Two entries were posted today related to my piece on Sonny Clark in the current issue of Tin House.  One is a list of some of my favorite jazz writings and the other is a Clark playlist on Spotify.

My latest piece in Paris Review Daily on saxophonist Branford Marsalis, with photographs by Frank Hunter.

A report on my recent visit to Gene Smith’s hometown of Wichita, Kansas, with photographs from his childhood home by Kate Joyce.

I’ve got a new piece Sonny Clark: Melody and Melancholy* in the ‘11-’12 Winter issue of Tin House magazine, #50, the “Beauty,” issue.  Earlier this year I wrote two pieces about Clark for Paris Review Daily (Pt. One and Two).  This piece features new material about the black-owned hotel in Herminie #2, PA where Clark [...]

It worked.  Or, at least, it failed productively.  You can see more photos from Chaos Manor photographer Kate Joyce HERE and from the Invisible Dog’s Simon Courchel HERE.
You can read a preview of the shows by Dawn Chan for Paris Review Daily HERE.  For the August 24 press release go HERE.
Now, working with Chris McElroen [...]

I just finished a 12-part series about my affinity for late night sports talk radio for The Morning News.
Part 12: Better in the Dark.  11/9/10.
Part 11: Homage to Terrence Malick, Part Two.  10/24/11.
Part 10: Whose Fantasy is this, Anyway? 10/10/11.
Part 9: Los Tiempos van Cambiando.  9/30/11.
Part 8: Everyone Gets A Go.  9/22/11.
Part 7: The 5 [...]

A conversation between Sam and Japanese-American writer Roland Kelts following Sam’s trip to Japan earlier this year was published at A Public Space this month.  The conversation was transcribed by Hank Stephenson.

Over the past eight days I’ve been experimenting with a small team of colleagues on a pilot project called Bull City Summer: A Season at the Ballpark and Beyond, which would be focused on the AAA baseball team the Durham Bulls in 2012.  You can read more about the project HERE.

Yesterday I wrote a JLP blog entry, “Sonny Clark’s Birthday,” in memorial of his birth and anticipating my new piece on Clark that will be published in Tin House magazine’s Fall issue.  The New Yorker’s Richard Brody picked up on my blog entry and wrote one entitled, “Sonny Clark at Eighty.”  I’m grateful to Brody.

The (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) Triangle’s alt-weekly, the Independent, honored me with one of their annual arts awards this week.  Pretty good article.  Aaron Greenwald’s evocation of Studs Terkel and John Dos Passos is generous; Terkel’s always been a hero of mine and the latter’s work influenced the varied documentary-narrative structures of the JLP book.