September 2023 MBR The Music Shelf

The Music Shelf

The Singers Talk
Jason Thomas Gordon
Permuted Press
https://permutedpress.com
9781637586990, $28.00, PB, 528pp

https://www.amazon.com/Singers-Talk-Greatest-Discuss-Theyre/dp/163758699X

Synopsis: "The Singers Talk: The Greatest Singers of Our Time Discuss the One Thing They're Never Asked About: Their Voices" by Jason Thomas Gordon is a seminal and groundbreaking compendium of inspiring and instructive conversations and interviews with professional singers ranging from Bryan Adams to Thom York (Radiohead) about the beauty, brutality, discipline, techniques, and sacrifices of being a successful singer.

Critique: Featuring a b/w photo of each performer interviewed, "The Singers Talk: The Greatest Singers of Our Time Discuss the One Thing They're Never Asked About: Their Voices" is unique, seminal, informative, and inherently fascinating read that will have immense appeal and value for aspiring singers wanting to know what the road to success (and failure) is like for anyone wanting to make a career out of singing professionally, either solo or in a band. While also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.99), "The Singers Talk: The Greatest Singers of Our Time Discuss the One Thing They're Never Asked About: Their Voices" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, university collections, as well as supplemental music school curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Jason Thomas Gordon (https://www.kingsizetheband.com/band) is the lead singer/drummer of the Los Angeles rock band Kingsize, a screenwriter, and creator of Music Gives to St. Jude Kids, a campaign that raises funds and awareness for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through music-based initiatives. St. Jude was founded in 1962 by Jason's grandfather, entertainer Danny Thomas, in Memphis, Tennessee. Jason also serves as a National Committee member of the hospital's board.

Jazz and Death
Walter van de Leur
Routledge
www.routledge.com
9781138553415, $160.00, HC, 184pp

https://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Death-Transnational-Studies/dp/1138553417

Synopsis: With the publication of "Jazz and Death: Reception, Rituals, and Representations", Professor Walter van de Leur critically examines the myriad and complex interactions between jazz and death, from the New Orleans "jazz funeral" to jazz in heaven or hell, final recordings, jazz monuments, and the music's own presumed death.

Professor Leur also examines how fans, critics, journalists, historians, writers, the media, and musicians have narrated, mythologized, and relayed those stories. What causes the fascination of the jazz world with its deaths? What does it say about how our culture views jazz and its practitioners? Is jazz somehow a fatal culture?

The narratives surrounding jazz and death cast a light on how the music and its creators are perceived. Stories of jazz musicians typically bring up different tropes, ranging from the tragic, misunderstood genius to the notion that virtuosity somehow comes at a price. Many of these narratives tend to perpetuate the gendered and racialized stereotypes that have been part of jazz's history. In the end, the ideas that encompass jazz and death help audiences find meaning in a complex musical practice and come to grips with the passing of their revered musical heroes -- and possibly with their own mortality.

Critique: Erudite, eloquent, informative, insightful, exceptionally well organized and presented, "Jazz and Death" by Professor Walter van de Leur is a seminal and ground breaking work of original scholarship and will have a special value to readers with an interest in the history of Jazz in America. A part of the 'Transitional Studies in Jazz' series from Routledge, "Jazz and Death" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, and university library American Music History collections and supplemental Jazz curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Jazz and Death" is also available in a paperback edition (9781138553422, $44.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $44.95).

Editorial Note: Walter van de Leur (http://www.crj-online.org/v4/CRJ-Jazzwereld.php) is Professor of Jazz and Improvised Music in the Department of Musicology at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on behalf of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where he is a Research Coordinator and docent.

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