The Syncopated Bookshelf

This is the third novel in the jazz series for juveniles. The reader follows a 19 year old African-American girl singer. In this fictional account,

While Ragged but Right relives the dusty days of tented minstrelsy, Lift Every Voice examines the music of the same time period from an academic

Ragged but Right musicologists Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff carry readers on a rousing roller-coaster ride from carnivals to tent shows to vaudeville as they

This elegant book, 8.75” x 11”, comes at a time when the 1930 early Technicolor movie about Paul Whiteman and his band, is undergoing a

This pre-publication book review is unusual in that it is on a work of fiction. It is the last of author Larry Karp’s four mystery

Michael Jarrett is a published author and jazz authority as well as an English professor at Pennsylvania State University at York, PA. He looks at

I was impressed immediately with this book’s physical presence. It’s hefty, and I momentarily thought it was sized to mimic a 1940s record album. Actually,

This is the second book of juvenile fiction by author Mick Carlon. His previous book, Riding on Duke’s Train was about a young African-American boy

Author of this book, David Hajdu, is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. He’s music critic for The Nation as well as a songwriter

Martin Torgoff—journalist, author and film-maker—has taken a unique point of view in this book. He has covered the use of recreational and hence illegal drugs

Tom Jacobsen has lived many lives. He’s an archeologist, an author, a teacher and one of America’s foremost experts on the subject of New Orleans

“You see, art is a matter of mastering the devices of expression. Just because you suffer doesn’t make you an artist. It’s the mastery of

Looking back on the 2016 Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival with all its usual joy and frivolity, I am reminded more and more of the

Over the years, I’ve suffered a certain number of headaches owing to musicians (and occasionally whole bands) who mounted the bandstand without the merest clue

Let me state personal bias at the beginning of this review. Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz is on my list of all-time favorites. He

The author of this interesting and complex book is a professor of physics at Brown University. He is also a jazz saxophonist who has recently

The New York Review of Books decided to reprint this classic 1946 hip work about the jazz world, especially New York and Harlem, by Mezz

This interesting book is drawn on observations of author Thomas H. Greenland on the greater New York jazz scene. When most of us consider the

In keeping with the theme, “Any book is new until you’ve read it” I followed up reading Max Gordon’s book Live at the Village Vanguard

Author Burt Feintuch, director of Center for Humanities at the University of New Hampshire has teamed with photographer Gary Samson, chair of the photography department

Have you ever thought about how you actually listen to jazz? As a non-musician, I was intrigued when the publisher sent me a review copy

Here’s a book that should be required reading for Jazz 101 courses worldwide. While aimed primarily at novice jazz fans, more experienced aficionados will also

If the average music fan recognizes the name Harold Arlen at all, likely he remembers Arlen as composer of “Over the Rainbow” and other great