Scott Yanow is pleased that many people assume that he lives in New York despite being a lifelong resident of the West Coast. It means he hasn’t been turning the focus to himself in his reviews, books, liner notes, profiles, or other writing. During the recent sabbatical from live events, but with his writing load as hefty as ever, he was convinced to turn the mic on himself, so to speak, and produce Life Through The Eyes Of A Jazz Journalist: My Jazz Memoirs—a short, enjoyable memoir of his 50 years as a jazz journalist.
Yanow is almost undoubtedly the most prolific reviewer in jazz history, and quite likely the most prolific jazz writer overall. He is one of the last professional freelancers with a sole focus on jazz. In a field where much of the writing is contributed gratis by people with other involvements, he has hacked out an irreplaceable niche for himself by delivering copy to publishers early and under word count month after month, year after year. Jazz writing has never paid well, and in an era where magazines and newspapers are shutting their doors and everyone has a free blog, no writing pays well. But Scott Yanow has managed to live a marvelous jazz life despite those odds.
His jazz journey began when he was 15, in 1970. Having acquired a radio and tape recorder of his own, young Scott landed on the Strictly From Dixie radio program hosted by Benson Curtis. The sho
