JazzWax Celebrates Its 19th Birthday

How my blog got its start and remembering a great writer who also was a mentor

JazzWax was born exactly 19 years ago. A month before its launch, I was urged to start blogging when the late Terry Teachout, a dear friend and critic, gave me a shove. Since 1996, Terry and I had been listening to jazz at each other’s apartments once each quarter for a few hours on Saturday mornings. We’d choose 10 tracks each and the goal was to blow each other’s minds, point out interesting things going on in the music and just relax. We were both rabid jazz fans.

At the time, I was a financial writer and marketing consultant. My company counted New York’s major real estate corporations, accounting companies and risk advisory firms as clients.

Terry was breathtakingly brilliant, and freelancing for The Wall Street Journal as well as The New York Times, Commentary and many other publications. He hadn’t been named the WSJ’s theater critic yet or arts essayist, nor had he written his regal biographies of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington (though he had already published a bunch of books).

Listening to jazz was our way of kicking back by re-connecting with our college selves, when students sat around staring at two speakers and talked about what they heard. During our July 2007 session at my apartment, Terry presented a challenge that was more like a friendly command.

“You have to start a jazz blog. You know too much and need to be writing about it,” he said.

“Terry, I’m massively busy,” I pleaded.

“No one is busier than I am, and I found time. It’s a necessity. Deep down, you’re a journalist. You started as a journalist and that never leaves you. You need to be doing that, not what you’re doing now.”

“Fine,” I said, “In two weeks I’ll launch a blog.” I recalled that a few months earlier, Mena and Ben Trott of Six Apart had asked me to lunch. They had just started Typepad, a blogging platform, and were looking for writers to sign up. I decided to launch my blog there.

But what would I call it? After playing around with names that were easy to remember, I settled on JazzWax—jazz, for obvious reasons, and wax, because it was a double entendre. “Wax” was shorthand for recording and records in entertainment trade publications of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. Like this one from Billboard in 1944: “Billy Eckstine Waxes Blues for DeLuxe Records.” Wax also meant to write in an emotional style.

I went to GoDaddy, typed in the URL and found it was available. All that remained was to start writing, which I did on August 3, 2007. As Terry predicted, the journalist in me returned (I had started at The New York Times in 1976 while in college, when the paper was still hot type and pages were set in lead in the composing room).

To stand out among all other blogs, I decided to post six days a week. Most others at the time were weekly. I also decided to interview jazz legends who popped up on favorite albums but were largely overlooked. My first JazzWax phone interview was with Danny Bank, published on August 30, 2007.

The rest, as they say, is history. Over the past 19 years, I never missed a day except once, when Typepad had a technical issue and the site was down. In 2010, Terry felt I had to be writing for the WSJ and introduced me to his editor. That began my career there.

Nat Hentoff, who had become a vocal JazzWax fan and called weekly, urged me to write a book and told his editor at the University of California that I’d be calling. The result was Why Jazz Happened (2012). Ira Gitler sent emails frequently filling me in with eyewitness reports on subjects I wrote about.

In 2013, Terry thought I should be writing more books and introduced me to his literary agent and attorney. Three books followed. Terry was clever and knew what he was doing. His timing was perfect; I was prepared for each opportunity he presented.

Our workloads increased when the WSJ introduced new sections in 2012 with increased assignments. In addition to his books, Terry wrote a play and an opera in addition to criticism and reviews for the WSJ and other publications. Too much, in fact. He died in his sleep on January 13, 2022 at age 65.

So as JazzWax turns 19, a special thanks to Terry Teachout, Nat Hentoff and Hank O’Neal as well as Michael O’Daniel, Todd Selbert, Bill Kirchner, Carl Woideck, Bret Primack, Stuart Anello, Gilles D’Elia and so many others who have been there for JazzWax and me over the years. And thank you, to my many paying subscribers as well as readers who haven’t yet decided to convert to paid.

PS: Whenever Terry or I would playfully gripe to each other by email about a piece we just finished writing that was an especially heavy lift, the other would send along a YouTube featuring fish in a tank with Joe Mooney singing Nina Never Knew, backed by the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra in 1952. It always generated an instant laugh and sent stress packing.

Sadly, that video has disappeared from YouTube. So here’s the recording that became for us a metaphoric and sympathetic cold bottle of soda pulled out out of an ice-filled cooler after a hot day in the writing fields. Terry was a strategic mentor and always right. I miss him…