The New Republic and Creative Music

Rare is the day that I complement The New Republic for their political coverage. After all, they employ Gregg Easterbrook. But their arts coverage is probably second to none among the major literary and political magazines. Stanley Kauffmann is my favorite living film critic and I have read him faithfully for over 10 years. Now they are the first major magazine in a long time where I have seen an article on the creative music/avant-garde jazz scene. By this I mean articles far far away from the ass-kissing the New York Times does for Wynton Marsalis and others who wish to turn jazz into classical music. Rather, musicians in this scene, or really overlapping but distinct scenes, are taking the lessons of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and others and are creating new and interesting music that virtually no one listens to. These artists are as diverse as William Parker, Bill Frisell, Dave Douglas, John Zorn, Charles Gayle, Guy Klucesvek, and Medeski, Martin, and Wood (of course people do listen to them and this is somewhat amazing).

If any of this interests you, read the New Republic's article on the Ellery Eskelin trio. I saw this group play back in 1997 or 1998. They use the somewhat less than classic trio of sax, drums, and accordion/electronics. I don't know that they are my favorite group necessarily but they are quite good and by God, it's great that any of these creative artists receive any kind of national coverage.