Book Reviews Archives - Jazz Journal

Hearing Double

Graham Colombé — Tue, 13 May 2025 09:09:00 +0000

Brian Kane, the author of this book, is a Yale academic and an experienced jazz musician. And that may explain why some of the book was of no interest to me and some was very interesting indeed. The subtitle of the book is Jazz, Ontology, Auditory Culture and that word “ontology” covers the sections where […]

The post Hearing Double appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Nightmare In The Pacific: The World War II Saga Of Artie Shaw And His Navy Band

John White — Thu, 08 May 2025 12:13:46 +0000

Michael Doyle’s title is striking but also misleading. Ostensibly about the adventures (and misadventures) of Artie Shaw’s Navy Band 501, popularly known as Shaw’s Rangers, which saw active service in the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, it adds little to the putative title. Curiously, Shaw devotes only a few pages to his wartime musical […]

The post Nightmare In The Pacific: The World War II Saga Of Artie Shaw And His Navy Band appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Robert Fogle: My 8 Decade Musical Journey

Leon Nock — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 09:42:31 +0000

The author says he was born in Toronto in 1941 and is the retired president of an entertainment agency who spent 27 years hosting the radio show Some Experiences In Jazz, where he interviewed over 700 jazz people, including Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Peter Appleyard and Moe Koffman. The blurb tells […]

The post Robert Fogle: My 8 Decade Musical Journey appeared first on Jazz Journal.

James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”

Brian Payne — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 11:09:58 +0000

James Baldwin (1924-1987) is considered by many to be one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Born into poverty in Harlem, New York, he became an activist and broke new ground with his exploration of racial and social issues in works such as Go Tell It On The Mountain, Notes Of A […]

The post James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies And The Jazz Commons

Andy Hamilton — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 12:54:57 +0000

In Brassroots Democracy, author Benjamin Barson presents a “music history from below”, embracing the Haitian revolution, post-civil war reconstruction and early jazz. The term “brassroots democracy” is a synthesis of grassroots activism and New Orleans’ historic brass-band tradition, and Barson argues that jazz arose from the mass mobilisation of freed people during reconstruction during the […]

The post Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies And The Jazz Commons appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Jazz In The New Millennium – Live & Well

Nigel Jarrett — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:54:39 +0000

An author bold enough to decide on the most significant individuals and happenings in his zone of interest and write a book about them might be thought vindicated, to his own satisfaction at least, by a decision to update it. That’s to say, it’s a moveable feast. Rick Mitchell’s Jazz In The New Millennium – […]

The post Jazz In The New Millennium – Live & Well appeared first on Jazz Journal.

La La Land

Leon Nock — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 12:07:02 +0000

My parents were addicted to cinema. They did their courting in the one-and-nines, and even after I came along they continued apace. From the age of three I accompanied them, albeit meaninglessly at first, but by age five I was able to retain data – to recognise performers, distinguish the different studios and their rosters. […]

The post La La Land appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Sonny Clark, Fragile Virtuoso

Nic Jones — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 09:45:48 +0000

Pianist Sonny Clark, given the regularity with which he – in common with quite a few others – recorded for Blue Note either as a sideman or under their own name, might be described as the label’s house pianist. His hard-bop style was quite in keeping with what the label’s predominantly known for, despite the […]

The post Sonny Clark, Fragile Virtuoso appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Playing The Changes: Jazz At An African University And On The Road

Andy Hamilton — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 12:23:56 +0000

Darius Brubeck has “played the changes” both as a musician, and politically, through deep involvement in the cultural politics of South Africa, 1983-2005. With partner Catherine, he moved there in 1983 to lead Africa’s first jazz-studies degree programme, at University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban. In 1989, he became director of the new Centre for […]

The post Playing The Changes: Jazz At An African University And On The Road appeared first on Jazz Journal.

Un Noël de Jelly Roll Morton

Graham Colombé — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Alain Gerber is a noted writer on jazz but also, to the wider French public, a highly acclaimed writer of fiction. He has already combined real musicians with fiction in books concerning such names as Armstrong, Davis and Holiday, where his imagination has taken flight from what is known about their lives and personalities. I […]

The post Un Noël de Jelly Roll Morton appeared first on Jazz Journal.