Gerald Early, Ingrid Monson (Editors)
Why Jazz Still Matters.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2019. Daedalus, v. 148, no. 2. 127 pages.
Softcover volume, measuring approximately 7" x 10", is new, still in plastic.
"Jazz: it has been called both cool and hot, earthy and avant-garde, intellectual and primitive. It is improvisational music touted for the freedom it permits its players, but in its heyday was largely composed and tightly arranged. It tells a story about race in America: not only because African American musicians were so central in its creation and African American audiences so important in their creative responses to it, but because whites played such a dominant role in its dissemination through records and performance venues and its ownership as intellectual and artistic property. But is jazz a relic of the past, or does it continue to have meaning and influence for today’s artists and audiences? And while it may still be present, does it still matter? The Spring 2019 issue of Dædalus, “Why Jazz Still Matters,” explores that very question, gathering together noted writers, artists, and scholars to delve into the legacies and futures of jazz."
Content: 
"Why Jazz Still Matters" by Gerald Early and Ingrid Monson;
"Following Geri's Lead" by Farah Jasmine Griffin;
"Soul, Afrofuturism & the Timeliness of Contemporary Jazz Fusions" by Gabriel Solis; 
""You Can't Dance to It": Jazz Music and Its Choreographies of Listening" by Christopher J. Wells; 
"Dave Brubeck's Southern Strategy" by Kelsey A.K. Klotz;
"Keith Jarrett, Miscegenation & the Rise of the European Sensibility in Jazz in the 1970s" by Gerald Early;
"Ella Fitzgerald & "I Can't Stop Loving You," Berlin 1968: Paying Homage to & Signifying on Soul Music" by Judith Tick;
""La La Land" is a Hit, but Is It Good for Jazz?" by Krin Gabbard;
"Yusef Lateef's Autophysiopsychic Quest" by Ingrid Monson;
"Why Jazz? South Africa 2019" by Carol A. Muller.