Love and the Single Factotum

I had to reflect, this month, on the passing of JazzTimes publisher Ira Sabin at age 90. In reading his Washington Post obituary I was struck with an eerie sense of empathy for someone who was in almost exactly the same business that I stumbled into two years ago. JazzTimes and The Syncopated Times generally don’t overlap in terms of content or the kind of music we encourage, but I had to identify like mad with Mr. Sabin. Here’s a direct quote from the Washington Post obit: “‘I was flying by the seat of my pants,’ Mr. Sabin wrote in JazzTimes in 1995. ‘I was the writer, editor, publisher, advertising sales person, artist, proofreader, photographer, distributor, you name it. Editorial decisions were simple, though: whenever I’d hear a player that knocked me out, he or she would be on our next cover.’” An artist that would knock Ira Sabin out might bore or irritate me (with all due respect for musicianship)—but, yes. I have been thrilled, delighted, and floored by certain musicians who I felt compelled to get into these pages. More than that, the whole litany of job descriptions rolled into one waking nightmare is exactly what I have done since January 2016. And “flying by the seat of my pants” hardly describes it. Most days I am barely airborne, skimming the tops of acres of cacti. I’ve referred to what I do as a Sisyphean task, but Sisyphus never got ru