Black Music

Title: Black Music

Author: IMAMU AMIRI (LEROY JONES) BARAKA

Publisher: CAJA NEGRA EDITORA

Publication Year: 2014

ISBN: 9871622244

In the essay “Jazz and the White Critic” LeRoi Jones observes: “Most jazz critics have been white Americans, but most important jazz musicians have not been.” In Black Music, his perceptive and provocative collection of articles, reviews, profiles, interviews, liner notes, and new essays, Jones has offered a remedy of sorts. In brilliant discussions of Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, and Sun-Ra, he examines each musician’s personality, background, musical ambitions, accomplishments, and disappointments, to illuminate both the context and spirit of jazz.