As the Cold War and the McCarthy witch hunt continued relentlessly in the late fifties, a group of bold musicians abandoned bebop and challenged the limits of improvised music. While some critics and elder established stars called them frauds, bogus and charlatans, the trailblazers pressed on in their quest, with icons - pianist Cecil Taylor, saxophonists John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman assuming leadership status in this music called free jazz or "The New Thing." The spectacular images of the music's essential albums reproduced in this buying guide are presented to the consumer seeking to...

Modern Jazz Classics is intended to provide the reader an in-depth, yet concise, purview into the musical life of significant contributors to the modern jazz era. Certainly not every artist or composition is reflected in this highly discriminating book. What is displayed is considered to be the "best of the best" of the incomparable era of modern jazz. "Modern Jazz Classics, by jazz collector and historian K Kelly McElroy, is an essential book for anyone who wants a quick and knowledgeable reference to find the 'best of the best' of modern jazz artists and compositions. Amazingly concise and...

This book, Rasta, Babylon, Jamming: The Music and Culture of Roots Culture, has been a long time in coming. In the late 1970s, mainstream publishers didn't want any part of a music that spoke against colonialism, capitalism or social injustice. Viewed as a transcendent resource book, capable of enlightening and informing and providing a point of entry into the musical legacy of Rastafarians. Its message is one of a vital Afrocentric themes and the Rasta doctrine of resistance, political self-determinism and black survival. This is reggae at its best with no gimmicks, pure and unadulterated....