obscure rants

The little bio on this blog claims I write occasionally about jazz. This is very close to never true any more. I have almost stopped attending live jazz concerts over the past decade. Most of the music I listen to these days is classical, and while I do still listen to jazz, very little of it is recently recorded. After covering the Montreal International Jazz Festival 17 years in a row, I paused for logistical reasons in 2006 (I was writing a book) and have essentially never bothered to return. This is not because I’m angry at that festival for programming music that isn’t jazz; it’s that I was starting to feel that too many of the jazz musicians were wasting audiences’ time.