Editorial

Spring has sprung, and festival season is literally in full swing. Hence, this issue is full of festivals, displaying the variety of events available to the discerning jazz and/or ragtime aficionado. Just check our "Features" tab, and you'll see what I mean. We've covered events for nearly every taste -- a ragtime festival (Templeton), a Bix/1920s fest (Tribute to Bix), a big band/swing era event (Hampton centennial), an American jazz party with a variety of styles (Atlanta), and an international jazz party emphasizing swing (Norwich). Wow!

And there are plenty of festivals to choose from this summer, oriented around ragtime, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, classic jazz, New Orleans, dixieland, swing, mainstream and more. Just check our "Upcoming Festivals" and "Current Festivals" listings for a truly amazing array of choices, and also check the ads in this RAG and previous issues for the sterling lineups of talent.

Locations for these events vary widely, too, a bonus for readers since RAG readers cover the globe. In just the past couple of weeks, web visitors from Alabama, Arizona, California, Kansas, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland have asked to be added to our e-mail list, indicating that trad jazz and ragtime do, in fact, speak an international language.

Amidst all these festive articles this month, there's a sobering story, too, telling of the demise of a superb British jazz party, the Blackpool Swingin' Jazz Party. Its producers, Tom and Chris Baron, have bravely faced today's economic realities and have closed the event down. The message I take from this sad but necessary decision is that even though nearly everyone reading this issue probably has a pretty fair collection of recordings, we all need to be aware that this music will continue only if we also support live performances.

Festival producers, club owners, travel agents, and jazz and ragtime societies put their financial futures on the line when they book events, so let's try to keep them in business by venturing out to be invigorated by jazz and ragtime played by the many terrific musicians who are keeping this music alive.

Sincerely,

Editor/Publisher

Viewpoints

Editorial