Editor’s note

Abstract

One of the most interesting and downright fun parts of editing a journal such as Jazz Perspectives is the ability to facilitate just that – the sharing of multiple points of view and points of entry for considering jazz as music and as/in culture. This issue is, I think, a pretty good example of how broad perspectives on jazz so often coalesce serendipitously: Alan Ainsworth walks us through the often less considered visual and nonsounding aspects of jazz via his work on the rhetorical content of jazz studio portraits 1920-1945; Brian Harker tackles the controversy surrounding Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and authorship in the performance of “Ko Ko” and considers the various elements at stake in such debates; and Sean Smither applies the concept of avant-texte to an exploration of the relationship between “All the Things You Are” and it’s various expressions. We also have a book review by Rebecca Zola of the recent collection Playing for Keeps: Improvisation in the Aftermath; and two reviews of the recent film The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), one from journal co-founder Lewis Porter, and the other from Gayle Murchison who brings the lens of #BLM to bear. As the global Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact lives around the world, I am particularly grateful to those authors and reviewers (as well as my fellow editors here at Jazz Perspectives) who have taken the time to share their work and experience with us.