issue n°1

Named in homage to jazz’s greatest iconoclast and quietest philosopher, Thelonious Sphere Monk, sphere: a journal of jazz in motion is a quarterly (but constantly publishing) digital magazine that aims to disrupt and excite public discourse around jazz and Black improvised music.

sphere includes culturally informed criticism; public scholarship; journalistic coverage; and artist-written pieces on contemporary and historical trends in jazz and #BAM, as well as multimedia engagements with the music. A project of the Jazz Generations Initiative (JGI), sphere also interfaces with other elements of the JGI program, including curated daily show listings for New York and New Orleans; video coverage of those cities’ jazz worlds; an active social media presence; and eventually, a podcast and oral history project. The magazine participates in the JGI’s mission to engage in real-time with jazz music as an intergenerational and interdisciplinary art form.

sphere draws inspiration from historical artist- and writer-run publications like The Cricket, The Grackle, The Jazz Review and LOOP; from zines and DIY culture; and from the dailies and alt-weeklies that once fostered such vigorous discussion, debate and public memory-making around music (particularly live music). The magazine attests to the music’s broader spheres of creation, interchange and influence, reaching beyond genre, medium and category to find the music entangled with politics, culture, visual art, poetry, activism and intellectual life.