Full Description
It is more than a century
since the first great jazz records by virtuosi such as Joe 'King' Oliver, Louis
Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington were created.
Throughout these ten decades, the music that began in the street parades,
backstairs sessions and Jim Crow ambiance of New Orleans by brilliant yet often
impoverished black musicians has become a true music of the world. in his new
book, 'Global Groove: Words of a Jazz Cosmos', Chris Searle, for the last
thirty years jazz correspondent of the 'Morning Star', has written hundreds of
reviews of live and recorded music that have documented jazz's cosmopolitan
growth as a music ever-expressing brilliant sonic creations of
internationalism, racial and political justice, women's equality, a rejection
of authoritarianism and a love of peace between the world's peoples. As musical
messages of progress, the true sounds of jazz are bold, boundary-breaking,
clear and beautiful. Searle's 'Global Groove' seeks to show that in unambiguous
terms through his listening, interviewing, writing and reviewing over a
lifetime's love of the music.
Global Groove' is Chris's fourth
book on jazz, following 'Forward Groove' (Northway Publications, 2008), 'Red
Groove' (Five Leaves Jazz, 2013) and 'Talking The Groove' (Jazz In
Britain, 2024). The book includes a mix of essays, reviews and dozens of
interviews with jazz veterans and newcomers from all over the world;
established virtuosi and younger musicians - who Art Blakey called 'new stars
of the jazz firmament'. The book shows that - in its second century - jazz has
become a truly global phenomenon, whilst always remaining a campaigning and
evolving music with its aims rooted in a quest for freedom, popular justice and
astonishing, boundary-breaking artistry.
The book includes a preface by
the legendary pianist and improviser Pat Thomas, who says "Chris is not
afraid to see that justice has always been crucial to the message of Jazz,
created in the worst conditions possible by a people who overcame inhumane
brutality and horrific torture; people who were regarded as barely human, yet through
their art have shown the triumph of the human spirit."
