Published in association with the Jazz Centre Society, Jazz Now is another success for the relatively new Quartet Books. (They also published Ross Russell’s The Bird, Dick Sudhalter’s book on Bix and John Chilton’s Billie’s Blues). It is, in effect, an up-to-date guide to jazz in Britain; when you consider how long it takes nowadays to produce a book of almost any kind then Jazz Now is remarkably up to date.
There are articles by Peter Clayton (on interviewing jazz personalities), Charles Fox (ragtime), Ron Atkins (avant garde), John Chilton (writing authoritatively on Billy Butterfield), Dick Sudhalter (some of ‘yesterday’s men’ discuss jazz in Britain with him), Brian Case (on the Skidmores), Michael Garrick (on the jazz musician), Tony Russell (the blues) and editor Cotterrell on folk roots. But the most memorable (and moving) piece is Brian Blain’s affectionate word portrait of the late Phil Seamen.
All that accounts for the first half of the book. The second (reference) section is fascinating. It includes 250 potted biographies of jazzmen you are likely to find at the ‘Seven Dials’ or ‘The Phoenix’ or your local club and is again very up-to-date. (Hank Shaw, for example, lists his current Whitstable address and telephone number). Most of the musicians give their addresses and ’phone numbers (very useful for those of us who try occasionally to book men for a gig; it gets over those situations when you have to telephone Ray Warleigh to get Bryan Spring’s number in order to contact Spike Wells, or some such tortuous line of communication). They also invariably list examples of records they are on, sometimes dates of birth (from which I see I am two months younger than Stan Tracey and two months older than Ken Colyer) and any personal events which they consider memorable. Several small photos accompany these entries while full page photos occur in the first half. (The publishers apologise for reversing the captions to the Skidmore photos incidentally.)
There are sections on jazz societies and promoters, jazz on film and jazz in print. There are also listings of record companies and importers. (The latter is a little misleading in one aspect; labels such as Queen Disc, SteepleChase, Dogwood etc. are imported solely by Tony Williams of Spotlite yet Williams is not listed as an importer).
In fact an enormous amount of information has been packed into this book and Roger Cotterrell is to be congratulated on his industry. It is a book I know I shall be using a great deal in the future and I hope sales will warrant its updated publication each year.
Jazz Now, edited by Roger Cotterrell (Quartet Books, 27 Goodge Street, London W.1. £1.75. A paperback original. 216 pp, several illustrations, preface by Spike Milligan. Three-page index)
