Covering jazz from the straight-ahead to the adventurously avant, Earshot Jazz usually profiles a local luminary (Clarence Acox, Wally Shoup, Hadley Caliman) or touts any touring legends stopping in Seattle that month (Gary Peacock, William Parker, Charles Lloyd). Interesting interviews, timely previews, and a roster of good writers led by local sage and ex-Outside Jazz host Peter Monaghan make Earshot essential for anyone who follows the genre. Although the magazine is easy to find at music stores, coffee shops, and most anywhere else that welcomes free magazines, you can grab the PDF at www.earshot.org/zine.asp.
Stuffed with articles by and about local straight-ahead performers, the tabloid All About Jazz is a good read. I especially like the blindfold test, where musicians guess who is playing what and rate various recordings. Previous issues suffered from too many murky photos, but the May-June issue shows a remarkable improvement. You can also find All About Jazz online as a PDF at www.allaboutjazz.com/seattle/.
Despite a strange admixture of fonts and occasionally awkward layout, I'm utterly charmed by Northwest Jazz Profile. Don't miss their goulash of DIY ads and Lady M's musician-oriented horoscopes ("Aquarius: You are all about music. Now is the time to write down what you are hearing in your head.").
I also enjoy Northwest Jazz Profile's unedited, down-home interviews, but please, every interview needs an introductory paragraph with some biographical tidbits. There's something telling, too, about CD reviews placed under the rubric of "New Product."
Eccentricities aside, I like Northwest Jazz Profile's coverage of local players outside the usual Seattle orbit (think Tacoma, Olympia, and points beyond) as well as their coverage of smooth jazz. Most smooth jazz leaves me cold, but local makers of such music should be covered by someone, somewhere. Like All About Jazz, Northwest Jazz Profile improves markedly with each issue; I hope it can survive and flourish. Keep your eyes open for other jazz papers around town; who knows what might crop up.
What I would really like to read is a local magazine devoted to experimental and exploratory music: noise, contemporary classical, out-jazz, free improvisation, and electroacoustic music. I served aboard the much-loved and sometimes loathed Tentacle, which did a fair job covering Northwest adventurous music during its print-edition heyday from 1999 to 2001 and continues to e-mail a weekly event calendar. Some bold soul needs to take up the torch and get a provocative paper onto the streets again.
