod jazz is more diffuse than at any time in its history. Its sound is less recognizable. Mod jazz is hard to sum up.

And that is its strength, even though it is often pointed to as a weakness. However, its diversity makes it more substantial. Bigger.

But I think some misconstrue it as representative as something insubstantial, something easily knocked over by some jabroni who wants some cheap page views.

But they are wrong.

Don’t fear the confidence of modern jazz artists. If they didn’t posses confidence, the music wouldn’t sound as good as it does.

It would be tepid & mimic the jazz of the past & wouldn’t take risks, even in the face of almost certain commercial inviability. It wouldn’t be art. It would be homage.

I just read that Atlantic review of the new Bill Frisell album. It mirrors a lot of my own review (LINK).  Also, it’s not a jazz album, and I think Frisell has gotten to where it’s probably not even accurate to refer to him as a jazz musician.  He does his own thing and he sort of transcends genre classification.  Yes, he got his start in Jazz, and we can claim him as “one of our own,” but not sure it’s applicable to a why is everyone hating jazz theory (too lazy to hyphenate that thing).

But Frisell, after a career of inventive, massively creative music, has really hit a lull with his last few albums.  Me, personally, I have strong feelings about his music, good or bad.  That’s how it is.

Jazz is the Worst is not very funny on Twitter, though I definitely enjoyed both of his blog posts.  I believe that kind of development has more to with a natural blowback against the JazzBro phenomenon.  Unsurprising.

The problem with the defensiveness some of us feel from the “inaccuracies” in columns like the Deadspin one are that, one, it doesn’t represent how we feel or behave, but, two, it does reflect a backlash against some jazz fans who do fit the stereotype of snob/condescending asshole.  Like any general group of people, Jazz Fans is comprised of a wide array of people, and some of them are total pricks.  We do what we can to ignore them or change them or shout them down.

But I sure as hell don’t deserve to have their bad behavior attributed to me.  And I get pissed off when my hard work to change peoples’ opinions on the approachability of jazz are shot down by some knucklehead working for a large media outlet spewing off his witless generalizations about something he or she hasn’t bothered to research and develop a familiarity with.

I believe that I make a welcoming environment for people to explore modern jazz.  Unfortunately there are some people who use their knowledge of jazz as a weapon to hammer into other people the idea that they’re stupid for not knowing something.

Of course people are going to prematurely dismiss something when they expect to be called stupid.  They are going to hate the haters first.

What I don’t like is that these columns calling out “jazz fans” for behavior is attributing the behavior of the worst of us to the group overall.  Fuck that.  I don’t want people to feel stupid for not knowing things about jazz.  I want them to experience the excitement of getting familiar with it, discovering new music, discovering music that brings them happiness.

It’s the whole reason I have this site.  I absolutely love discovering cool new music.  I want to be able to help others do the same.  I want to help guide people to music they may like.  They won’t like all of it and that’s okay.  If I find one album a month that makes me wonder how I got through life without it, that’s a pretty big deal.

Okay, I think I’m out of steam on this one.  I’ll add more if it comes to me, but I think I got that out of my system.

Here’s where you can follow me on Twitter-> LINK.

And here’s a song I like from a 2014 release.  It’s by Angles 9, and you shouldn’t be surprised if it ends up in my Best of 2014 list…

 

You can read my recommendation of their 2014 release, Injuries, here, at Bird is the Worm.

Have a great Sunday!

Cheers.

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Oct 26 2014

So, you want to start a music blog… (Part II)

 

So, you want to start a music blog… (Part II)

BitW square avatar

(You can read Part I by following this LINK)

I’ve only been at this three years, which in terms of internet music blogs, that’s a pretty long time.  As far as figuring out how to best run an internet music blog… well, I’m not sure exactly how much time that takes, but I can tell you from experience that three years doesn’t get you far.

Here’s some things I regret not thinking of when I first began my site.  It will cover subjects of set-up, content structure and formatting, content organization, content frequency, social media, website traffic, advertising, promotional materials, artist/label/PR rep relationships, networking, time management and You.

I’m probably forgetting a couple of important topics.  Perhaps I’ll cover those in my “Year Four” article.  I’ll covered about half of these items in Part I (last week’s column) and now here’s Part II.

Worth noting:  As opposed to last week’s column, which focused on site creation and organization, today’s will focus more on navigating the field and getting yourself noticed and sourced by people in the music industry.  Now, if you’re only looking to have a music blog that highlights the albums on your shelves and couldn’t care less about what’s new today, then today’s column is going to be less relevant than last week.  But if you are into what’s being released every week (in any genre) and want to be a source of what’s new, then today’s column will also be helpful.

As always, I’ve embedded some of my favorite music from 2014 into the body of the column.

Let’s begin…

 

(“Up,” from Spacelab by Hess/AC/Hess)

 

Where do you start?

I got lucky with this one.  I mean, you have your brand new site.  You’ve picked out the theme and the format and all the little ornamental extras that enhance the aesthetic.  Now what?  What the hell do you write?  No matter how much you tinker with the site’s design, you’re still going to be faced with that first blank page.  Where do you start?

Me, I had two avenues to take, both similar in nature and, I believe, not a bad direction to take yourself.  My original plan, when the idea to start up a music blog first formed in my head, was to simply write about albums on my CD shelf and iTunes library that floated my boat.  Most of them would be modern jazz, but I’d hit on some under-the-radar “classics” too.  But two things happened in the span of time when I first got the inkling to start a blog and when I actually flipped on the Open sign.  One, I got the eMusic gig.  Part of the deal with that thing is that I have the ability to reprint my eMusic (now Wondering Sound) synopses thirty days after they’ve been initially published.  Well, that’s what I did.  Literally.  I added some links and personnel names and embedded audio when I could find it… but that’s all I changed.  These were true reprints and those early posts, well, as they might say in my new hometown down here in the South… “bless his heart, he really tried, didn’t he?”  But even though those early posts were sort of lame in a way, they provided a very nice source of help on what to write about.

So did Number 2 of my two-part what-changed premise… I began my site at the end of the year.  As you’ll come to discover, and which I’ll address briefly later, end of the year means the Season of Lists.  This is when you encapsulate everything that’s happened in the year and highlight the best of the best.  Well, end of the year is when I opened my door, so I had a whole lot of summarizing to do.  Much in the style of my eMusic Jazz Picks synopses, I wrote a series of columns that highlighted the best of 2012.  I wrote little paragraphs for each album, about five albums per column, just briefly talking about the music and why I liked it.  Nothing fancy and definitely nothing that was going to get nominated for any writing awards.  But that’s kind of how many of the wrap-up columns go.  You’ve probably already written plenty about the music during the year when initially covering the music when it was first released.

What both of these two types of columns (eMusic Jazz Picks synopses and Best of 2012 synopses) did for me was put out a huge volume of mini-content on my site in a short period of time.  Between my use of social media and networking (addressed later in this column) and artists/labels/PR reps scouring the internet for relevant material, my site got noticed.  It wasn’t long before I was getting lots of promo material from artists and labels and reps asking me to review albums, conduct interviews, etc.  The question of what to write was answered for me.

I highly recommend writing a little about a lot of albums, a scatter-shot approach that is likely to get you noticed in short order.

(And some of those original column ideas?  I’ve never gotten to them.  I have some drafts of huge columns for Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz and Guillermo Klein just sitting there in draft form.  I get to them from time to time, but until I can do this thing full time and can ditch the day job, they’ll continue to evolve slowly.)

 

Getting Noticed, an addendum

As I mentioned in the previous section, part of getting noticed is putting your stuff in a position of being seen.  There’s some basic things you can do to get your site on the radar.

1.  Go knock on Google’s door and introduce yourself.

This was one I learned a little late.  You can submit your site’s URL, as well as the URL of specific content on your site and a site map, and this will trigger Google’s search engine to begin including you in search results that hit certain keywords and tags on your site.  Here’s a LINK to check those options out.  The option I chose was the second, “Link to a specific page…”  If I remember correctly, I asked Google to just check out my site’s main page (via the vanilla birdistheworm[dot]com URL) and to stop by and visit occasionally, because that’s where I’d be posting new material.  The other options are either very simplified or very complex.  They make it pretty straight-forward, so don’t worry if you don’t understand it all entirely.  It’ll become clear as you go through the steps.

But I couldn’t understand why my site was never showing up in most google search results.  This made it happen.

2.  Twitter, Facebook and probably a bunch of other social media sites.

My site has a dedicated Facebook page.  Every time there’s a new post on my site, I post a link to it on the Facebook page.  I probably don’t use the Facebook page as effectively as I could to get the word out about my content, but I at least get something up on that Page daily.  Other people (fans, musicians, labels, etc) who do use Facebook more effectively than I do, in fact, notice my posts, because my site traffic manager shows me how many people are coming to my site from Facebook posts.  Even if the idea of Facebook repulses you, go create one.  It’s painless.

Also, get on Twitter.  Now, I use Twitter a lot.  I like to hang there.  You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but you do need to create an account, and every time you make a post on your site, you need to send out a tweet about it and you need to include the Twitter handles of the artists and labels and PR reps in your tweet.  It’ll get them to notice you and they’ll retweet your link and the people following them on twitter will start heading to your site.  If you don’t want to shoot the breeze on Twitter, fine, no problem, but create a Twitter feed for your site and use it.

There are probably other social media sites you could be using.  I only use the two just mentioned.  None of it could hurt, so avail yourself of as much of it as you can handle.  But at least do the Facebook and Twitter thing.

Also, since you’re just starting out, you might want to email the artist and/or label directly and say, hey, here’s a link to something nice I just wrote about your album.  Maybe include a 1-3 sentence introduction, but I’m not even sure you need to do that… not so long as you’ve got a decent About Me page on your site.  If people want to send you promo materials, they’ll jump all over finding out who you are.  Most of the time.  Actually, let’s take a brief detour…

(“Battle Mountain,” from Battle Mountain by Ben Flocks)

 

Don’t feel bad that I’ve never heard of you… I’ve never heard of myself, either.

This next bit of advice (I feel like I should put that word in quotes) is based on a trend I noticed over time in my site stats.  Every now and then I see a huge spike in site traffic, and it’s gotten to where I can almost guess which review of the past handful of weeks instigated it.  Usually it’s from an unknown (or relatively unknown) artist who either self-produced their album or put it out on an unknown (or relatively unknown) label.  They almost certainly live in middle of nowhere Norway or middle of nowhere Poland or middle of nowhere Italy or they live in Seattle.  They will typically be a younger musician (though not always) and they will be all up on all kinds of social media sites just to hang while also promoting their music.  And if they see some nice words about their album on your site, they will link to it and they will get the word out like mad on all of their social media pages, letting their fans and friends and family know that, hey, look at the nice thing this person (you) said about me.

You’ll also start getting promo materials from anyone who contributed to the album.  If a small label is involved, invariably you will begin receiving promo materials for everything they release.  You’ll start getting followers and subscribers and your site traffic will go up and Google will notice you more because people are linking to your site on social media sites.

I bring this up only by way of anecdotal evidence that, if you’re faced with ten different albums that you feel equally strong about and can’t decide which one to write about, you might want to invest a few minutes of your time checking out the artists’ social media presence.  If it’s an active one, then you might want to consider choosing an album that will get that traffic boost.  It’ll help you get noticed, but even long after that stops being a consideration, it’s still pretty cool to see that spike in traffic.  I don’t get too wrapped up in the stats (more on that later), but I always enjoy seeing people are getting to my site and checking out all the great music I spotlight.  It makes me feel like I’m accomplishing my mission statement of spreading the word about great music… much of it obscure.

And speaking of obscure, if you start out writing about ECM Records or Blue Note releases, you’re not likely to get noticed right away.  Everybody writes about those albums and they can cherry-pick the stuff that holds the most prestige.  That’s probably not you.  Think about writing about a few albums by artists who aren’t seriously well-known.  They’re more likely to appreciate getting some print and put in the leg-work to spread the word about it.

Just something to think about.

 

Just say no (thanks).

Let’s jump ahead.  People are learning about your site.  You are getting review requests from artists and label and reps.  You haven’t yet reached the level of requests to where there’s no possible way for you to get to it all.  For now, it’s just dribbling in a little at a time.  Resist the temptation to write about things that you don’t much care for out of fear that the music faucet will get shut off if you say ‘no thanks.’  There are more than a couple of us who have succumbed early to that fear and written up an album or two that didn’t exactly float our boat.  It may not have been an effusive recommendation, but it still got a slot that, otherwise, never should’ve received the time of day.  I can think of two columns on my site that fit that category (though there may be a third, now that I think upon it).  But after a couple, I learned to just say ‘no thanks.’  I mean, if I’m not writing about the music that I think is truly important, then what the hell am I doing here?

But there’s no doubt that those early stages of getting noticed and receiving promo materials, etc, can be almost dizzying… a kind of intoxication in the changes of status, and it can be easy to lose sight of what’s what.  Don’t let that happen to you.  Write about the stuff you want to write about and write it the way that you want it to read.

Conversely, if you’re an artist or label or a rep who is having trouble getting print on a particular album, go find someone new to the scene.  You can probably jostle them into writing something up before they wise up to the just say ‘no thanks’ advice.

(“A Journey Through Hope,” from Sad & Beautiful by Emler/Tchamitchian/Echampard)

 

Where are all of you people coming from?

So, site traffic and stats.  Depending on your theme and platform, there are going to be a number of different tracking methods and tools available to you.  Depending on how much you want to focus on this aspect will guide you to which tools to use.  I haven’t delved much into this, so I don’t have a lot of advice for you here.  I have one site that uses the Jetpack stat tool (a basic free WordPress plugin; way simple to install and use).  I have another site that uses Google Analytics.  It’s way better and more detailed and because I just never really got into my site stats, I almost never take the trouble to analyze it.

What I do enjoy seeing (and Jetpack takes care of this) are the sections that tell me where my visitors are coming from and where they’re going when they leave the site.  I like seeing how many people are finding my site via Facebook and Twitter and which artist and label sites are linking to my site and sending people over.  I especially like seeing when people leave my site and go to retail links to buy the album or when they go to artist sites I’ve linked to, to learn more about that artist and maybe see if they’re touring anywhere nearby.

The thing about site traffic… don’t get too emotionally invested in it.  In the beginning, you’ll probably be checking your stats daily.  It’s understandable.  You want to see if anybody out there knows you’re there.  But once you’ve been around for a little while and have established yourself, that’s where the danger of stats becomes more evident.  You’ll have gone through a period (or three) of burnout.  You’ll come to see how much of your time the site takes and how much like a real job that it is, and it’s easy to become bitter when you look at your stats and think, WHY DON’T THEY APPRECIATE ME MORE?!  This is when it’s good to have a well-honed sense of humor.  I laughed that moment off, had a stiff drink, and moved on with things.  You should consider a similar approach.  Substitute where necessary, but definitely get laughter in there somewhere.

The thing of it is, I do want to get high traffic numbers, because that means people are checking out the music that I think they should be hearing.  I love discovering great new music and I am extremely gratified when I’m able to help do the same for others.  And I want these artists to succeed, and if people are reading about them on my site, then that increases their chances.  But you just have to stay patient and keep plodding on.  I can’t remember where, but music writer Marc Myers talks about a tipping point, where the slow accumulation of followers/readers/Likers/etc that comprise the concept of site traffic suddenly reaches a peak and one new reader a day becomes a hundred a day and the traffic numbers reach a level where the actual number becomes irrelevant.  It kind of reminds me of how professional poker players talk about how once the chip stacks become so high, the concept of $750,000 in chips versus $2 million in chips is irrelevant.. they’re just chips.

I guess where I’m going with that is don’t get too wrapped up in site traffic.  It’s one thing if you get off on analyzing the numbers because that’s kind of your thing, but don’t let emotions creep into it.  That’s a toxic situation.

 

About that site traffic…

If you think, eventually, you’d like to get some custom advertising on your site, start thinking about it early.  I touched upon this briefly in last week’s column in the section about site design.  If you like the idea of a musician or label buying some ad space, like a banner image for a new album or a sidebar box offering a free download, consider early on how you want to make that happen.  Think about the types of advertising you want to offer, how you’d package it and how much to charge.  The last part is the touchiest of the topics, but you can get guidance based on what current sites are doing.  Many of them post what they’re charging and have nice PDFs about the different options.

The other stuff, just get out in front of that early.  I regret that I didn’t.  I’ve had several offers to advertise on my site, but because I didn’t plan it out early: can my theme fit advertising in and, if so, where?  What kind of packages do I want to offer?  What do I need to do to make those packages a reality?  Do I need to have my own Bandcamp or SoundCloud Pro account?

Because now, my site is pretty much how my site is going to be, and my time is pretty much dominated by just getting up new content… figuring out how to take on advertising requests just doesn’t get made a priority.  It’s something that I should have addressed back in the day, when I was first starting the site up and had more options and time available to me.

Oh, and if you do plan on having advertising on your site, you’ll want to find a statistics tool that gives you the most perspectives on your site traffic.  Advertisers are going to want to know that stuff.

Something to consider.  It’s not something of great importance to my site specifically, but I do regret not investing some brainstorming time on it back on Day One.

 

Okay, I think that about covers it.

I hope you find some of this helpful.  Doubtlessly, I’ll pick up a few new things along the way and return with another column.

Cheers.

 

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 2 • Tags:

Oct 19 2014

So, you want to start a music blog… (Part I)

 

So, you want to start a music blog… (Part I)

BitW square avatarI’ve only been at this three years, which in terms of internet music blogs, that’s a pretty long time.  As far as figuring out how to best run an internet music blog… well, I’m not sure exactly how much time that takes, but I can tell you from experience that three years doesn’t get you far.

Here’s some things I regret not thinking of when I first began my site.  It will cover subjects of set-up, content structure and formatting, content organization, content frequency, social media, website traffic, advertising, promotional materials, artist/label/PR rep relationships, networking, time management and You.

I’m probably forgetting a couple of important topics.  Perhaps I’ll cover those in my “Year Four” article.  I’ll cover half of these items in Part I (today’s column) and Part II will publish next Sunday.

As always, I’ve embedded some of my favorite music from 2014 into the body of the column.

Let’s begin…

 

(“Night Potier,” from Love for Snail by Peter Rosendal)

 

The Set-Up

I’m going to assume that most of you will be going with a WordPress theme… either with an actual WordPress blog or on your own platform.  It’s a smart route to take and pretty much the entire universe is making the move to a WordPress environment.  There are a number of different themes you can use.  Some of them are free, others you have to pay for.  Here are some considerations to take into account when choosing your site’s “skeletal system.”

Think about what you want your site to look like.  Not from day one, but on Day 1,000.  Look way into the future and go with the assumption that all the crazy ideas and hopes you have for your site will come true.  Sketch out how your site will need to look and function in order to accommodate all of those crazy ideas and hopes.  What is the first thing you want readers to see when they walk through your site’s front door?  How do you want your content presented?  Do you want them to see the most recent article first or do you want them to see a table of contents?

What about the stuff that fits around the main content?  Do you want to be able to customize multiple columns will bells and whistles (ie, plug-ins and menus) or do you want it to be clean of clutter (“it’s all about the stories, man”)?  What about advertising?  Is there a way to feature advertisers with the WordPress theme you’re considering?  Does it allow you to add extra room to feature a banner image?  Are there one or multiple columns on the page and how many menus and plug-ins will it fit in case you want to add more functionality (or ad space)?  Brainstorm like mad.  Consider every angle.

Wander the internet and visit other music blogs.  Hell, visit non-music blogs.  Find some that have features that you’d like on your own site.  You might even choose the same theme as one of these sites.

A nice thing about these WordPress themes is that you can preview what your site will look like even after you’ve gone live.  Because let’s be real, unless you’re already super-famous, nobody other than your grandparents and (maybe) your spouse is going to visit your site in the first month of its existence.  If you’ve got a solid plan of what you want your site to look like and the characteristics and formatting you wish to incorporate into it, as long as you’ve got your WordPress theme choices whittled down to a small handful, you can just pick one, post your first couple of entries of content, and then just see how it all shakes out.  If suddenly you become unsure if you picked the right one, don’t worry, it’s no problem.  WordPress theme functionality allows you to go in and choose a different theme and preview it live… it will show you what those first, new posts will look like with different themes.  And if you like a different theme than the one you initially chose, it’s easy as pie to switch them out.

And it’s not like there’s a drop-dead date on when you can switch themes out.  But what I’ve discovered from experience is that once you get pretty deep into posting content with very specific formats, it gets a lot tougher to switch themes out.  On my own site, I like the clean, crisp design.  I’ve formatted my posts to fit that design.  When I poke around different themes and do a live preview, many of those posts lose their nice formatting and become a bit muddled and messy.  It would be an easy enough exercise to reformat a handful of them to fit the new theme, but as it stands, I’m three years into this site and that’s a whole lot of existing posts… there’s no way I could reformat all of that content to fit a new theme.  I’d have to let things stand as-is.  Now, some themes will mess with my existing formats more than others, but that right there limits my options on a new theme.  Just something to consider.  I regret I didn’t spend more time shopping around the different theme options after I was up and running a couple weeks in.  I might not have changed anything, and I do like my simple theme, but “simple” does tend to limit your options as you try to grow your site.

I don’t have any comment on free vs. pay themes.  I think it’s best to find the theme that is most likely to fit your plans for Day 1,000 and go with that, whether it’s no cost to you or you have to pay a little bit out of pocket to obtain that theme.  The best theme for Day 1,000 will save you lots and lots of time throughout the process of running your site, and you’ll come to learn that time is often a scarcer resource than cash, and one that you’d happily trade cash to obtain more of.

(“Shhh,” from One for Miles, One for Maynard by Reggie Watkins)

 

About that content…

Presentation is something to consider as you make your initial post.  Think about the sites you enjoy visiting (music or otherwise) and the layout of the their articles and columns and various other posts.  Think about the characteristics that make a post visually appealing to read and functional in use.  You want to enchant readers, and keep them on your site wanting more.  God, when I look back at some of my earliest posts, I can’t believe what a knucklehead I was.  I used to bludgeon my readers with embedded audio and scrunch up the text between them, poorly spaced and lacking any concept of flow or cadence.  It was one play button after the other, and I can’t imagine what the load times were like with all that embedded audio.  Over time, I’ve streamlined the way my posts look and operate and become more objective about the way in which I view them.  When you start to make your first posts, you’re likely going to get all types of gushing proud when they go up.  That’s okay, but not at the expense of an editorial eye.

It’s the kind of thing you’re going to tweak as you go along.  It’s not anything you have to get right from the first try, but it is something to be aware of.

 

Categories & Tagging

You’re going to want to organize your content to make it easier for readers to find what they want and to guide readers who aren’t sure what they want.  Simply putting a search engine box on your site isn’t enough, not nearly.  Most WordPress themes give you the option for two types of guiders… categories and tags.  Think of your site as a city.  In your city are storefronts, each representing a piece of content… columns, reviews, videos, etc.  Categories are the highways and streets of your City Site.  They are the standard routes that readers will take to navigate your content.  Tags, on the other hand, are the signs over the doors of every storefront.  Tags are the signifiers that will inspire your readers to walk through the storefront doors of the content that most interests them.

Keep the Categories simple.  You can build a hierarchy of Categories and Sub-Categories (for instance, Category = Reviews, Sub-Category = “2014 Reviews,” “2013 Reviews,” etc.  Or how about, Category = Opinion Pieces, with Sub-Categories of “Trends in Jazz,” “The Business of Art,” “Current Events,” etc.).  Don’t get too detailed with the Sub-Categories either.  The detail is what the Tags are for.  That’s where you want to offer an array of options, providing signposts that are traditional (Tag = “Sax Trio”) or imaginative (Tag = “Late-Night Music” or “Music from another planet” or “Seattle Jazz”).  Having those tags will help guide readers to content, including readers who know the kinds of things they’re looking for (via a search engine box) and those that don’t (with a drop-down list).

Go through your CDs.  Hold some of your favorites in your hand and think about the keywords you’d use to describe them or how you might organize them on your shelf.  Label, Artist Name, Sidemen, moods, local scenes, primary instruments, recording year…

Go to retail sites.  Think about how you might search for those albums.  Look at how albums are tagged on those sites.  Sites like CDBaby and Bandcamp give the ability to create customized tags to accompany established ones.  You can have “Jazz,” “Piano Jazz” and “Rainy Day Jazz” sitting out there as fishhooks trying to bait buyers to check out an album.  Browsing those sites and checking out some of the custom tags might give you some inspiration on how to organize them on your site.

If there’s one thing you’ll want to get right on the first try, it’s the Categories and Tags.  Brainstorm like mad and establish both sets.  You can always add categories and tags later, after your site is under way, but all of the previously posted content that those new tags and categories would be applicable to won’t be included in the new groups.  The only way to bring that content into the fold is by going back and adding those new tags to the old content one by one.  Believe me, you just won’t have the time or energy to do that, no matter how strong the inclination is.

I regret that I didn’t add more tags from the beginning, things like “mood” (ie, rainy day music) or “scene” (ie, “Seattle,” “Portugal,” etc… regional signifiers).  If I could do it all over again, I definitely would have spent more time in this area before flipping on the Open sign.

(“81%,” from Eno Supo by Estafest)

 

So, got any plans today?

Post something every day.  It’s an obvious thing to say, but it’s a task more formidable than you can possibly imagine.  You’re going to suffer from burnout.  You’re going to have things like, I dunno, life, interrupt your normal schedule.  You’re going to have stretches where you re-envision what you want your site to be.  Give yourself “outs” for those times when you need to post something, anything, as well as a way of fending off burnout.

I’ve got my These Are Videos That I Like series.  Look, I appreciate a good video and I think it’s a fun thing to post and I know readers enjoy them based on my stats, but the biggest upside for me is that they are way simple to construct.  It’s like an off-day for me.  I have a handful of them sitting in draft form, too, just waiting for a day when I need something at the last minute.  I have a couple album recommendation columns, too… ones that I’m not thrilled about the way I wrote them up and maybe don’t even consider the music sufficiently amazing that I’d normally post a recommendation for them on my site… but I liked the music well enough and was able to write something up on the fly, and I keep them in my back pocket in case I need something at the last minute.  It’s a nice thing to have available.  It’s particularly stressful to have to put a post together at the last minute.  Avoid that as much as possible.  Get out ahead on your schedule as much as possible.  Don’t ever back yourself into a corner where you’re having to create a post on the same day you want to publish it.  I’ve been there, and it sucks.  That’s the fastest way to get burned out.

And you don’t want your site to go dead, not even for a day.  Having new content every day keeps readers coming back day after day and gets them in the habit of visiting your site, almost to where it makes a person feel compelled to do it.  I know I do this with other sites, myself, where it’s just automatic that I visit those sites day in and day out.  New daily content is the way to make that happen and develop an avid readership.

(And let me take a moment to thank all of the people who visit my site; I do genuinely appreciate that you’re finding articles on Bird is the Worm that float your boat to the point where you keep returning for more).

So, plan out your schedule, make sure you have some categories of content that are easy to throw together, and post something every day.  If you get on a hot streak where you are writing your best stuff and it’s flowing out of your head and onto your computer screen with an amazing ease and fluidity, then milk that shit for as long as you can.  Exploit your hot streaks for all you’ve got.  Because, trust me, there will be opposite streaks where every word is flat and every thought is cliche and the very idea of listening to music (much less writing about it) is a total drag.  When you’re on, don’t let anything get in your way until that surge of productivity comes to its natural conclusion.

(“Que Horas Não São?” from Invento by Juliana Cortes)

 

I’m going to end Part I with the thing that, perhaps, you might want to address first…

Who Are You?

This one is a bit abstract, but it’s the most essential question you can answer before you start your blog.  The thing is, you might not figure it out right away.  Don’t let this one hang you up, but always let it stew in the back of your head, because, ultimately, it will be the piece that allows everything else to fall into place.  The best way I can explain Who Are You? is by talking about Me.

I’m not a music writer.  As it turns out, I never was.  I’m a novelist.  I write fiction novels.  That’s a far cry from being a music reviewer or critic or columnist.  In the beginning, I was a bad music writer.  I was trying to find my voice.  I mean, I was pretty good with the 3-5 sentences of pithiness and humor for my eMusic/Wondering Sound Jazz Picks column, but for my own site, where I was looking to expand on those ideas, well, I was pretty bad in the beginning.

Don’t get discouraged if you are, too.  Some things you just have to work at, and doing it in a live setting tends to speed up the learning curve.

Three years later, and I think I’ve gotten better.  Every now and then, I write a great piece.  Sometimes I knock one out of the park.  When I suffer from burnout, sometimes my stuff is pretty bad.  But after three years of perseverance and hard work, I’ve developed into something of a middling music writer.  This does not disappoint me.  What I found sort of discouraging, though, was that I may have reached my ceiling.  My redemption (in my own eyes) was that I read the writing on that ceiling.  What it said was… “Who Are You?”

Once I answered that question, everything changed.

I’m not a music writer.  I’m not a reviewer.  I’m not a columnist.  I’m not a critic.  My value to the jazz scene, the value I provide my readers is The Pursuit.  Back in the day, there was somebody on the AllAboutJazz forum (I believe it was the person with the handle “Robmid”) who called me a bloodhound.  He was referring to my ability to track down the great new releases, no matter how obscure they were.  And he was right!  I am a bloodhound.

Once I accepted that I was more tastemaker than journalist, writing for my site became easier.  It’s also changing things up.  What you are going to find as things progress on Bird is the Worm is that my columns will become shorter, and my analysis of albums will drop precipitously.  I am going to recommend albums.  I am going to write a little bit about them, just to give readers a sense of what’s what.  If there’s some backstory that I think is interesting or relevant, I’ll include that.  As always, there will be some embedded audio and some links to artist, label and retail sites.  But that’s gonna be about it.  Hopefully I will gain the reputation and trust to where I don’t have to say much more than, “Hey, this is something you should take for a spin,” and that will be enough for readers to hit the play button on the audio and follow a link or two to discover more about the recording while the music plays.  Every now and then I’ll write a long-form piece, and I’m sure there will always be albums that will receive write-ups that verge on 1,000 words.  But for the most part, from here on out, I’m going for brevity (this column excluded).  I’m thinking 250-300 words is enough to state my case.

Who Am I? is a question you should answer before you begin your music blog and it’s a question you should pose every so often for as long as you keep the thing running.

I hope you find some of that helpful.

Part II will post next Sunday.

Cheers.

 

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 2 • Tags:

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