In perhaps the first ever set of sonnets to jazz, Peter McSloy, better known as rock guitarist Pete Townsend, shows a degree of sensitivity which was not evident in his guitar-smashing antics with The Who. Speaking of Django Reinhardt he recalls ‘the arc of melody he left in our heads’. Louis Armstrong is ‘like the sun appearing, and the endless melody triumphantly projected, soaring from height to height’. Art Tatum ‘was a world unto himself, a planet made exempt from gravity’. Similar treatment is accorded to Ellington, Pres, Art Pepper, Teagarden, Venuti, Monk, Gaillard and others, and each poem is accompanied by one of Nina Mera’s lino-cut impressions. McSloy is unlikely to dethrone Shakespeare, but he has produced some beautiful characterisations. A leather-bound edition autographed by the sonneteer and boxed sets of Nina Mera’s illustrations are also available.
For Jazz: 21 Sonnets, by Peter McSloy with linoleum cuts by Nina Mera. 55pp. Cloth-bound £16 inc. pp (ISBN 0-936156-01-5); paperback £8 inc. pp (ISBN 0-936156-02-3) from For Jazz, PO Box 43, Manchester M20 6LN. Tel: 0161 445 4046
