Creativity Quote by Joseph Jarman

There is a quiet kind of defiance in Jarman admitting that "no one's been interested in my work" and treating it not as a lament, but as a logistical problem he can solve. The line refuses the romantic myth of the misunderstood artist waiting to be discovered. Instead, it frames neglect as a market failure, and his response is entrepreneurial: if the institutions and presenters won't underwrite the music, he'll underwrite it himself.

The phrasing does two things at once. "In fact" and "recently" sound conversational, almost offhand, but they're cover for something harsher: a veteran musician acknowledging that cultural attention is not distributed by merit. The subtext is about gatekeeping in jazz and experimental music, where budgets, branding, and nostalgia often dictate what gets staged. Jarman isn't begging for validation; he's naming the conditions and moving around them.

Context matters. As an AACM-associated artist with roots in the Art Ensemble of Chicago's avant-garde tradition, Jarman comes from a lineage where self-determination is both aesthetic and political. Producing a concert isn't just booking a room; it's creating the circumstances in which the music can exist, on his terms. Mentioning the Vision Festival is pointed: that scene has long functioned as an alternative infrastructure for creative music when mainstream venues look away.

The intent reads like a memo from the front lines of cultural survival: if no one will invest in the work, the artist becomes the institution.