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“One thing that’s tricky about jazz mysteries,” explains the writer Florence Wetzel, “is that you can’t put in everything you know. It overloads the general reader who maybe isn’t a jazz enthusiast.”
Featured in the Winter 2025 issue of Brilliant Corners, this interview with Wetzel focuses on her jazz-related work, including the novels Dashiki: A Cozy Mystery and The Grand Man: A Swedish Mystery, as well as Perry Robinson: The Traveler, the jazz clarinetist’s autobiography which she cowrote.
The plot of Dashiki hinges on legendary, unreleased tapes from 1957 of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane performing at the Five Spot. In the novel, the woman who discloses the treasured recordings is murdered, and the tapes disappear once again. The Grand Man, while permeated with jazz, also addresses the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a murder that many still consider to be unsolved. As Wetzel states, “I’ve always been interested in things and people that disappear.”
In addition to the Wetzel interview, the Winter 2025 issue of Brilliant Corners features poems and short stories by a range of writers, including Martín Espada (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry), Michael Waters (winner of a Guggenheim fellowship and five Pushcart Prizes), Stephen Cramer (author of nine poetry collections), and Mikhail Horowitz (who notes: “His spoken word CD of jazz fables, The Blues of the Birth, is still available from the trunk of his car”). San Francisco’s third Poet Laureate, devorah major, contributes both a poem and a personal reflection on hearing Rahsaan Roland Kirk at the Keystone Korner.
Brilliant Corners is a biannual journal that highlights an exceptional collection of literature and art pertaining to jazz. Founded in 1996, the journal bears strong ties to Lycoming College, with Sascha Feinstein, Ph.D., Robert L. and Charlene Shangraw Professor of English at Lycoming College, who serves as the managing editor, and Gary R. Hafer, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of English at Lycoming College, who serves as the production design editor. The publication is funded in part by the College and private endowments.
A subscription costs $12 per year ($18 for international orders), and checks or money can be sent to Brilliant Corners, Lycoming College, 1 College Place, Williamsport, PA 17701. More information can be found at www.lycoming.edu/BrilliantCorners or on Brilliant Corners’ Facebook page.