While I still would like to see good writing on the transitional period of the 70s and 80s, I feel like the archiving at Behearer.com has a big impact.

(BTW, LOTS of feedback appreciative of behearer, very little negative… Not that that is a gauge of anything. But NOT ONE PERSON has written to say that creative music in the 70s really did, in fact, suck.)

It continues to be pointed out that writers tend to make the story about one or two people, creating a narrative around them. This is a problem when it comes to the 70s. This story is not about Dewey Redman or Derek Bailey, and especially not about me or Ethan.

It’s the narrative-of-no-narrative that makes 70s/80s music history so maddening (and so interesting). I guess I still hope a writer will take it on because through historical narrative comes the struggle for meaning. If we care about Julius Hemphill, for example, we have to fight for his place in history.

That’s why I do feel behearer is so crucial. To collect the information, however incomplete, is to begin to understand the richness and complexity. For now it’s not describable any other way.

MUCH is missing there. I hope that those with the goods will give Pat a hand and enter what they’ve got over there. No one’s profiting except everyone.