I've always been into jazz – the effortless cool that exuded from each player, the style, the never-ending boundary pushing. It was an easy genre to love for a kid who was hoping that liking something that was so far removed from "pop" would carve a synapse in his brain called "taste." But jazz, I realized is more than just a style of music. Jazz has always existed as both a radical reaction to the structures of form while also being the foundational blueprint for the future; an opposition to society becoming dumb, something that we might need more than ever right now. When Reid Miles first began functionally disassembling the concept of an album cover for Blue Note Records, the reverberations would be felt for decades to come.

So as visually rich as jazz has been for the last century, why is it that so little merch has been produced to commemorate the artists and music? Is the non-conformity of jazz so antithetical to the idea of merchandising that it’s hard to wear your fandom? Heck, if you want to find a “vintage” Bill Evans shirt you’re out of luck, the closest thing you can find is an Online Ceramics collaboration from 2024.