SELECTED PORTFOLIO OF PUBLISHED WORK

REPORTING/ FEATURE STORIES:

 

New Orleans Jazz Culture Saved the City: Now Can It Save Itself? Katrina at 10 (Salon, 2015)

Band on the Run in New Orleans (Why the Police Shut Musicians Down) (Salon, 2007: selected for “Best Music Writing, 2008”)

Arturo O’Farrill Brings His Father’s Music Back to Cuba, Embargo Be Damned (Village Voice, cover story, 2011)

Can a Trumpet Silence a Gun? (Daily Beast, 2019)

Female Musicians Organize for Equity and Against Harassment (Daily Beast, 2018)

U.S. and Cuban Musicians Unite Amid Loosened Restrictions (Daily Beast, 2018)

Jazz at Lincoln Center in Cuba (Wall Street Journal, 2010)

Weapons of Mass Sedition: The Fes Festival of Sacred Music (Village Voice, 2004)

Barack Obama in New Orleans (Salon, 2007)

William Parker, Free-Jazz Father (New York Times, 2002)

David Simon’s HBO “Treme” (Village Voice, cover story, 2010)

Musicians Storm City Hall (Truthdig, 2010)

A Greater Power: The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (Chamber Music Magazine, 2019)

When Kermit Ruffins Met Louis Armstrong (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2009)

 

ESSAYS/ OP-ED. PIECES:

Looking for Jazz Uplift Under Lockdown (Zocalo Public Square, Aug. 3, 2020)

New Orleans Needs New Cultural Policy (Wall Street Journal, 2015)

America’s New Jazz Museum: No Poor Black People Allowed (Salon, 2005)

Driving While Jewish (Daily Beast, 2020)

Narrowing the 90 Miles: U.S-Cuba Policy (Wall Street Journal, 2015)

John Coltrane’s House (New York Times, 2007)

 

INTERVIEWS:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Wall Street Journal, 2006)

Jon Batiste on Retuning “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (Daily Beast, 2017)

David Simon on “Treme” (Wall Street Journal, 2010)

Senegalese Singer Youssou N’Dour Protests the Iraq War (Salon, 2005)

Marc Ribot’s Anti-Trump Army (Daily Beast, 2018)

Jazz in the Age of Trump: Roundtable (Jazziz Magazine, cover story, 2018)

Sonny Rollins on 9/11 and Music’s Purpose (Village Voice, 2010)

 

REVIEWS:

Why Ken Burns’ “Jazz” Misses the Point (Village Voice, 2001)

Jason Moran’s Different Seat (Wall Street Journal, 2016)

A Thelonious Monk Gem, Unearthed (Wall Street Journal, 2020)

Buena Vista Social Club, Revisited (Wall Street Journal, 2008)

Charles Lloyd’s “Arrows in Infinity” (Wall Street Journal, 2014)

Radical Thinkers: Henry Threadgill and Steve Coleman (Wall Street Journal, 2015)

Ornette Coleman’s Liberating Act (Wall Street Journal, 2020)

Jason Berry’s “City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300” (Wall Street Journal, 2018)

Ted Gioia’s “Music: A Subversive History” (Wall Street Journal, 2019)

 

VIDEOS:

Ten Years After: The State of New Orleans Music and Culture (Aug. 24, 2015)

Immigrant Music & Sounds of Identity: Jazz and Social Justice (National Jazz Museum in Harlem, 2017)

Swing States: Getting Out the Vote (National Jazz Museum in Harlem, 2020)

 

SCHOLARLY ESSAYS:

“Since the Flood: Scenes from the Fight for Jazz Culture in New Orleans” Pop When the World Falls Apart (Duke University Press, 2012)  [please add PDF for link]

“Exploding Myths in Morocco and Senegal: Sufis Making Music After 9/11” Music in the Post-9/11 World (Routledge University Press, 2007)