John Corbett (writer)

John Corbett ( born July 18, 1963 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American jazz journalist, musician Improvising Music and record producer from Chicago.

Life and work

Corbett studied at Brown University, where he began to write about improvising music and in 1984 its own concert agency founded. He received his Ph.D. at Northwestern University. He lives in Chicago and is a staff journalist for Downbeat, for which he has been writing since 1990 and where he own column about out of print plates has (Vinyl Freak ). He also writes for the Chicago Reader and other Chicago Sun Times and written liner notes. It also occurs as a musician himself ( first trumpet and flugelhorn, then mostly guitar, which he taught himself after he played with Derek Bailey, and electronic equipment ) and has released two albums.

Corbett produced since 1995 and is since 2000 Atavistic Records Reissue own plate series with his preferred music, free improvisation and free jazz music, out ( Unheard Music Series). Among other things, there appeared many European jazz musicians ( such as Peter Brötzmann, Manfred Schoof, Han Bennink, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Kees Hazevoet, Günter Christmann, Torsten Müller, but also Americans like Joe McPhee, Sun Ra, Fred Anderson, Hal Russell). The idea came to him during a visit to German radio archives on a journey with the support of the Goethe Institute, after he had heard that they wanted to reduce their archive material. It also publishes reissues from the catalog of Free Music Production.

Since 1996 he has been with the saxophonist and clarinetist ( and McArthur Prize winner ) Ken Vandermark host of the Wednesday Night Jazz series of events in Music Club Empty Bottle in Chicago and organized a private Jazz Festival ( Empty Bottle Jazz Festival).

Since 1988 he has also taught as an Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute (SAIC ) in Chicago. He has worked with Jim Dempsey an art gallery Corbett vs.. Dempsey in Chicago. He had for many years an own jazz radio series Radio Dada in WHPK ( a transmitter of the University of Chicago) and had in the 2000s at the Chicago radio station WNUR a jazz series writer's block with the jazz journalist Kevin Whitehead and Lloyd Sachs

In 2002 he was artistic director of the Berlin Jazz Festival.