For anyone who cares about and wants to support jazz and avant music in New York (and elsewhere as their work reverberates outward many times), here’s a great way to support their efforts.  The Vision Festival organization just released this announcement:

“The Matching Grant Campaign has been coming along very nicely.  We are almost There!  Please Please Help us to reach our $17,000 goal!  This is a 2-to-1 Matching Grant, which means that we will receive an additional $34,000 for a Grand Total of $51,000.  This is an Arts for Art effort to get our own space to present New York’s Creative Music.  The space, to be centrally located in downtown Manhattan, will house an ongoing music venue, as well as recording and rehearsal studios.  We have identified a possible location - which I will let you know about once we are a bit further along.  So things are Very Exciting. 

For information about all that we are doing, please check out our beautiful website – It also has lots of photos from this year’s festival.”

Having seen their festival over the last several years, I can vouch for what a worthy cause this is.

—Jason Gross

In this public letter, the folks at website/news service antiMusic blast back at a PR firm who was trying to buy them off for good reviews.  Nowadays, people are so cynical about the press that buying editorial favor that might not surprise them.  With many pubs trying to survive, some have taken to ask for labels for ad money to ensure that their product gets reviewed (NY Rock did this for instance but insisted that it wouldn’t mean that they had to give a positive review).  The antiMusic folks note that several other pubs shunned the PR company for trying the same tactic.  Still, you have to wonder if some mags did say yes…

—Jason Gross

Here’s a pretty infuriating story from the New York Times about how a noted and respected musician and teacher was summarily interrogated and booted out of America and given no reason why.  As the article notes, not only is she deprived or her rights but also the students and faculty who were going to work with her have lost out also.  Why is there no accountability for this kind of insane xenophobia?  Are we just going to lock up all of our foreign scholars so that we can live under the illusion that we’re making ourselves safer and that we’re still a free country?

—Jason Gross

In what’s sure to become a classic moment in live stage patter, Trent Reznor, aka Nine Inch Nails, tells an Aussie audience that since his CD’s are still priced too expensively there, they should just go out and “steal it.” See the it at YouTube now.

—Jason Gross

We’re so used to bands doing ads or having their songs used as product placement or having corporations sponsor tours that any news of this sort doesn’t raise eyebrows now.  You just hope that your favorite band doesn’t get associated with anything too embarrassing.  And then there’s the case of Band of Horses and the backlash and their response. So is BOH right to say that they’re just trying to earn a living and keep playing music or are there some lines that shouldn’t be crossed in taking ad money?

—Jason Gross

The excellent Soul Patrol site/network has two great round-tables recently posted that are definitely worth your time to listen to, both from their Philadelphia convention on May 27, 2007

Black Music Cultural/Social Impact: Moderator: Darrell McNeil- BRC, Patricia Wilson Aden- Exec. Dir. R&B Foundation, Mark Anthony Neal- Author/Educator, Dr. Ric Wilson- Artist, Jimmy Castor - Artist, Charles Wright- Artist

Jazz Panel: Moderator: Tee Watts- Broadcaster/Journalist, Geri Allen- Artist/Activist, Kayte Connelly- Former Berks Jazz Fest Exec Dir, Kenny Mead- Jazz Producer, TS Monk- Artist/Activist, Onaje Allan Gumbs- Artist/Activist

—Jason Gross