Interview: Jim Trageser (Music Writer)
A 35-Year Veteran Music Journalist Reflects On His Career
Posted by Charlie Recksieck
and Jim Trageser
on 2026-03-10
One of the goals of Words About Music is to share our perspective on what musicians, composers, recording artists’ professional lives are like.
In this ongoing series, we'll talk with people across different corners of the music industry about what they actually do, how they got there, and what work looks like.
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Jim Trageser has spent more than 35 years as a newspaper and magazine reporter and editor, covering music, books, computers, and culture.
A working critic who has seen both print journalism's peak and its digital reinvention, Jim brings a perspective shaped by decades inside newsrooms and alongside musicians.
Charlie: "If you like XXX ..." music reviews can be reductive and corny, but it’s something.
How do you approach reviews?
Jim: When I was young I was full of myself.
I later read a quote from Albert Camus, the great French novelist, who once wrote book reviews for a French newspaper, and he said the only possible justification for an arts review in a mainstream newspaper is to help the reader spend their money.
So now when I write a review even if it’s not something I’m terribly fond of, I try to describe it so that anybody can read the review and decide if this is something they’d be interested in.
My rule of thumb is if I don’t like an album, I don’t review it.
I was interviewing Charles McPherson, the great jazz saxophonist and he had done this thing online where they asked him to give feedback on five albums. He didn’t rip anything, which if you know Charles back in the day, he can be pretty harsh in his assessments, especially of jazz.
He goes, "I’m just a point in life. I’m asking myself, well, who cares - maybe I’m wrong."
So I try to find something nice to say about everything because nobody wants to just read something negative.
Charlie: What do artists not understand about your job as a journalist?
Jim: A lot of them think my job is to help promote them. And it’s not, I just interviewed a blues musician the other day.
At the end of the thing, he said, "Well, thanks for helping promote the tour." And I said, "Well, good talking to you." because that’s not my job.
My loyalty and my obligation are to the readers.
Yes, I have an obligation to the artist to be fair, to be accurate, to not distort them. And I’ve never been accused yet - knock on wood - of misquoting someone.
One of the questions I usually lead off with is, do you remember what the first record or CD or download you purchased with your own money? The first time you went out and bought something you really wanted.
And usually they still remember.
Charlie: How has your writing changed? Or has it?
Jim: I hope it’s gotten better. When I go back and read some of my stuff from the evening Trib (San Diego Tribune) in the late 80s, I cringe.
I’m writing with this very pontifical voice, you know, the voice of God. I didn’t know anything. I probably knew I didn’t know anything and was trying to cover up for it.
I think I write much more modestly and with more humility now and ironically, probably with more knowledge.
Charlie: I imagine every writer does get better with age; but is there anything to be said in favor of a young writer, maybe at least having more energy?
Jim: I was fearless. I would just go anywhere and ask anybody anything.
I think now I’d be a little more cautious about intruding on people’s privacy. When I first started out, oh my gosh, "I’m a journalist, I can do what I want."
And that attitude, I think, has hurt journalism as a field over the years.
A lot of people are turned off by its intrusiveness. And there’s less respect for privacy now, I think, than there was even 30 years ago.
Charlie: What’s the biggest cliche in music writing or what’s one of your favorite cliche right now?
Jim: It’s the Beatles were overrated. It's almost a rite of passage for any music journalist under the age of 30.
They have to do their long 3000-word essay on how the Beatles actually sucked and were just propped up.
Charlie: Writing jobs have been endangered way before AI ever came around. How do writers and journalists keep weathering all the storms?
Jim: You’ve got to be flexible.
And if you want to write, you’re going to write.
There’s a story about when Leonard Bernstein was out at a dinner with somebody and some kid came up to him and said, "I want to know if I’m good enough to even keep trying." And Bernstein thundered at him.
"What? You have the ability to walk away from this and you don’t? Don’t waste my time."
You’re either a writer or you’re not. You might not get paid.
There’s always been more people who want to write than there are paid positions for writing. So if you want to write, find a niche, find an outlet that can use you and write.
I can tell when something is an AI written story, because they use the same phrases over and over again.
Charlie: What’s your biggest AI tell? For me, it’s if I see too many adverbs and adjectives.
Jim: They tend to be very short sentences, and they share a common rhythm. It’s like they’re all trying to write like Hemingway, but they’re not Hemingway.
I don’t think AI is ever going to be able to write a novel, a movie script, at least not a good one.
Charlie: I think it could write Lifetime Christmas movie, but it’ll never write The Godfather.
Jim: Right. Write a Hallmark.
Charlie: Have you ever lost your only copy of something you were writing?
Jim: Yeah, but I’m hoping I can recover it. Buddy Blue and I had a long ongoing email conversation going on for years before he passed.
I use a weird Czechoslovakian email client that doesn’t store emails under documents. So when I upgraded computers, I wiped the old one without copying over my old mailboxes. I still have the hard drive and I’m going to see if we can recover that because I’d love to have my correspondence with Buddy back.
Are there some that I wish I’d taped?
Tony Bennett, that would have been a fun one to have.
But then again, it’s like when you videotape your wedding. All the dumb things you did are right there. If you just have a still photographer, you can get rid of a couple of the photos.
You kind of have that glow in your mind of how you think it was instead of having to face the reality of sounding like a fan boy.
Charlie: What’s out there right now that’s exciting, music or some other writing?
Jim: I’m just always still excited when I get an album from an artist I haven’t heard of and I’ll listen to everything. I listen to the whole album through, even now that most of it's digital.
I just like listening. I don’t know what’s going to come out. That’s what keeps it exciting.
