Book Review
Concerto for Cootie. The Life and Times of Cootie Williams
by Richard J Salvucci
Cootie. The Life and Times of Cootie Williams Steven C. Bowie 443 Pages ISBN: #9781496859440 University Press of Mississippi 2025 Benny Goodman, who had employed Harry James and Ziggy Elman in his nonpareil 1937 trumpet section, preferred trumpeter Cootie Williams to them, admiring his “unlimited power." Williams had come up with Chick Webb and Fletcher Henderson. When he left Duke Ellington to join Goodman, it was big news, both for Ellington and for ...
Continue ReadingTom Waits and Anton Corbijn: Waits/Corbyn
by Nenad Georgievski
Waits/Corbijn Tom Waits and Anton Corbijn 272 pages 978-3791393254 Prestel Publishing2013/2025 Anton Corbijn and Tom Waits are creative forces whose respective crafts have redefined their fields. Corbijn, a Dutch photographer and filmmaker, is celebrated for his stark, atmospheric images that have captured the essence of artists such as Joy Division, U2, and Depeche Mode, among others. Beginning his work photographing musicians in the late 1970s, he would eventually progress to directing music ...
Continue ReadingThe Beatles Anthology (25th Anniversary Reissue)
by Doug Collette
The Beatles Anthology 25th Anniversary Reissue The Beatles 368 Pages ISBN: # 978-1797241487 Chronicle Books 2025 Reprinted to commemorate the quarter-century since its first publication, the 2025 edition of The Beatles Anthology (25th Anniversary Reissue) book is little different from its now hard-to-find predecessor, except in the most cosmetic sense(s). Without any notation of its distinction, this milestone edition has an outer graphic design matching that of the audio companion piece ...
Continue ReadingGraham Parker's Howlin' Wind
by Doug Collette
Graham Parker's Howlin' Wind Jay Nachman 247 Pages ISBN: #979-8299219296 Self Published 2025 About fifty pages into the two hundred forty-seven total of Jay Nachman's Graham Parker's Howlin' Wind, the narrative turns distinctly cinematic, right in keeping with a kinetic cover painting by Steve Keene much superior to the cut-and-past of the album art. From that point on, the book reads like the novelization of a film, graphically depicting in prose the increasingly ...
Continue ReadingBrotzman: In My Focus
by Nenad Georgievski
Brotzmann, In My Focus Žiga Koritnik 152 Pages Self-Published 2025Some books go beyond the simple act of documentation. They do not just tell a story; they immerse you in a world. Žiga Koritnik's book on Peter Brötzmann is one of those books--a deeply personal, evocative, and visually striking tribute to a musician whose work defined the very essence of free jazz.Koritnik, a Slovenian photographer whose work has been intertwined with jazz and ...
Continue ReadingU2: Until the End of the World
by Nenad Georgievski
U2: Until the End of the World Bradley Morgan 240 Pages ISBN: 1786751658 Gemini Adult Books Limited 2025 There are bands we live with for so long that they become part of our personal geography. For Bradley Morgan, author of this new book on U2, it's clearly the case. This is his second exploration of their world--the first focused specifically on The Joshua Tree era (U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in ...
Continue ReadingListening: Music, Movement, Mind
by Tyran Grillo
Listening: Music, Movement, Mind Nik Bärtsch 352 Pages ISBN: 9783037786703 Lars Müller Publishers 2021 If Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch, best known as the mastermind--or perhaps, more fittingly, the beginnermind--behind “Ronin," an ever-evolving interpretive organism for his modular compositions, has long seemed an enigmatic figure, then Listening: Music, Movement, Mind may well serve as the missing link between the man and the mystery. Beneath the disarming subtitle “A Useless Guide for Everything" lies ...
Continue ReadingThe Jazz Barn: Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life
by Katchie Cartwright
The Jazz Barn: Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life John Gennari 264 Pages ISBN: #978-1-68458-285-3 Brandeis University Press 2025 Award-winning author, University of Vermont professor and Berkshire County native John Gennari encapsulates his fascinating history of The Jazz Barn simply. “This a book about what happened in the 1950s in a barn, icehouse, and greenhouse and in the rolling meadows, winding wooded ...
Continue ReadingApex Blues tackles legacies of Jimmie Noone and Jimmy Noone Jr.
by Jim Trageser
Apex Blues Cecile J. Picou 232 Pages ISBN: 979-8891552524 Self Published 2024 Quietly published in 2024 with little to no fanfare, Cecile Picou's dual biography of New Orleans' Jimmie Noone and his son, San Diego's Jimmy Noone Jr., offers some wonderful insights to San Diego's jazz, blues and soul scenes of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. For fans of the son--who starred with Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham's Sweet Baby Blues ...
Continue ReadingRay Brown: His Life and Music
by Andrew Hunter
Ray Brown: His Life and Music Jay Sweet 310 Pages ISBN: # 9781800505353 Equinox Publishing2025 It is such a common occurrence in life that bad things happen to good people, and conversely that good things happen to bad people, that there is a branch of theology given to the question of how and why God allows such injustice to occur. It is called theodicy. Given the frequency with which people ...
Continue Reading
