“Long before we debated what real punk-rock was, what true hip-hop was, or what made indie-rock authentic, jazz heads grappled with what is and isn’t jazz music. Now, the debate is whether jazz is dying off or not.
“Not long ago Jae Sinnett, a jazz drummer, composer, educator and radio personality, told NPR that jazz is dying because people are falling out of love with it. Hip-hop, Sinnet says, stole jazz’s thunder. He also blamed club owners for removing pianos from their venues to save space over the years.
“Sinnet’s claims are not unfounded. The Wall Street Journal‘s Terry Teachout reported in August that the audience for America’s great art form was withering away, based on data in the latest survey of public participation in the arts. According to the report, America’s jazz audience is not only shrinking, it’s aging. Attendance at jazz performances has dropped 30% since 2002. The median age of concert patrons in 2008 was 46; in 1982 it was 29. . . .
“Teachout said the problem is that most Americans see jazz as a form of high art. Sinnet confirmed that ‘the masses don’t understand the music,’ largely because there are fewer places to hear it. Getting ‘these kids’ to ‘realise [jazz] is something worth their time is difficult because they don’t hear it on TV or MTV.’ The word ‘jazz’ itself has even become sandbagged with lofty associations (Time Out London goes so far as to call it the ‘J Bomb’).” (more @ Intelligent Life)
“The mystery surrounding bluesman 
“Lucy O’Donnell, the woman who inspired the classic Beatles song 
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“Gordon Waller, who formed half of 
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“John Heneghan tugged a large shellac disc from its brown paper sleeve, placed it on a turntable and gently nudged a needle into place. Behind him, in the corner of his East Village apartment, sat 16 wooden crates, each filled with meticulously cataloged 78-r.p.m. records. The coarse, crackling voice of the blues singer Charley Patton, performing ‘High Water Everywhere Part 1,’ his startling account of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, rose from the speakers, raw and unruly. The record is worth about $8,000.
“MICHAEL Lang and Joel Rosenman were two of the producers of the original 
“But Mr. Lang, 64, and Mr. Rosenman, 66, who, with the family of another original partner, control Woodstock Ventures, which owns the trademarks, have so far failed to deliver a solid plan to commemorate their own historic achievement. Time, it would seem, has run out for pulling together the kind of anniversary blowouts the partners were behind in upstate New York in 
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“Eric Segalstad has spent the past few years researching a group of musicians who have been dubbed ‘The 27s’ — rockers who died at that age, either through tragedy, misadventure or excess. The club includes 
“A university in Liverpool has launched a Master of Arts degree in The Beatles, the city’s most famous sons, and called the qualification the first of its kind.
“Dewey Martin, drummer for the short-lived but long-resonating rock band 
The 'Not-So-Rough' Guide 