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.
ANTIPODEAN RIFFS: ESSAYS ON AUSTRALASIAN JAZZ
Edited by Bruce Johnson
Reviewed by Ted Nettelbeck
July 17, 2017
Professor Bruce Johnson is a jazz trumpeter and distinguished scholar who has published extensively on jazz, including compiling and editing The Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz (1987). He has held several academic appointments both within and outside Australia and is currently Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communications, University of Technology Sydney. The genesis to this book was his “call for papers on Australasian jazz”, which generated the 14 essays…
SERIOUS FUN: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF MIKE NOCK
by Norman Meehan
Reviewed by Chris Bourke
NZ Listener, September 2010
For Mike Nock, it was one for the money then on with the show. In 1958 he rattled off some rock’n’roll piano triplets at a Johnny Devlin session in Auckland, took the fee, grabbed his old school satchel and stowed away on a ship to Sydney. Among the songs he recorded for Devlin was I Got a Rocket in My Pocket, a title that sums up the relentless drive of New Zealand’s most successful jazz musician…
SERIOUS FUN: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF MIKE NOCK
by Norman Meehan
Reviewed by Graham Reid
www.elsewhere.com.nz, November 2010
Alongside Alan Broadbent, Mike Nock has been New Zealand's most successful and visible jazz export. Like composer/pianist and Grammy-magnet Broadbent, Nock was lost to the country early. Both men won Downbeat scholarships to Berklee and were there before they were 21…