BOOK REviewS
This section includes reviews of books on jazz subjects by a number of writers. Reviewers interested in contributing are welcome to contact the editor by filling out the form in the CONTACT tab. When contributing please include the title of the book and its author, the name of the publisher, the date of publication, the book’s ISBN number, and the number of pages in the book. Please also provide, if possible, a high resolution scan of the book’s cover. Readers can click on the INDEX button for a list of reviews in this folder.
AFICIONADO: A JAZZ MEMOIR
by Geoff Page
Reviewed by Ted Nettelbeck
Geoff Page (born 1940) is an Australian poet, writer, retired teacher and life-long committed supporter of jazz. He has previously published a biography of saxophonist Bernie McGann, a review of which by John Shand can be found on this website. Aficionado (2014) is a personal memoir that traces, more or less chronologically, Page’s involvement with jazz (Part 1), together with a collection of eight previously unpublished poems about jazz and jazz musicians (Part 2)…
TECHNOLOGY AND THE STYLISTIC EVOLUTION OF THE JAZZ BASS
by Peter Dowdall
Reviewed by Ted Nettelbeck
Peter Dowdall (born 1954) is an Australian jazz bassist, sound engineer and academic. Having completed a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Adelaide in 1976, he relocated to the US where his bass playing early caught the attention of Clark Terry, with whom he worked regularly (a photo of Peter as a member of Terry’s Youth Band in 1979, which also included Branford Marsalis, is included as Figure 17 following p 186 in Clark’s autobiography...
THE GODFATHER OF BRITISH JAZZ: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF STAN TRACEY
by Clark Tracey
Reviewed by Ted Nettelbeck
This book is a recent publication in the excellent Popular Music History series edited by the British jazz bassist, critic and academic Alyn Shipton. Written by Clark Tracey, Stan’s oldest son, a leading British jazz drummer, bandleader and composer, who began his professional career working in his teens with his father, it documents the pianist’s long and distinguished career from the early 1940s to his death in 2013…