Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: NYT critic

The New York Times' jazz and pop but mainly jazz critic Ben Ratliff is taking questions from the readers about pop, but mainly jazz:

In the last 60 years, people almost completely stopped dancing to jazz, and far fewer people grew up with pianos in the house. I think that has a lot to do with why jazz is no longer the popular vernacular art it used to be. When you dance to music (in all ways — partner dancing, stepping, headbanging — just reacting to music with your body) or when you play it, then you own it. A lot of people born since 1960 don't feel that they own jazz.

Absolutely, the media plays a role in why the average person doesn't know who Cedar Walton is. But I think the mainstream media — obviously we're not talking about jazz magazines like Downbeat, which has Benny Golson on the cover this month (a good example of the kind of artist you're talking about) — doesn't, by definition, deal with the kind of art that post-bop mainstream jazz has become, which is an art of tradition and very slow refinements.