Book / Magazine News

Book: Web Surfers Evolving into Superior Humans

Source: PC Magazine
October 29, 2008

The Internet is not just changing the way people live but altering the way our brains work with a neuroscientist arguing this is an evolutionary change which will put the tech-savvy at the top of the new social order. Gary Small, a neuroscientist at UCLA in California who specializes in brain function, has found through studies that Internet searching and text messaging has made brains more adept at filtering information and making snap decisions. But while technology can accelerate learning ...

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Book: William Claxton

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 28, 2008

William Claxton, Photographic Memory (Powerhouse). This generous volume has the great photographer's pictures of a few jazz people, including shots of Chet Baker that helped make both of them famous. But here we have full-range Claxton; portraits of personalities as varied in time and occupation as Igor Stravinsky in 1956, Benicio Del Toro in 2001, Ursula Andress in 1962, Spike Lee in 1989 and Vladimir Nabokov in 1961. This survey of Claxton's work, much of it previously unpublished, documents how clearly he ...

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Vinyl Mania: Jazz LP Covers from the 1940s to 1990s

Source: All About Jazz
October 26, 2008

Jazz Covers Wiedemann, Julius (editor) Paulo, Joaquim Taschen Softcover, flaps 9.4 x 9.4 in., 496 pages, $39.99 ISBN: 978-3-8228-2366-8 Edition: English

This volume features a broad selection of jazz record covers, from the 1940s through the decline of LP production in the early 1990s. Each cover is accompanied by with a fact sheet listing performer and album name, art director, photographer, illustrator, year, label, and more. ...

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Levinson on Harry James

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
October 24, 2008

Although still in his late teens, James was already six-foot-one and weighed 150 pounds. He had a thin waist, no hips, and long skinny legs. To go along with his slinky frame, he had a large, oval-shaped head, a long nose and prominent ears, dark wavy hair, and a pencil-thin moustache. Perhaps his most provocative feature, however, was his deep-set baby-blue eyes--the bluest blue eyes this side of his future band vocalist, Frank Sinatra. He had a high-pitched voice that ...

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Texas Jazz Musician Publishes 8 Books in 2008

Source: All About Jazz
October 20, 2008

Author and well-known member of Houstons music community, Eddie Lewis has released eight music books this year. The titles cover a variety of trumpet music topics in both the classical and jazz genres. It may be tempting to assume that such books should be reserved for lazy Sunday afternoon reading, but beware. While the writing style is relaxed and persuasive rather than stiff and commanding, there is no doubt that these texts call musicians of all skill levels to action. ...

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Michael Garrick Compositions Now in Print

Source: All About Jazz
October 18, 2008

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A Novel of the Central Avenue Jazz Scene and an Outsider's Quest to Find a Place There

Source: Michael Ricci
October 12, 2008

BOOK REVIEW Early Bright by Ami Silber A novel of the Central Avenue jazz scene and an outsider's quest to find a place there - and finish a song that's in his head.

KINDA blue is the shelf of jazz lit, where few writers have managed to keep their cool when engaging with the music. Jack Kerouac championed a spontaneous bop prosody, but plotted out or living in the moment, the prosody has rarely harmonized with ...

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Book Prize for "Horizons Touched"

Source: All About Jazz
October 5, 2008

Steve Lake and Paul Griffith's, co-editors of Horizons Touched: The Music of ECM (Granta Books), have been named as winners of the 2008 Awards for Excellence in Historical Sound Research by the US-based Association for Recorded Sound Collections. The prize is for Best Research in Record Labels/Best History. The Association for Recorded Sound Collections is a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and study of historical recordings. Its awards are presented annually “to recognize outstanding published research in the field ...

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