The History, Myths, Values and Practices of Jazz Journalists

Jazz journalism is a challenging but worthwhile profession. To do the job well, one must have some or all of the following qualities: nuanced critical sensibilities; musical, social, and psychological insights; well-honed skills of immediate recall as well as long-term memory; personal literary, photographic and/or broadcasting style; business acumen, and the imaginative flexibility of a good improviser. A jazz journalist has to know how to (and be able to) produce on deadline, should be something of an anthropologist, and have at least basic chops as a researcher, entertainer, teacher and traveler. A jazz journalist — by which I mean writers and photographers publishing principally in periodicals, as well as broadcasters and web-professionals, all concerned largely, if not exclusively, with jazz — should be able to hang with the cats and be as conversant, if not expert, with the totality and trivia of contemporary culture as anyone else in the room.