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.
SWINGER! A JAZZ GIRL’S ADVENTURES FROM HOLLYWOOD TO HARLEM
by Judy Carmichael
Reviewed by Viktor Zappner
March 18, 2018
As I read this book I suddenly realised that it works on me like a Rorschach Test. This sophisticated and somehow controversial tool is a projective psychological test that uses a subject’s interpretation of ten standard black or coloured designs/plates to assess personality traits and emotional tendencies. While Judy follows a certain time-line in her story(ies), she offered me a rich chance for identification and projection on page after page. I can easily imagine how any experienced jazz musician anywhere in the world would identify her- or himself - with all the hilarious stories related to the daily elations and sufferings of a jazz musician on the road…
AUSTRALIA ON THE RIFF: MORE JAZZ MUSINGS IN METRE
by Alwyn Lewis
Reviewed by Peter J F Newton
Poetry and jazz, be it poetry inspired by jazz and its performers, jazz inspired by the art of poets, or a mingling of the two crafts in open performance, has been with us almost as long as the history of jazz so far. In 1920, the Belgian jazz critic/historian Robert Goffin produced a poetry book titled Jazz Band, and other contemporaries such as Hat Crane, Vachel Lindsay and Carl Sandburg published their own jazz (and blues) inspired verses…
MORE AUSTRALIAN JAZZ ON RECORD
by Jack Mitchell
Reviewed by Peter J F Newton
Jack Mitchell has for more than 40 years been one of Australia’s leading jazz discographers. He has published many articles in popular magazines and in such important specialised journals as Australian Jazz Quarterly, Jazz Notes, Matrix and Sydney Jazz Club’s Quarterly Rag. He has also been called on to provide accurate information for LP sleeve notes and for the detailed booklets that accompany some important CD reissues. In recent years he has produced a definitive book on the work of the legendary Port Jackson Jazz Band and an extensive discography for Graeme Bell’s fine autobiography...