Author Archives: John Mason

To the editors: Anyone who regards Ornette Coleman as the sole living exponent of “free jazz” (as Michael Solot tells us in “It’s Really Gone, Man,” May 7) thereby reveals himself to be so ignorant of the current state of the jazz art that he really has no business writing about it. John Mason Rogers […]

To the editors: Darren Cahr’s right that the music of “breakthrough” or “crossover” bands like Helmet is “the sound of cash registers ringing.” But it’s sadly symptomatic of the mainstreaming and commodification of what was once genuinely underground that he’s “encouraged” by this. Cahr’s thinly veiled Albini-worship, besides being another manifestation of Chicago’s “Second City” […]