David Adler will be known to readers of this blog as an occasional contributor of both posts and comments. He’s now written an essay for the main Z Word site entitled Jazz and Protest: A Reappraisal. As one of New York’s most prominent jazz critics, David is uniquely placed to tackle some of the contemporary interpretations of the notion of jazz as “freedom music,” particularly from such unsavory characters as Amiri Baraka and Gilad Atzmon.

“The music has always mirrored tensions between the official political culture, the liberal democratic left, the absolutist radical left and shades of gray in between,” writes David. Those tensions are often explored by commentators who make politics their profession, less so by those whose principal focus is the music - one good reason among many to read this essay.