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.

THE INAUDIBLE MUSIC: JAZZ, GENDER AND AUSTRALIAN MODERNITY

by Bruce Johnson

Reviewed by Eric Myers

JazzChord, Feb/Mar, 2000

This is a fascinating, ground-breaking book… Johnson's argument, the way I read it, is a convincing explanation of why jazz has been marginalised in Australian cultural politics for most of the Twentieth Century…

BLISTERED HEELS: JAZZ AND HOT DANCE MUSIC IN AUSTRALIA IN THE TWENTIES

by Jack Mitchell

Reviewed by Nick Dellow

Vintage Jazz Mart, No 176, Autumn 2016

Within two years of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s first record being issued, jazz had driven its syncopated beat into every corner in every continent of the world. It swept across the globe in pandemic fashion...

THE REMARKABLE MR MORRISON: THE VIRTUOSITY AND VERSATILITY OF AUSTRALIA'S MASTER MUSICIAN

by Mervyn E Collins

Reviewed by John Cleary

James Morrison has a problem.  Very few deny that Australia’s foremost jazz multi-instrumentalist is a prodigious talent; that he tore up the rulebook for mastering brass; that his freakish embouchure allows him to move from piccolo trumpet to tuba and that he is just as comfortable on reeds, bass and piano. But there’s a proportion of the jazz population which refuses to treat the man as a bona fide exponent of the art...