Bill Shoemaker's Jazz In The 1970s: Diverging Streams

[ghost of miles]

I came across this yesterday on the new-arrivals shelf at the IU Music Library and checked it out--looks promising:

Jazz In The 1970s: Diverging Streams

[clifford_thornton]

It's cool and a good read but there are no footnotes, endnotes, or other citations.

[relyles]

Curious whether anyone else has given this a read?

[Rabshakeh]

I finished this book today. I have to say that I enjoyed it about as much as any book that I have read about the jazz avant garde (which is what it is: it's about avant garde jazz and improvised music from the New Thing in the 60s to the European Free Improv and NY Downtown scenes of the 90s; it really isn't about jazz in the 70s), except possibly for books made up of interviews with musicians (in which category I'd put Val Wilmer etc).

It has a nice feel for narrative and development, and it stays reasonably open-minded and free of polemic. 

I particularly liked the mixed focus, which draws in economic, structural and critical developments and gives them near-equal billing with musical developments.

Edited 20 February by Rabshakeh

[mjazzg]

Thanks for the review, one to get it would seem

[Rabshakeh]

2 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Thanks for the review, one to get it would seem

I doubt that anything in it would be news to you. It is very much an overview. I enjoyed the telling, and the way he tied the threads into an overall narrative. 

Edited 20 February by Rabshakeh

[relyles]

I have not read the entire book yet, but I have enjoyed the chapters I have read. All though they are chronological, the chapters themselves are not connected to each other so it is easy to select chapters to read. If you are familiar with Shoemaker's online magazine, Point Of Departure, much of the writing is similar to essays he has written there.