Book / Magazine News

Jazz Life

Source: All About Jazz
May 26, 2010

In 1959 and 1960, photographer William Claxton and noted German musicologist Joachim Berendt traveled the United States hot on the trail of jazz music.

The result of their collaboration was an amazing collection of photographs and recordings of legendary artists as well as unknown street musicians.

The book Jazzlife, the original fruit of their labors, has become a collectors item that is highly treasured among jazz and photography fans.

In 2003, TASCHEN began reassembling this important collection of material - ...

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Nothing But the Blues

Source: All About Jazz
May 26, 2010

“Nothing But the Blues : The Music and the Musicians." In this extensively illustrated, comprehensive volume, Grammy-winning CD producer Lawrence Cohn provides an elegant pictoral and intellectual history.

This compilation of 11 articles examines the beginnings and progress of the blues. The book starts with a penetrating essay by noted blues writer Samuel Chaters, who investigates the origins of the blues.

It follows with chapters that clearly, extensively, and intelligently describe early blues in the Deep South and Texas, women ...

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WMG's Edgar Bronfman Jr. Subject of Tell All Book

Source: HypeBot
May 19, 2010

“Fortune's Fool" To Be Released July 13th

WMG CEO will be getting the dreaded tell all book treatment this summer when Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music, and an Industry in Crisis is released by Simon & Schuster. Authored by Fred Goodman, best known for the unflattering music business expos The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce , Fortune's Fool explores the demise of major label system and Bronfman's ...

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Swing Journal, Long-Standing Jazz Magazine, to be Suspended in June

Source: Michael Ricci
May 18, 2010

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Swing Journal, a long-standing monthly magazine that has led the jazz culture of postwar Japan, is being suspended with its July edition that goes on sale on June 19, mainly due to dwindling advertisement revenues, its publisher said Monday. The magazine, first published in 1947, played a central role in expanding the musical genre's reach in the country, by featuring such renowned players as Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and Japanese musicians Sadao Watanabe and Terumasa Hino. ...

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Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

Source: Michael Ricci
May 13, 2010

The Princes Noire by Nadine Cohodas, is an exhaustive but plodding biography that tries to pin down a musical artist surrounded by myth.

Like her unprocessed voice and Bach-meets-barrelhouse piano style, Nina Simone's life story is peculiar, beautiful, sometimes off-key and off-color but deeply, disturbingly dramatic. In the 1960s, the “high priestess of soul" wrote and/or sang some of the most moving anthems of a profound period in American history: “Backlash Blues," “Mississippi Goddam" and “To Be Young, Gifted and ...

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Interview: Steve Almond of How Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life (Part 2)

Source: HypeBot
May 11, 2010

Kyle Bylin, Associate Editor-- (@kbylin)-- Read Part 1

In the book, you speak of how Nil Lara became your messiah, because he “cultivated that trait so essential to rock stars: mystery." Not knowing anything about Nil, you say, only served to further ignite your passion; it allowed him to become larger than life, and for your personal mythologies to come alive.

In a hyper connected world, with almost all the details about any artist at our fingertips, and ...

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Playboy Centerfold Goes 3-D in Naked Attempt to Create Buzz

Source: All About Jazz
May 11, 2010

Playboy readers who can only imagine what it would look like if a nude centerfold jumped off the page are getting new specs to help them see into Hef's world.

The magazine's June edition hits newsstands Friday equipped with 3-D glasses. Now the toy that has kids dodging dragons, meatballs and tall blue aliens at the movies will help adults focus on what is, at first glance, a very blurry Playmate of the Year. “What would people most like to ...

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Lena Horne Biography Tells of a Star Shaped by Rejection, Racism

Source: Michael Ricci
May 11, 2010

'Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne' by James Gavin reveals a woman whose life reflects the civil rights struggles of the times.

According to James Gavin's new biography, “Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne," the legendary singer-actress was never comfortable being an icon. “As I say in the introduction of my book, icons are not allowed to be human beings," explains Gavin, a lifelong fan who interviewed Horne in 1994. “Once you step up on that pedestal . ...

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