Sunday Reading Material

Something to do between today's World Cup matches:

• Jazz Beyond Jazz blogger Howard Mandel drums up support for the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards at City Arts. The whole concept seems a little insidery, but it's just an awards show, so what's the worst that could happen? Mandel answers that question when he tells of the time he and Stanley Crouch almost got into a fistfight after the first JJA Awards (which would have been the lamest fight ever had it gone off).
• Our friends at Nextbop are looking to expand their operations and run some new projects, but first they need a little help financing. Chances are most Hot House readers have spent some time listening to the Nextplayer, so please help Seb, Anthony, and the rest of the Nextbop family out. You'll get an immediate return on your investment when you listen to Seb's radio interview with Christian Scott.
• Peter Hum made simple but very effective argument the other day: YouTube is the new DownBeat. The major jazz magazines still do many things well (they are still the best equipped to give us long-form profiles from the likes of David Adler and Nate Chinen), but they have yet to set up websites that are good enough to make me visit more than once a month or so...
• Speaking of jazz media, it's been over four months since jazz.com last posted new material. When it was running strong, jazz.com published some of the best content on the web (see for instance Steve Coleman's epic take on 12 essential Charlie Parker tracks and Chris Kelsey's piece on Ornette Coleman's Blue Note years). I miss it, and hope its days are not over.
• This isn't jazz related, but still worth a read. Roger Ebert offers a spirited and heartfelt defense of Twitter. Since I end up having to defend Twitter to a non-tweeting friend every two months or so, it was nice to see how a better writer than myself does it. Also, if you aren't on Twitter, you could follow only Ebert and still enjoy the service.
• I'll leave you with one final thought. In the early days of jazz it was common to see a slide-whistle used in jazz groups. With that in mind, I would love to see someone use a vuvuzela on their next album.