News You Can Use...
Plans for the 4th Quarter of 2025 - and Beyond...
With the 30th anniversary of All About Jazz, I am going to make adjustments to my publication schedule for both All About Jazz (AAJ) and Wild Mercury Rhythm (WMR). For the past several years, I have concentrated on my Substack WMR. In doing so, I left incomplete a couple of series I had started at AAJ that I now want to complete.
Presently, I am dropping an article each Tuesday and Friday (and sometimes ad hoc), all for WMR. This November, I will return to a more regular submission schedule to AAJ with my Holidays Bailey’s Bundles. After that time, I plan to continue publishing WMR each Friday while submitting a new article to AAJ each Sunday (hopefully). At AAJ, the magazine’s fine staff of editors edits all submissions. Their efforts have made me a better writer despite myself. I will be fully adopting the AAJ style guidelines for WMR. These efforts, coupled with my use of ProWritingAid, should make my writing almost readable and less like that of a Boston Mountains hillbilly.
The projects that I left at AAJ include:
“Building a Jazz Library” revisions:
These are long overdue for an update, and I have a few more in mind.
"The Led Zeppelin Papers”
I am lacking the final three LZ super deluxe edition reviews: Presence (Swan Song, 1976), In Through The Out Door (Swan Song, 1979), and Coda (Swan Song, 1982).
“The Led Zeppelin Papers” already published are:
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Led Zeppelin, Deluxe Edition (Atlantic, 1969)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Led Zeppelin II, Deluxe Edition (Atlantic, 1969)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Led Zeppelin III, Deluxe Edition (Atlantic, 1970)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Led Zeppelin IV, Deluxe Edition (Atlantic, 1971)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Houses of the Holy, Deluxe Edition (Atlantic, 1973)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Physical Graffiti, Deluxe Edition (Swan Song, 1975)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Sacred Cows, Led Zeppelin and Does the Song Remain the Same? (Swan Song, 1976)
The Led Zeppelin Papers: Led Zeppelin - How The West Was Won (Atlantic, 2003) — OR — Led Zeppelin - Four Blocks In The Snow (The Chronicles of Led Zeppelin, 2008)
I like to finish series started.
That is when I don’t start a series that nobody can finish.
I had frequently used AAJ’s “Reassessing” column when I wished to allude to a recording and I did not find a review of it at AAJ. Taking this a step further, I addressed the discographies of five bebop/hard bop pianists neglected within the AAJ electronic pages: Wynton Kelly, Red Garland, Kenny Drew, Elmo Hope, Sonny Clark, and Elmo Hope, completing reassessments of the first two recordings by each, save for Elmo Hope:
Wynton Kelly: New Faces - New Sounds (Blue Note Records, 1951)
Wynton Kelly: Piano (Blue Note Records, 1958)
Red Garland: A Garland of Red (Prestige Records, 1956)
Red Garland: Red Garland’s Piano (Prestige Records, 1957)
Kenny Drew: New Faces - New Sounds (Blue Note Records, 1953)
Kenny Drew: Kenny Drew and His Progressive Piano (Norgran, 1954)
Sonny Clark: Dial “S” for Sonny (Blue Note Records, 1957)
Sonny Clark: Sonny’s Crib (Blue Note Records, 1958)
Elmo Hope Trio: New Faces - New Sounds (Blue Note Records, 1953)
I hope to complete these three series and those started at WMG (“The 100 Best Live Recordings” and “Bob Dylan/The Band/1974”).
I will continue to review new recordings, with an emphasis on jazz vocals. Little will actually change, except for the added veracity an editorial board brings to one’s writing.
I suspect I should get busy.