Editor's Idea: April 1988
ISSUE 50, April 1988
Editor: Richard Cook
Milestones can evoke mixed feelings. The pleasure of getting there is usually tempered by some combination of fatigue and wondering what on earth one can do next. We are, however, delighted to present ouf 50th issue of Wire magazine.
Most jazz-directed projects are some kind of labour of love. The financial rewards aren't massive. But that philosophy can be as comfortable as unpleasant. For all the grit and endurance which come out of a traditionally embattled music, the missing mass audience has also bred and insularity and lack of ambition. People don't expect great things.
Perhaps, though, that climate is finally changing. Wire has tried to reflect and amplify a different awareness about jazz-orientated music. The magazine was spawned before any "jazz revival", but its growth and maturity have coincided with this music staging a re-entry of sorts into much-frequented media areas. That doesn't mean, as many complain, that there's a legion of new jazz listeners providing work for jazz musicians. Most of this music is still marginalised; it will never be popular the way the music industry understands "popular". But slowly, painfully, it is shedding the accumulated neglect and dowdiness which it lives by.
Wire has tried to personify that change of pace. The way we read and look has attracted plenty of detractors; we have made mistakes. But being an instrument of change is certain to upset the many who depend on being entrenched in routine. In the same way, we are reluctant to surrender the virtues of good writing, sharp criticism and original presentation simply to round up some mysterious social group like "the kids", whoever they are.
Wire is, in a sense, an ongoing experiment, a printed response to an ever-changing spectrum of musics. But that doesn't mean it has to simplify or dress down in order to achieve a more authentic witness. As jazz and its many variations adapt themselves to surviving in new music and media worlds, so it must emerge that a forum like this is the only meaningful one. It's taken 50 issues to get this far. In the next 50, we'll try and get a little closer.
R.D.Cook
Editor
Editor: Richard Cook
Milestones can evoke mixed feelings. The pleasure of getting there is usually tempered by some combination of fatigue and wondering what on earth one can do next. We are, however, delighted to present ouf 50th issue of Wire magazine.
Most jazz-directed projects are some kind of labour of love. The financial rewards aren't massive. But that philosophy can be as comfortable as unpleasant. For all the grit and endurance which come out of a traditionally embattled music, the missing mass audience has also bred and insularity and lack of ambition. People don't expect great things.
Perhaps, though, that climate is finally changing. Wire has tried to reflect and amplify a different awareness about jazz-orientated music. The magazine was spawned before any "jazz revival", but its growth and maturity have coincided with this music staging a re-entry of sorts into much-frequented media areas. That doesn't mean, as many complain, that there's a legion of new jazz listeners providing work for jazz musicians. Most of this music is still marginalised; it will never be popular the way the music industry understands "popular". But slowly, painfully, it is shedding the accumulated neglect and dowdiness which it lives by.
Wire has tried to personify that change of pace. The way we read and look has attracted plenty of detractors; we have made mistakes. But being an instrument of change is certain to upset the many who depend on being entrenched in routine. In the same way, we are reluctant to surrender the virtues of good writing, sharp criticism and original presentation simply to round up some mysterious social group like "the kids", whoever they are.
Wire is, in a sense, an ongoing experiment, a printed response to an ever-changing spectrum of musics. But that doesn't mean it has to simplify or dress down in order to achieve a more authentic witness. As jazz and its many variations adapt themselves to surviving in new music and media worlds, so it must emerge that a forum like this is the only meaningful one. It's taken 50 issues to get this far. In the next 50, we'll try and get a little closer.
R.D.Cook
Editor