On Going Postal(ly)

When I began publishing The Syncopated Times in February 2016, I stated my determination to reach out beyond the arbitrary borders of this country to offer a truly international jazz paper. Despite my best efforts and intentions, the success of this initiative has been decidedly mixed. There were 36 international postal subscribers on the mailing list of The American Rag when I picked up the baton from the previous publisher; today I mail the corporeal Syncopated Times to 16 people outside the US. The good news is that some of those original readers have migrated over to the more economical option of receiving the PDF edition, which they download via email link. A few, of course, have migrated off the planet entirely. The Rag also used to boast a “Jazz in Britain” column by the late Horace Meunier Harris, who passed away at age 90 in October 2016. The Syncopated Times would surely benefit by including a sprightly and engaging column that covered jazz happenings outside the US—but no writer from foreign climes has thus far offered to contribute. [Update: We now have Dave Doyle who at not yet thirty years old has an ear to the ground in Britain.] Happily, a number of new international readers have availed themselves of the digital option where the expense of having the physical paper sent to them was too great. And a few insist on having their jazz news printed on decease