Thursday, June 03, 2004

Everybody loves Elvin Jones

So, it's nice to read tributes here and there, even if Carlos Santana thinks certain big media outlets were conspicuously quiet. But then you read something like this

Thank you for sharing information about the Jazz
Foundation and their important charity. They have an
arrangement with Englewood Hospital in New Jersey
whereby jazz musicians without medical insurance are
treated at no cost.

It is not a coincidence that this is the hospital
where Elvin Jones received his treatment.


and you remember what was said in Barney Kessel's NY Times obituary and begin to think that, yeah, appreciation is nice and artists live on dreams and such, but it would be nice if they could die with a bit more than that. That's one way of putting it, the other is fuck you, pay me.