Out There: 50 Miles of Elbow Room
Notable jazz resources online and elsewhere.
What is 50 Miles of Elbow Room? Primarily, it is a mail-order service for records and books operated by Adam Lore. Unlike most outlets, the catalog is kept small, with everything handpicked following clear lines. Jazz-wise, the center of gravity is not far from the Vision Festival scene and its roots in the 1970s New York underground. 50 Miles carries private release featuring Cooper-Moore, Cleve Pozar, Sonny Simmons, little-known material from Alan Glover, or former stock from Bobby Naughton’s Otic Records. 50 Miles highlights material that could easily be overlooked within the high volume of underground jazz continuously being released.
Another important part of the website is dedicated to long-form writing. Back in the early 2000s, 50 Miles appeared as a print publication. In-depth material from this era is now republished online. Issue 1 carried an interview with Cooper-Moore, and issue 2 remembrances of Sun Ra Arkestra singer June Tyson and a 1987 interview with her. The third issue was a program for a celebration of fife and drums artists Otha Turner and Bernice Turner Pratcher. Subsequent 50 Miles projects included a wooden box set of 7" Cooper-Moore records and two LPs by gospel musician Rev. Charlie Jackson. 50 Miles’s latest project is a folio collection of poems and drawings by bassist Earl Freeman (David Grundy and I wrote about it in 2021).
This brings us to a centerpiece of the website: an extensive article by Lore that is the clear reference on Earl Freeman. The page is regularly updated with new input from colleagues (including Kenneth Terroade!) and archival material, notably thanks to the collaboration of Freeman’s daughter, artist Mylo Freeman. The evolving form of the article, a living documentation of Freeman’s biography and work, has been an inspiration regarding how to write about music online. Other jazz material on the website deals with Cleve Pozar and William Parker.
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