Michael Zwerin
Frank Zappa Count Basie Ravi Shankar
Keith jarrett a history of 20th century
Pop music John Cage Miles Davis The
Warsaw Rag The Bermuda Triangle Stevie
Wonder with Fatha Hines in Russia Charlie
Parker Jimmy Carter Roswell Rudd Adolf
Hitler Johnny Hallyday Django Reinhardt
Sun Ra jazz in Bombay and more
Enter the hot dream.
Come with us.
Everything is broken up and dances.
Jim Morisson
Can Certain Music Harm One's Health?
MIKE ZWERIN, THE MAN WITH TWO HATS
What a lovely piece by Michael Zwerin (Voice, February
2, "The Other Miami")! He is more than the best jazz columnist
at work today; he's a keen social observer. The purpose of this note is
two-fold.
First, my gratitude for Zwerin's tribute to Ira Sullivan, ex Chicagoan.
Ira's insatiable curiosity and wondrous growth (ignored by Chicago disk
jockies at the time, including myself) was there for all to hear. Relatively
few hear. (I might cop the plea of too many varied Interests of my own,
but the verdict is still: guilty as hell. The charge: ignoring the home-growing
artist.) Zwerin comes along and recognizes the genuine article, full grown
in alien soil. The beauty part is, as your man points out, that in Sullivan
there is not just jazz eclecticism but a natural continuity. He's never
been the favorite kid of any in-group; just his own man. A flower to him
and a flower to Zwerin.
Second, where the hell is my latest Issue of The Voice? Has my subscription
expired or was the Chicago snow-in responsible? If the former, why didn't
you warn me? If the latter, it's just one more score to settle with Mayor
Daley.
Studs Terkel, Chicago
I don't know whether The Village Voice realizes it, but
I Mike Zwerin you have uncovered the most sensitive writer on jazz since
the late Otis Ferguson.
Thornhill was an old friend of mine, whose band I used to record in the
early and middle '40s, and whose work I occasionally supervised in Benny
Goodman and Billie Holliday sessions in the '30s. The picture Zwerin paints
(Voice, September 9) of the discouraged and disillusioned Claude in 1958
la unforgettable.
I talked with Claude just three days before he died and he had pretty
well rehabilitated himself. His band was making money and he had kicked
alcohol sever years before. He was on his way to a comeback, something
which rarely happens in jazz.
Please keep Zwerin because he and Jack Newfield are two of the best writers
in New York.
John Hammond, Columbia Records
2nd edition (slightly enlarged) March 1980
3rd edition September, 1981
4th edition (completely revised and reset) March, 1982
Lay out by Gordana Malesevic