At The Jazz Omnibus book-signing

On a frigid Chicago night, writers, photographers and radio show hosts hang at the Jazz Showcase to promote an anthology. Smacking of self-promotion -- and so?

Serving as ambassador/pitchman of The Jazz Omnibus: 21st-Century Photos and Writings by Members of the Jazz Journalists Association (great gift for jazz newbies and elders alike)

has been instructive, exhilarating, exhausting. I bet that’s the way with most books, though it was different with my earlier ones (published by Oxford University Press, Routledge, and Billboard Books/Flame Tree Publishng). I speak now for a 600-page anthology modeled loosely on forgotten classics This Is My Best and This Is My Best Humor edited by Whit Burnett, once famous as founder of influential Story magazine .

As “editorial consultant” and president of the JJA — with David Adler, the book’s editor, living in the UK; Terri Hinte, our ace copy chief, in the Bay Area, and photo editor Patrick Hinely in Wester Virginia — it’s fallen to me to devise and in part enact a promotion strategy, in collaboration with Cymbal Press publisher Gary S. Stager.

I started by promoting pre-publication orders with handouts for visibility at the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium (presented in partnership with the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI, theme: “Sheets of Sound: Jazz, Improvisation, and Liner Notes”) in early September, and the Monterey Jazz Festival I covered for Downbeat in early October. I arranged advertising in the New York City Jazz Record (see page 13 of December issue), the program book for upcoming Winter Jazzfest, and promotion by Chicago Jazz Magazine. did a video session for the television network Just Jazz hosted by LeRoy Downs with Adler, Hinte and contributors Willard Jenkins, Ashley Kahn, Chuck Koton and Ted Panken;

an episode with Adler, Hinte and Stager for The Buzz, interviewed with Terri and Andy Gilbert by Jesse “Chuy” Varela for KCSM, and have scheduled an interview with Gary Zidek for The Arts Section on WDCB (Glen Ellyn/Chicago).

So far, I’ve sold copies at a holiday gathering in the Winnetka Community Center of the Off Campus Writers Workshop (I’m a member — they produce insightful craft sessions), at a concert of Roscoe Mitchell (depicted by Lauren Deutsch on the book’s cover; see Roscoe’s new YouTube channel for streaming performances) playing bass sax, sopranino and small percussion, in quartet in Madison, Wisconsin, and

Lauren Deutsch and Roscoe Mitchell in Madison, photo by Howard Mandel

at a book-signing party at Chicago’s Jazz Showcase after a Jazz Institute of Chicago student jazz jam, at which nine of the 11 locals in the book read or spoke. They were Hrayr Attarian (on the savant Blind Tom), Jeff Cebulski (about Ramona Horvath, who came to jazz from an authoritarian state), Ms. Deutsch, Corey Hall (on the community farewell to bassist Harrison Bankhead), Michael Jackson (bold interview of Keith Jarrett), Marc PoKempner (about a New Orleans brass band leader counting cash), Neil Tesser (remembering Von Freeman) and Mary Lou Williams’ biographer Deanna Witkowski, who also performed. WDCB program host Leslie Keros and music director Paul Abella showed up, among some other friends.

Deanna Witkowski, Michael Jackson, Lauren Deutsch at Jazz Showcase, photos by Marc PoKempner —

The Jazz Institute of Chi has voiced interest for The Jazz Omnibus — Big thanks!

A few hard-copies of the book have been placed with Delmark Records for mail sales. Discussions are ongoing about representing The Jazz Omnibus in New York City around the Jazz Congress at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Winter Jazz Fest. We’ve reached out to the Music Library Association for a review, and to members of the Jazz Education Network — many high school jazz teachers who could use the short, diverse articles to introduce kids to the breadth of the music — meeting in Atlanta (on the same days as the Jazz Congress).

I think this is what you do (as well as infinitely more) is you don’t have powerhouse support. I think of it as an experiment: What works? I’m urging those who’ve bought the book to post reviews online (i.e., at Amazon) — whatever they like it or not of it. JJA members are sending selfies holding the book, and they’re being shared.

Contributors from top left: Larry Blumenthal, Luciano Rossetti, Stephanie Crease, Debbie Burke, Dee Dee McNeil, David Keller, Willard Jenkins, Corey Hall, Bob Blumenthal

It’s time and energy consuming to sell books, essentially by hand — but heck, a lot of blues, country and rock musicians dealt their stuff out of their car trunks. And it’s not bad when you believe in the product, as I do this one.