As part and parcel of taking on the publication of The Syncopated Times, I find that I’ve acquired a community. I wouldn’t describe us as a family. Nor would I consider us a club. But it is lovely to find others who love what we love. I wouldn’t call us a support group—in some ways we’re more a mutual aid society. Maybe (to use a word I’ve heard thrown about by those slightly younger than myself) we’re a tribe. As a far-flung association of musicians and fans, we are united in sympathy and concern for one another as we are for the music. Let us call ourselves Syncopation Nation.
Let me say at this point that this issue is one of the most difficult I have ever had to put together. I have to admit that I’ve been slowed in my task by a preoccupation with events taking place on the other side of the continent. My concern and my debilitating grief is borne of sympathy with other members of our syncopated tribe who are enduring that which I can hardly begin to imagine.
This paper originated on the West Coast, and when I took it over and dragged it three thousand miles across the country, there was some fear that I would abandon the Pacific states. I did not and could not do so, of course. The Syncopated Times began with a quest for inclusion, to represent and serve those who love ragtime and early jazz, across the country and around the world. California, Oregon, and W
