Ain't But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story

About the book:

Despite the fact that most of jazz’s major innovators and performers have been African American, the overwhelming majority of jazz journalists, critics, and authors have been and continue to be white men. No major mainstream jazz publication has ever had a black editor or publisher. Ain’t But a Few of Us presents over two dozen candid dialogues with black jazz critics and journalists ranging from Greg Tate, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Robin D. G. Kelley to Tammy Kernodle, Ron Welburn, and John Murph. They discuss the obstacles to access for black jazz journalists, outline how they contend with the world of jazz writing dominated by white men and point out that these racial disparities are not confined to jazz but hamper their efforts at writing about other music genres as well. Ain’t But a Few of Us also includes an anthology section, which reprints classic essays and articles from black writers and musicians such as LeRoi Jones, Archie Shepp, A. B. Spellman, and Herbie Nichols.

About the contributors:

Bridget Arnwine is a freelance writer and photographer currently residing in Baltimore County, MD.  Her published work has appeared in examiner.com, allaboutjazz.com, jazzpolice.com, jazzjournalists.org, Buzzbin Magazine, The Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Literature, and DC Jazz: Stories of Jazz in Washington, DC. She's also written program bios for the Tri-C Jazz Festival and Jazz at Lincoln Center.Bridget is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio.

Janine M. Coveney is a writer and editor with more than three decades of experience. Her work has appeared in Billboard, Essence, JazzTimes, The Virginian-Pilot, Porthole Cruise Magazine, YouAndI.com, Honey, Huffington Post, Medium, EURWeb, Gavin, R&B Airplay Monitor, Annotation Nation, and more. Most recently, she served as the Head Writer for the inaugural Jazz Music Awards, held October 2022 in Atlanta.

Coveney’s résumé includes serving as jazz and urban radio news manager for Launch/Yahoo!; founding managing editor of Billboard’s R&B Airplay Monitor; R&B Music Editor of Billboard; Careers Editor of Essence; publicity director for A&M Records’ Perspective label; and product management & marketing associate for Arista Records.  From 2013 to 2016 she was the content & communications manager for the advocacy division of The Recording Academy (The GRAMMYs) in Washington, D.C.

A native of The Bronx, New York, Coveney graduated with a BA from Simmons College in Boston and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University-Los Angeles.

Jordannah Elizabeth is an author, journalist and lecturer. She has worked as an entertainment reporter and columnist at the historical Black newspaper, New York Amsterdam News since 2013. Her work has appeared in NPR Music, Village Voice, LA Weekly, Downbeat, Bandcamp, Ms. Magazine, Oprah Magazine, and many other reputable publications. She has lectured at Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and Maryland Institute College of Art and was an esteemed guest journalist at Harvard University. She currently teaches music business at The New School in New York City. She is the author of the middle-grade children’s book, She Raised Her Voice!: 50 Black Women Who Sang Their Way Into Music History.