Tag Archives: Voices and Freedoms: A History of Jazz

Neil Tesser: Out of Season

Posted on May 9, 2020 by Richard Guzman

With everything on hold this year, including baseball, I’m re-reading Neil Tesser’s piece “Out of Season” with greater than average nostalgia.  David Starkey and I put this piece in our 1999 book Smokestacks and Skyscrapers: An Anthology of Chicago Writing.  … Continue reading →

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Ralph Ellison: Survival Blues

Posted on February 18, 2019 by Richard Guzman

During my long career, I’ve been lucky to meet many writers. Somewhere in the mid-70’s, for example, I met Peter Matthiessen shortly after I’d read his great non-fiction book The Snow Leopard and used it in one of my classes.  … Continue reading →

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Three Story Sandbox

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Richard Guzman

Three Story Sandbox—the new release from jazz veterans Scott Robinson, Janice Borla, and Jack Mouse (left to right below)—manages to sound ancient and electronic, avant garde and traditional, world-musicky and rock-solid American all at once, and without sounding like a … Continue reading →

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