Every year, I publish a State of Culture report. This year something disturbing is happening.

I used to worry about the trade-off between art and entertainment—but now a third option threatens to overwhelm both. This is more than just the hot trend of 2024.

It can last forever—because it’s based on body chemistry, not fashion or aesthetics.

How an Angry Woman in Baltimore Almost Killed the Jazz Age (my latest). https://t.co/bkVmZDXOIthonest-broker.com/p/how-an-angry…
People nowadays have a hard time imagining how much hostility jazz faced a hundred years ago. Many wanted a new Prohibition—and campaigned to close jazz dance halls the same way bars had been shut down in 1920. https://t.co/nhjf7Y16N4honest-broker.com/p/how-an-angry…

Microsoft’s AI is now threatening and bullying search engine users. stratechery.com/2023/from-bing… The harassment lawsuits will start coming in the next few days. This rush to commercialize a deeply flawed tech will be remembered as a bigger blunder than Edsel and New Coke combined. NY Times writer changes his mind about AI after creepy conversations in which Bing’s chatbot declares its simmering love for him. nytimes.com/2023/02/16/tec…

In this section from my new book 'Music to Raise the Dead' I share the results of many years of research into the most famous story in the history of the blues—namely guitarist Robert Johnson’s legendary deal with the Devil.

What Did Robert Johnson tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-real-sto…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… In the 1930s, researcher Harry Middleton Hyatt interviewed more than 1,500 African Americans in the Deep South—and uncovered extraordinary survivals of African religious belief systems.

Many told him stories about making a deal with the Devil at a crossroads.

Can you guess… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Almost every day, the leading news stories can be viewed as unpaid advertisements for decentralized, blockhain-driven platforms. Today it's hedge funds shutting down apps, tomorrow it will be something else.... Prediction: Within 10 years we will have 2 different sources for historical documents: 1. a decentralized blockchain platform of documents that can't be altered. 2. Manipulated & edited-after-the-fact texts that may or may not be real (i.e. today's web). Internet Arch. is a start

Even if you don't care about finance, the strange events moving GameStop stock from $19 to $340 in roughly 10 days make for interesting speculation (in both sense of the word). By all accounts, youngsters fought the hedge funds (who were short), and the youngsters won. Here are the details—but, trust me, there will be a movie made about this. cnbc.com/2021/01/27/gam… It's like a cross between The Big Short and Ferris Bueller

My brother's book of literary memoirs is now published—and there's a jazz angle.

When the title essay (on Dana's studies with Elizabeth Bishop) first appeared in The New Yorker in 1985, Stan Getz read it avidly & told me that it gave him a method he'd use with Stanford students. As hard as it is to believe, Stan Getz had apprehensions about teaching when he came to Stanford—he had never finished high school, and he was unsure how to convey his knowledge to college students (whose abilities and decorum he probably wildly overestimated)...

“Rolling Stone seeks 'thought leaders' willing to pay $2,000 to write for them.” theguardian.com/media/2021/jan… You can’t make this stuff up:

“Being published in one of the best-known entertainment media outlets in the world sets you apart as a visionary, leader, and bold voice in your industry.”

As 2020 ends, we've lost another great: Eugene Wright, last surviving member of the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet, is gone age 97. He was called the "Senator" & his strong swinging beat also propelled Count Basie, Charlie Parker & Billie Holiday. A gentleman & consummate musician. Eugene Wright, who has left us at age 97, is famous not only for his musical contributions to the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet. He also contributed to ending segregation at jazz concerts. I discussed his double legacy in my liner notes to the 50th anniversary edition of Time Out.

A visual demonstration of the power of sound to create order out of chaos. People are justifiably curious about this process—because it looks like magic. Here's a brief account from my book Healing Songs.

(1/8) Today, I’m writing an obituary of a friend. You don’t know him—he isn’t well-known (but with some luck he might have been). What I’m writing isn’t for a periodical & will only be read by a very few people. But it’s forced me to wrestle with big issues I’d prefer to ignore. (2/8) I know this is a time of pandemic, but among people close to me, the leading cause of death recently has been suicide, not a virus. If this is true for me, it must be even more true for younger people—suicide is twice as deadly as COVID-19 for individuals under 40.

My Mexican uncle Ted—for whom I was named—came from a poor family & never went to college. He was a sailor and died in a plane crash in his 20s. He was passionate about classical music and found liberation & transcendence in this music. To deny him this is ignorance & prejudice.

https://twitter.com/amwilson_opera/status/1306242478002114561

Before he died, my uncle bought a piano, and left it with my parents—neither of them went to college too. I learned music on that instrument. He also left behind a copy of this book at his death, which I studied as a teen. Without these I could have never pursued my vocation.

Today is centenary of Charlie Parker’s birth, and I want to share some photos I took in Kansas City—here is the KC residence where the future jazz star lived as a child (in an upstairs apartment). #Bird100 #BirdLives Charlie Parker was born 100 years ago today. Here’s my photo of the site of Lincoln High School in Kansas City, where he was a student in 1934-35. #Bird100 #BirdLives