" data-original-title="" title="">Dave Liebman described the demise earlier this year of the International Association of Jazz Educators. Why IAJE filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy is still being asked, but part of the problem was the return to Toronto for this year's conference. Attendance was little more than half that for meetings in New York and other cities. Some charge that IAJE, which first met in 1973, had gone too far, especially with a stillborn Campaign for Jazz. Liabilities exceeded $1 million. Liebman wrote in his newsletter that he had been at nearly every meeting since 1977, and performed or lectured at many. Dues-paying members, including his wife (Caris Music Services), were "hung out to dry," he said. Liebman's own International Association of Schools of Jazz (IASJ), now in its 20th year, stays healthy "because it is based on select student-to-student interaction and no outside commercial dealings."

European youth bands have entered the first of what may be the continent's most lucrative annual jazz competition. The prize is 20,000 Euros ($28,900) in a cash-plus-CD-promotion and coaching package. Bands whose members were all born in 1979 or later submit homemade CDs, which are judged using "blind procedures." Final eliminations will be made, and the winner selected, at a public performance in Burghausen during 40th International Jazz Week, March 17-22, 2009. Sponsor is the German interest group Jazz Burghausen e.V. in co-operation with the city of Burghausen.

Hi-de-ho, everybody! Sure you remember