English al-Jazeera isn’t exactly flooding the zone with jazz coverage. When it does cover jazz, it’s usually to promote an agenda through someone like Gilad Atzmon. On May 1st, they wrote up the first weekend of the New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival. While briefly noting the presence of great NOLA musicians like Terence Blanchard, the NewBirth Brass Band, Dr. John, and Allen Toussaint, al-Jazeera gave the most ink to a non-jazz musician from New Jersey: Bruce Springsteen. Al-Jazeera reported at one point Springsteen “launched into a song titled How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? and dedicated the song to ‘President Bystander.”
No word if he made a dedication to “Mayor Hiding in the Bathroom.” Last week musicians like the NewBirth Brass Band, Dr. Michael White, and Henry Butler were shuttling to and from NY and NOLA to play both Jazz Fest and the Jazz Foundation’s benefit concert. While they were looking to bring people together to rebuild their city, evidently Springsteen stuck to the extremist left’s game plan of dividing people. At least he played well on al-Jazeera.
