My Content
Membership has its privileges! Sign up or sign in to gain full access to both All About Jazz and Jazz Near You. Learn more.
Book Reviews
Soul Jazz: Jazz In The Black Community, 1945-1975
Soul Jazz: Jazz In The Black Community, 1945-1975 Bob Porter281 Pages ISBN: #978- 15245-4786-8 Xlibris 2016 With the end of World War II, in 1945, there was great rejoicing and celebrating a triumph over evil, as the United States ushered in a new era. But with segregation still the norm, in the shadows of Black America, things remained the same. The black communities had their own support groups, their own heroes, and they ...
read moreGo Slow: The Life of Julie London
Go Slow. The Life of Julie London Michael Owen 296 Pages ISBN: 9781613738573 Chicago Review Press 2017 “Vinyl Viagra" “Mainly I'm a lyric reader." “Mickey Mouse...she can even make that sexy." “I'm not a singer. If all her movie footage over the years were put together, “there still wouldn't be enough to add up to one presentable part."
read moreThe Art of Conduction
The Art of Conduction. A conduction Workbook Lawrence “Butch" Morris (Daniela Veronesi -ed.) Karma 224 pages ISBN-13: 978-1942607427 Lawrence Douglas “Butch" Morris was undoubtedly one of the most unusual and, at the same time, influential figures on the “New Jazz" scene of the last decades. Born on 10 February 1947 in Long Beach, California, he was a cornetist but also, and especially, a composer and conductor. He gradually came into the ...
read moreDreaming The Beatles: The Love Story of One Band And The Whole World
Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story of One Band And The Whole World Rob Sheffield 368 Pages ISBN: #0062207652 Dey Street Books 2017 Rob Sheffield is so enamored of his subject on Dreaming the Beatles, any fan who reads it may be inspired to write a book on the band too. And that's because of the largely infectious, ebullient tone he maintains over the approximately three-hundred sixty pages. But Sheffield may actually be ...
read moreRobbie Robertson: Testimony and Michael Nesmith: Infinite Tuesday: an Autobiographical Riff
Robbie Robertson's Testimony and Michael Nesmith's Infinite Tuesday are both illuminating books, but only in decidedly constricted fashion. The insight each man offers into their respective timelines, as part of and apart from their famous groups, passes through filters of which neither author are wholly cognizant. The lead guitarist and chief songwriter for the Band sounds almost as guileless as his counterpart from the Monkees, but both men (and/or their respective editors) evince artful means in devising a particular slant ...
read moreThe Free Musics by Jack Wright
The Free Musics Jack Wright 316 Pages ISBN: 1537777246 Spring Garden Music Editions 2017 Saxophonist Jack Wright's first encounter with free jazz occurred in 1967, when a chance meeting with Charlie Haden resulted in Wright's being invited to see Haden play with Ornette Coleman. Wright, who had been a conventional jazz saxophonist, describes the music as having struck him as “chaotic" and the experience as having been “traumatic." Nevertheless, five years later he ...
read moreI Scare Myself by Dan Hicks
I Scare Myself Dan Hicks 237 Pages ISBN: 978-1-911036-23-4 Jawbone Books 2017 The late Dan Hicks is described by Kristine McKenna, editor of this rambling but curiously engaging autobiography, as “a musical genius." He wasn't, although he did write some amusing songs and played competent guitar. This and a laconic sense of humour made him an influential figure on the burgeoning jny: San Francisco hippie rock music scene in the 1960s and 70s, ...
read moreVinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium by John Corbett
Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium John Corbett 264 Pages ISBN: #0822363666 Duke University Press Books 2017 John Corbett is a music critic, record producer, and curator. For twelve years--from 2000 to 2012--he wrote a column titled “Vinyl Freak" for Downbeat magazine, and those collected columns form the backbone of this book. Corbett wrote about out of print LPs in his extensive collection: ranging from the extremely obscure (and in a ...
read moreBop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs by Martin Torgoff
Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, the Beats, and Drugs Martin Torgoff 448 pages ISBN: 0306824752 Da Capo Press 2017 The vilification and suppression of marijuana and narcotics in the U.S. was fueled in the 20th century by a campaign that whipped up fear of “the other"--Mexicans, Caribbean islanders, South Americans and African-Americans. Bop Apocalypse limns the history of this campaign and uses it to frame the story of how our own American “others"--(black and ...
read more