'Complaining time is over'
Network and collective strategies of the New York Musicians Organization
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v5i1-2.21Keywords:
collectives, jazz, lofts, New York, New York Musicians Jazz FestivalAbstract
This article traces the history of the New York Musicians Organization (NYMO), an artist-run collective that rose to brief prominence at the dawn of the loft jazz era. Founded in 1972, NYMO attracted a broad membership and considerable press attention for two heavily-publicized summer festivals. In stressing themes of self-reliance, avant garde performance practice and African American agency, the group’s organizers drew extensively from earlier Midwestern collectives like the AACM. Yet unlike those groups, NYMO failed to establish a strong central governing body, instead acting as a consortium of smaller, independently-managed ventures. This approach laid the groundwork for the proliferation of small-scale initiatives that characterized the loft period, and several former NYMO members went on to establish important loft venues. While the group’s prominence was short-lived, it played a crucial bridge role between the collectivized strategies of the 1960s and the loosely-connected musical networks of the loft era.
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Abuwi, A. (2009) Interview by author in Brooklyn, NY, 24 September.
Ali, R. (1973) ‘Exploitation among NYC Musicians’. Original manuscript in possession of author.
—(2007) Interview by author via telephone in New York, 26 September.
Bang, B. (2010) Interview by author in Bronx, NY, 27 July.
Baraka, Imamu Amiri (2010) ‘New York Loft and Coffee Shop Jazz’. In Black Music, 107–114. New York and London: Akashic. [Originally published as ‘Loft Jazz’ in Down Beat, May 9, 1963]
Brown, S. (2003) Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism. New York: New York University Press.
Burrell, D. (2010) Interview by author, digital recording from Philadelphia, PA, 29 July.
Calta, L. (1972) ‘’72 Newport Jazz Festival is Moving to New York’. New York Times, 5 January.
Diamond, E. (1994) Behind The Times: Inside The ‘New’ New York Times. New York: Villard Books.
DuBoise, J. (1993) Interview by Ben Young. WCKR-FM, New York, 6 December.
—(2009) Interview by author, Staten Island, New York, 21 September.
Flicker, Chris and Thierry Trombert (1972) ‘Newport Jazz Festival à New York’. Jazz Hot (September).
Fraser, C. G. (1972) ‘After a Sour Note, Harmony Reigns on Role of Blacks in Jazz’. New York Times, 8 July.
Frazier, G. (1971) ‘Newport: (1954–?)’. Boston Globe, 7 July.
Goldblatt, B. (1977) Newport Jazz Festival: The Illustrated History. New York: Dial Press.
Greene, B. (2009) Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, 27 February.
—(2010) Email message to author, 19 January.
Hino, T. (1972) ‘Never Appear at Newport from Now On, Japanese Jazz Men!’ Interview by Jin’ichi Uekusa. Swing Journal (September): 108–109. [Translated in 2005 by Schuichi Hirata with minor grammatical edits by author.]
Howard, N. (2007) Interview by author via telephone in Belgium, 9 July.
Johnson, T. (1972) ‘Free Jazz: A Scrawly Texture’. Village Voice, 14 September.
Jonnes, J. (2002) South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City. New York: Fordham University Press.
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Ledbetter, Les (1972a) ‘Street Fair’s Wares and Music Attract Thousands in Harlem’. New York Times, 3 July.
—(1972b) ‘Dissonants Hear Another Jazz’. New York Times, 6 July.
—(1972c) ‘Jazzmen Sound off on State and Status of their Art’. New York Times, 7 July.
—(1972d) ‘All’s Not Harmonious’. New York Times, 9 July.
—(1972e) ‘29 Jazzmen in Rousing Jam Session on Mall’. New York Times, 11 July
—(1972f) ‘500 Jazz Artists Form New Group: Newport Rebels to Offer Concerts This Weekend’. New York Times, 2 September.
Lewis, G. (2004) ‘Experimental Music in Black and White: The AACM in New York, 1970–1985’. In Uptown Conversation, ed. Robert O’Meally, Brent Hayes Edwards and Farah Jasmine Griffin, 50–101. [Originally published in Current Musicology 71–73 (Spring 2001–Spring 2002): 100–157.]
—(2008) A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Looker, B. (2004) BAG: ‘Point From Which Creation Begins’: The Black Artists’ Group of St. Louis. St. Louis, MO: University of Missouri Press.
‘Miles Davis Does Not Appear; Says He Never Agreed to Play’ (1972) New York Times, 5 July.
Monson, Ingrid T. (2007) Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
‘Newport Jazz Festival moves to N.Y.’. 1972. New York Amsterdam News, 22 January.
Parker, W. (2004) Interview by author in New York, April.
Porter, E. (2002) What is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Rivers, Sam, and Bea Rivers (1994) Interview by Ben Young, Sarah Schmidt, Jennifer McNeely. WCKR-FM, New York, 9 January.
Santosuosso, Ernie, and Nathan Cobb (1971) ‘Riot Threatens Early End to Jazz Festival’. Boston Globe, 4 July.
Serro, D. (2010) Interview by author, digital recording from New York, 28 June.
Smith, Robert Charles (1996) We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Stephenson, S. (2009) The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957–1965. New York: Knopf.
Sultan, Juma (2004) Interview by author, tape recording via telephone from Kerhonkson, NY, 16 November.
—(2010) Interview by author, digital recording from Kerhonkson, NY, 26 July.
Wein, George, and Nate Chinen (2003) Myself Among Others. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo.
West, Hollie I. (1972) ‘From Newport to New York’. The Washington Post, 5 January.
Young, B. (1998) Dixonia: A Bio-Discography of Bill Dixon. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Zukin, S. [1982] 1989. Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Published
2012-11-19
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Heller, M. C. (2012). ’Complaining time is over’: Network and collective strategies of the New York Musicians Organization. Jazz Research Journal, 5(1-2), 21-41. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.v5i1-2.21
