Comments on: Writers Who Can’t Play, Players Who Can’t Write

By: E Martin Nolan

E Martin Nolan — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:38:41 +0000

Sen has a good point, there is a degree of know how that one should possess in order to be a trusted observer. Question is, where is that line, how technically proficient should the jazz writer be?

By: Writing Jazz, Playing Jazz: Origins of “The Critic” « Lubricity

Writing Jazz, Playing Jazz: Origins of “The Critic” « Lubricity — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:34:33 +0000

[...] most of the frame-building. This is due in part to the need for practice in the craft of writing, as Phil Freeman argues, and also due to the racialized reality that African Americans have rarely been afforded the [...]

By: Sen

Sen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:10:32 +0000

An old definition of a critic : a glorified record collector, these days he’s a glorified internet blog writer. Collect a few CDs, become a pundit, write a blog. Musicians get pissed off by these hobbyists calling themselves critics, someone who reviews records or CD is just that a reviewer. Jazz writers should know music technically just as critics in the other arts contemporary classical, opera, ballet etc. There’s alot of grad school journalism out there posing as criticism which it’s not.

By: Steve Hicken

Steve Hicken — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:24:09 +0000

Well said, Phil. We need to widen the circle of interest, not squeeze it.

By: kubla

kubla — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:35:55 +0000

Yep, writing is writing, making music is making music.

The same issues come up w/ respect to literary criticism, both academic and journalistic. And the same analysis applies: writing literature is writing literature; writing about literature is writing about literature. Two different crafts, two different skill sets. That fact that both crafts are writing doesn’t change that.

By way of a crude analogy. I pay a furniture maker to make me a chair. It’s got four legs, like it should, but one’s shorter than the others and the chair’s wobbly. Do I have to be a furniture maker in order to observe that the chair’s wobbly?

Bill B