In the year 2011, there are still plenty of people around who saw James Booker and Professor Longhair perform on multiple occasions, or who caught the Dirty Dozen 20 times at the Glass House. But not many in this group has the writing chops to equal Michael Oliver-Goodwin. Oliver-Goodwin has been an accomplished journalist for [...]
Herman Leonard, Jazz (Bloomsbury)
While a legend before he moved to New Orleans in 1991, the late Herman Leonard (1923-2010) did not achieve that legendary status as a jazz photographer until later in life. It was not until 1986—we are told in an introduction to this handsome volume by his friend, novelist Reggie Nadelson—that Leonard (then 63) received “the [...]
Dave Thompson, Bayou Underground: Tracing the Mythical Roots of American Popular Music (ECW Press)
Gotta be the succulent-est book to feature the Axeman of New Orleans. If you don’t know the Axeman of New Orleans, feel free to look him up while I wait here, but be warned: you’ll probably go off your feed. Dave Thompson’s written over 100 books, sayeth Wikipedia; this one’s surely the first featuring recipes, [...]
Sandy Warren, Art Blakey: Cookin’ and Jammin’—Recipes and Remembrances from a Jazz Life (Margaret Media)
Growing up where fresh fruit meant the occasional brown banana or “sour green apple he found on the ground,” Art Blakey craved freshness in the kitchen as well as on stage when his need for heroin didn’t override everything else. Sandy Warren, or “Egghead,” Blakey’s partner in love, has traced an honest portrait of a [...]
Elizabeth Kleinveld (ed.), Before During After (UNO Press)
[UPDATED] Before During After speaks to the power of Hurricane Katrina, though not in the way it intends. Photographer Elizabeth Kleinveld had the provocative idea to document how Katrina affected people—in this case, photographers—by looking at the work they did before, during and after it. That means that there are only two or three Katrina-related [...]
Two Louis
David Stricklin Louis Armstrong: The Soundtrack of the American Experience (Ivan R. Dee) Scott Allen Nollen Louis Armstrong: The Life, Music, and Screen Career (McFarland and Company) Louis Daniel Armstrong lies buried in Flushing, Queens, but his heart belongs to the Crescent City. Practically and spiritually, he belongs to the planet, and measuring the full [...]
Michael Patrick Welch with Alison Fensterstock, New Orleans: The Underground Guide (UNO Press)
New Orleans has long fostered an underground scene unlike any other. Our tendency to prefer life a little quirkier is one of the reasons people migrate to the Crescent City. Not many other places offer great live music by talented musicians accompanied by a cabaret show and a bingo game. Still, the rest of the [...]
Andre Williams, Sweets and Other Stories (Kicks Books)
Hello world, meet Andre Williams, man of letters. If you’ve already met “Mr. Rhythm” in his better-known persona as purveyor of greasy R&B to the world, said knowledge shall deepen your deep-frying sensation at his debut between covers. If not, you need not worry. Williams moves along the printed page as “crazy” and “crude” (two [...]
Bruce Boyd Raeburn, New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History (University of Michigan Press)
It is no secret to musicians trying to play New Orleans jazz for a living that jazz writers have agendas, and that what passes for worthy in the jazz media often has little to do with the music. This fine book is for these souls, and for anyone with an interest in New Orleans music [...]
