Jah Wobble - Odds & Sods & Epilogues (Book & Cd, 2013)

From the author of Memoirs of a Geezer an illustrated book and CD of his poetry, covering a diverse range of subjects, ranging from the Nature of Mind, Ancient Greece, through to Post Modernism, by way of Matter transference and the indignity of being a member of the Cockney Diaspora. The poems are thought provoking, poignant, mesmeric, uproarious and at times a bit disturbing when dystopian realms are ventured into. There are great illustrations by Richard Shields, that aptly mirror the surreal nature of Jah Wobble s idiosyncratic take on life. The musical versions of the poetry on the accompanying CD are by no means a mere add on; they take the poems into another dimension. Looks like Jah Wobble is a true Polymath, we knew he could play bass, lead bands and compose. We then found out, via Geezer that he could write prose. Looks like we can now add poetry to that list. Outstanding. Make him Poet Laureate!

BOOK: Bossa Nova Cover Art by Soul Jazz

This is the first ever collection of bossa nova record cover artwork, featuring stunning modernist and revolutionary designs that reflect the radical and exciting idealism of Brazil at the start of the 1960s.

Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records) bring you this amazing new deluxe hardback 12" x 12" book, 200 pages, 100s of stunning absolutely killer Bossa Nova sleeves from Brazil plus loads of historical, cultural and social text as well as biographies on loads of the artists!

As Brazil developed into an urban society, with ‘apartment living’ and consumer goods, bossa nova projected an image that was modern, sophisticated and cool. Bossa Nova music arrived in Brazil at the end of the 1950s with an optimism and modernism that parralleled the arrival of the new Brazilian president, Juscelino Kubitschek, who promised 'fifty years of progress in five' in his election campaign and announced the building of a new capital city, Brasilia, deep in the heartland of Brazil. The city was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, a man who had just designed a new musical theatre production in Rio of a play written by Vinicius de Moraes and with music written by Antonio Carlos Jobim. These two, along with the singer João Gilberto were about to make Bossa Nova, the first modernist Brazilian art form, the most succesful Brazilian export since coffee.

This book is a unique collection of the cover art of Brazilian bossa nova music, containing hundreds of record covers complete with a history of bossa nova, biographies and essays on many of the artists involved in the movement. The book follows on from our previous cover art book on Jazz called Freedom, Rhythm and Sound, also edited by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker.

To coincide with the book, there is also a separate double-CD album, 'Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s' also released on Soul Jazz Records.

Stuart Baker interview on Jungle Drums mag

4 more Bossa covers click the Guardian photo library here

FROM JAZZ FUNK & FUSION TO ACID JAZZ: THE HISTORY OF THE UK JAZZ DANCE SCENE

The book opens with Snowboy’s definition of jazz dance: “Not the ‘jazz dance’ of the 1930s in the US,” he explains, “It is a scene that was created here in the UK by innovative DJs daring to play jazz fusion next to the disco, funk, soul and jazz funk releases of the time – inspired (and probably cajoled, in some instances) to play harder grooves and faster tempos by the dancers.”
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Book: Blue Nippon

Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Duke University Press, 2001)
by Taylor Atkins

Japan’s jazz community—both musicians and audience—has been begrudgingly recognized in the United States for its talent, knowledge, and level of appreciation. Underpinning this tentative admiration, however, has been a tacit agreement that, for cultural reasons, Japanese jazz “can’t swing.” In Blue Nippon E. Taylor Atkins shows how, strangely, Japan’s own attitude toward jazz is founded on this same ambivalence about its authenticity.
Engagingly told through the voices of many musicians, Blue Nippon explores the true and legitimate nature of Japanese jazz. Atkins peers into 1920s dancehalls to examine the Japanese Jazz Age and reveal the origins of urban modernism with its new set of social mores, gender relations, and consumer practices. He shows how the interwar jazz period then became a troubling symbol of Japan’s intimacy with the West—but how, even during the Pacific war, the roots of jazz had taken hold too deeply for the “total jazz ban” that some nationalists desired. While the allied occupation was a setback in the search for an indigenous jazz sound, Japanese musicians again sought American validation. Atkins closes out his cultural history with an examination of the contemporary jazz scene that rose up out of Japan’s spectacular economic prominence in the 1960s and 1970s but then leveled off by the 1990s, as tensions over authenticity and identity persisted.
With its depiction of jazz as a transforming global phenomenon, Blue Nippon will make enjoyable reading not only for jazz fans worldwide but also for ethnomusicologists, and students of cultural studies, Asian studies, and modernism.

Real Blues People: Jazz in Japan by Wayne Zade /AllAboutJazz.Com (book review)

Buy the book from Amazon