A wake for jazz

THE article, “The Day the Music Died” (by Lynell George, April 15), would have been more accurately entitled “Pallbearers Pearl Wong and Sonny Buxton end their 13-year death march of jazz.”

Widely known as a tourist trap, Jazz at Pearl’s in North Beach was at best an overpriced wake for America’s only internationally recognized art form, jazz. That was clear from Buxton’s quote about hearing people say all the time that “all the people I like are dead.”

Yes, jazz is now relegated to the category of an archaic, irrelevant folk music. It has become quaint, respected, learned and performed by children in band classes around the county. Taught by professors who are members of the International Assn. of Jazz Educators, whose headquarters is not in Manhattan, N.Y., but Manhattan, Kan. And that says it all.

L. Martin Cohen

Long Beach