Quartet Jazz: a view of the jazz book publishing marketAuthor(s): Chris ParkerSource: Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Juli-September 1989), pp. 215-219Published by: International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres(IAML)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23507420 .

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Chr. Paiker: Quartet Jazz : a view of the jazz book publishing market 215

proved ourselves with our treatment of Blue Note masters, other labels were only too

willing to co-operate. Our sets carry one unifying factor: they are complete within the scope of their indi

vidual premises. Initially we dealt with an artist's peak output that was complete within a given label. Now we are able to cross label lines. For example, we are planning an Illinois Jacquet set that will be his complete recorded output as a leader from 1945

(his beginnings) to 1950 and will cover his recordings for RCA, Aladdin, Apollo, Savoy and a variety of small labels. This means that Mosaic, rare among reissue programs, has the ability to gather a body of work that crosses corporate lines to give a clear

historic picture. We have also embarked on another direction. There are few labels like Blue Note,

where the name stands for a standard of quality and importance whatever the record.

One of those few is Commodore, a most cherished and respected label of the late

thirties, forties and early fifties. We have embarked on The Complete Jazz Recordings of

Commodore Records. The first volume, already issued, contains 23 records. The

second, which is imminent, will be the same amount. The third and final volume will be somewhat smaller. But Commodore has stood for such uncompromising artistic

excellence that its name is as meaningful as any artist's. And to be able to compile such

a set allows us to encompass all those wonderful sessions by magnificent, historically

secondary musicians, alongside the Billie Holidays, Teddy Wilsons and Coleman Haw

kinses, and paint a real picture of a music as it was happening, preserving the gems that

might have been lost by skimming history's highlights. 67 of the 344 tracks on the first volume of the Commodore collection are previously unissued. Mosaic is able not only

to gather coherently and preserve history, but also to add to it.

Our label is a unique and often frustrating operation. But we cannot think of anything

more gratifying or significant to do with our lives.

Quartet Jazz: a view of the jazz book publishing market

Chris Parker (London)'

The jazz market, not a homogeneous one, is full of rival factions, so great care and open-mind edness is essential in the production of books for general jazz readership; it is difficult to predict what will sell, though books with 'crossover' interest generally do well; print-runs must be

realistic; inevitably, a great deal of subjective judgement is involved in the selection process; the

responsibility of the publisher in a specialist field is more marked than in a general-interest topic:

to represent music fairly and accurately, with due attention to the essential activities of avant

garde, despite low sales potential; first-person accounts are valuable; acceptance into retailing

mainstream desirable; dissemination through libraries gratifying.

To a casual observer it might appear that the market for jazz books shares many of the

characteristics of the market for cricket books: a smallish, dedicated band of devotees

whose interest is such that they will buy, devour and dispute happily among them

selves over practically anything appearing in print on the subject. Unfortunately, the

Chris Parker was formerly a publisher with Quartet Books and is now working freelance.

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216 Chi. Parker: Quartet Jazz: a view of the jazz book publishing market

jazz world is not like this — the cricket world probably isn't either. While outsiders

experience little difficulty in seeing this world as a basically homogeneous phenome non involving a small group of improvisers huddled in a late-night club serenading an

enthusiastic knot of hard-drinking aficionados, to insiders, the reality of the situation is

inevitably more complex than this stereotype. It sometimes seems, indeed, that there

are as many definitions of jazz as there are enthusiasts for it and this heterogeneousness, this complete lack of agreement as to what constitutes jazz

— a term, incidentally,

vehemently rejected for its low-life connotations by many, especially in the African

American community —

brings in its wake serious problems for anyone wishing to put out any product aimed at a general readership within the field.

To be more specific: a book like A History of Jazz in Britain 1919—50 by Jim Godbolt is guaranteed to attract an enormous amount of hostility simply by virtue of what it

excludes — in this case dance-band music of the 1930s as played by the likes of Am

brose — and what it includes: the pioneering visit of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

or the beginnings of British bop, since a reader eager to learn more about the ODJB will often consider bop completely beyond the pale. Another brief example: Miles Davis

by Ian Carr was strongly criticised in some quarters for treating the trumpeter's later

electronic music as seriously as his bop-sideman and cool periods, many Davis fans con

sidering that he simply stopped playing when his band plugged in. Clearly, if individual books tread warily through minefields of this type, then a jazz list, which must seek to

be representative of the entire sweep of the music from Jelly Roll Morton to Anthony

Braxton, if it is to be worthy of the name, can establish itself only through the applica tion of supreme tact, patience and open-mindedness. Such, anyway, is the theory.

What can be stated with a considerable degree of conviction is one simple truth: there

is no predicting what will sell. Showtime at the Apollo by Ted Fox, despite being a

thumping good read, meticulously researched and about a topic accessible to and

holding interest for a great number of readers uninterested by jazz per se — black music

in all its richness and diversity, from blues to soul and funk — and despite fortuitously

having a TV series with the same name go out shortly after its publication, sold fewer

hardback copies than what at first sight would seem to be a highly specialised book:

Russian Jazz, New Identity, edited by Leo Feigin. The high sales of the latter book might be a reflection of the fact that it could have appealed to two special-interest groups

—

USSR-watchers and improvised-music fans — for the latter of whom the new music

coming out of the Soviet Union is tremendously exciting. This theory is supported by the sales of another book: Stormy Weather, the Music and Lives of a Century of Jazz women by Linda Dahl, which sold out within three months of appearing in paperback, and can reasonably be supposed to have 'crossed over' from a pure jazz audience to the

large numbers of readers interested in the reclamation of women's history. One other truth universally acknowledged, but tricky to put into practice, concerns

print-runs, for to sell 10,000 out of a run of 25,000 is worse than selling 1,500 out of

2,000, despite the high unit costs involved in producing the latter number of books.

Quartet's print-runs, originally modest, have recently been cut down to a number

which proves too low in some cases, since A Left Hand Like God by Peter Silvester, a study of boogie-woogie, sold over half its run in less than two months, but the

runs nevertheless must represent a realistic assessment of expected sales rather than

an idealistic dream of what sales should be, given the books' gravity and undoubted

worthiness.

So, given that the market is almost unidentifiable, totally unpredictable and select —

not to say small — how is it possible to apply meaningful criteria in a selection process? It should be pointed out here that the bulk of Quartet's jazz output results from unsoli

cited submissions provided, either as complete manuscripts or as detailed synopses, by

eager beavers keen to convert a lifelong obsession into literary fame and fortune. Some

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Chi. Parker: Quaitet jazz: a view of the jazz book publishing maiket 217

of Quartet's most successful books, among them the aforementioned A Left Hand Like

God; the sell-out study of jazz in 1950s California, Jazz West Coast by Bob Gordon; and

African All-Stais, a study of African traditional and pop music by Chris Stapleton and

Chris May, all came about as the result of unsolicited approaches to the company on

their authors' part. It would be easy to pretend that a lot of hard-nosed commercially minded market-oriented strategic planning went into the ensuing selection/rejection

decision, but in all honesty it must be admitted that, given that one customarily views

oneself as a model of fair-mindedness and perspicacity, a much simpler criterion is

generally applied: would I want to read this book on that topic? Of course, some authors' writing is an acquired taste, or quirky enough to appeal

greatly only to me, but not necessarily to a wider audience. Mike Zwerin, three of

whose books Quartet has published in the last decade, is such a writer: highly idio

syncratic, personal, delightfully discursive, a born stylist. Or, to some, a self-obsessed

navel-contemplater. In cases like these, one simply has to come clean and admit one

backs one's hunches and be prepared to accept the brickbats as well as the bouquets. While Zwerin's autobiography, Close Enough foi Jazz, and a study of swing in occupied

Europe, La Tristesse de Saint Louis, were both steady sellers and critical successes, his

latest venture, a freewheeling and highly amusing attempt to capture the essence of

French jazz writer Boris Vian in English — Round About Close to Midnight

—- was only the latter, though it's still perhaps early days, with the jury still out on it. One rule

of thumb I do tend to apply, however, in this treacherously subjective area is: avoid

the person whose letter begins, 'For many years now, I have been a regular contributor

to ...', since this usually masks a desire on the writer's part to receive another pay

ment for already-published work in the form of an advance for a collection of his or her

articles. A channel to be warily navigated, too, is the one between the Scylla of the

enthusiastic but incapable amateur who is still sorting out material a year after the

deadline and the Charybdis of the cynical pro who either produces a workmanlike but

unexciting hack job or simply disappears with the advance without so much as putting

pen to paper. Rarely, a subject suggests itself and a writer ditto and a project is born:

such a subject was A History of Jazz in Britain 1970—90, the writer Charles Fox; or a

personal overview of popular music, the overviewer Donald Clarke — both books in

Quartet's pipeline — or the musical heritage of black men and women in the Americas,

author Chicago bluesman Julio Finn, his book The Bluesman all but selling out its

print-run over four years. Even if it were possible to predict with any accuracy the sales of a particular book,

other criteria must also be borne in mind, chief among them the responsibility of the

publisher, as one of very few specialist firms in a neglected field, to document the music

fairly, representatively and accurately. This responsibility occasionally entails pro

ducing works which are unlikely to appeal to a general readership, and which are as a

result expensive to produce, but which are vital because they deal with an area of the

music under-represented, either because it is 'difficult' or avant-garde, or because it is

simply unfashionable. An example from Quartet's list immediately springing to mind

in the former category is Forces in Motion: the Meta-reality of Creative Music by

Graham Lock, a study of the music and philosophy of Anthony Braxton. If performers

and artists at the cutting edge of an art form are not given attention, the art form will

inevitably stagnate by not moving forward; the present fashion for bebop is a good

example of how the avant-garde of one generation is the mainstream of a later one —

indeed young musicians today refer to bebop as 'the tradition', a word which the older

generation associated exclusively with New Orleans. An example in the latter category

is the autobiography of legendary bass player Red Callender, Unfinished Dream, which

while not appealing to any particular modish group — its author is an enviably easy

going and tolerant man who plays as easily with traditional musicians as with the

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218 Chi. Parker: Quartet Jazz : a view of the jazz book publishing market

avant-garde — tells a unique but generally unsung story: that of the professional, often

studio-based musician, the musicians' musician.

A related point in this connection concerns fairness of representation, the avoidance

of the commercial gimmick or the resort to sensationalism to sell books. Where possi ble — and this task becomes more urgent with each passing year and each passing jazz

musician — it would seem not only courteous but good sense for authenticity's sake to

go to the musicians themselves for the story in their own words. Quartet is actually less

active in this field than Alyn Shipton who, in his time with Macmillan, published a

great number of first-hand accounts of jazz lives which, taken together, provide a rich

and irreplaceable archive not only for future historians of the music but for present-day enthusiasts and researchers.

Of course, all this activity counts for little or nothing if the finished books don't get out to the public. Although jazz books still tend to be somewhat 'ghettoised', shunted

off into specialist bookshops and record stores, there are signs of improvement, perhaps a result of the generally higher media profile jazz has assumed, especially in the United

Kingdom, of late, in that an increasing number of general-interest shops do seem to be

stocking them in larger numbers. Quartet jazz books attract interest from all over the

world — in a typical week, I'll be contacted by a Finn, a Hungarian, a Pole, several

Americans and the odd Australian — and the majority of the list is sold on to American

publishers, most frequently to those stalwarts of the jazz-book world, Da capo Press in

New York. As encouraging, though — and this is perhaps a foolhardy position for an

employee of a commercial concern to take — is the sight of Quartet jazz books in libra

ries all over the country — still an inestimably precious free resource — and the

experience of authors, telling me how much they have earned from Public Lending

Right. People out there are reading and listening!

Quartet Jazz: a list of titles Julio Finn. The bluesman. ISBN 0 7043 2523 3.

c. t, ... T . H r-i . I u- Ted Fox. Showtime at the Apollo. — 1983. Stan Bntt. Long tall Dexter: a critical bio- F

graphy of Dexter Gordon. - 1989. ISBN 0 7043 2531 4'

ISBN 0 7043 2628 0. Dizzy Gillespie & Ed Frazer. Dizzy: to be or

Red Callender & Elaine Cohen. Unfinished not t0 bop' ~ 1979' ISBN 0 7043 3381 3'

dream: the musical world of Red Callender. Jim Godbolt. A history of jazz in Britain — 1985. ISBN 0 7043 2507 1. 1919—50. — 1984. ISBN 0 7043 2452 0.

Ian Carr. Miles Davis: a critical biography. — Robert Gordon. Jazz West Coast: the Los 1982. ISBN 0 7043 2273 0. Angeles scene of the 1950s. — 1986.

Samuel Charters. The roots of the blues: an ISBN 0 7043 2603 5.

African search. 1981. ISBN 0 7043 3416 X. Lesley Gourse. Every day: the story of Joe

John Chilton. Billie's blues: a survey of Billie Williams. 1985. ISBN 0 7043 2466 0.

Holiday s carier, 1933 1959. 1975. Kitty Grime. Jazz voices. — 1983.

ISBN 0 7043 3114 4. ISBN 0 7043 2390 7.

Linda Dahl. Stormy weather: the music and Paul Carter Harrison & Chuck Stewart. Chuck

iVZ°La C,entmy °f jaZZ W°men■ ~ 1984' Stewart's jazz files. - 1985.

ISBN 0 7043 0057 5. ISBN 0 7043 2552 7.

Leonard Feather The jazz years: earwitness to Nat Hemoff & Albert McCarthy, eds. Jazz new an era. - 1986. ISBN 0 7043 2579 9.

perspectives on the history of jazz !.. -

Leonard Feather. The encyclopedia of jazz; rev 1959/1974. ISBN 0 7043 3151 9.

ed. — 1984. ISBN 0 7043 3466 6. „ , . , „ . , Graham Lock. Forces m motion: Anthony Leo Feigin. Russian jazz: new identity. — 1985. Braxton and the meta-reality of creative

ISBN 0 7043 2506 3. music. 1988. ISBN 0 7043 2620 5.

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P. Candini: Musicafazz: the Italian jazz magazine which is also a record 219

Chris Parker, ed. B flat, bebop, scat. Arthur Taylor. Notes and tones: musician-to

ISBN 0 7043 2568 3. musician interviews. — 1977/1982.

„. jy . , ... , , . , ISBN 0 7043 0054 0. Brian Priestley. Mmgus: a critical biography.

— 1982. ISBN 0 7043 2275 7. Bruce Turner. Hot air, cool music. — 1984.

Ross Russell. Bird lives!: the high life and hard ISBN 0 7043 2459 8'

times of Charlie Yardbird Parker. 1973. Boris Vian. Round about close to midnight.— ISBN 0 7043 3094 6. 1988. ISBN 0 7043 2619 1.

Charles Sawyer. B. B. King: the authorized Mike Zwerin chse enQUgh fol jazz _ 1983 biography. — 1980. ISBN 0 7043 3415 1. ISBN 0 7043 2400 I

Peter Silvester. A left hand like God: a study of Mikg Zwgrin £risteMe de Saint Louis: boogie-woogie. - 1988. ISBN 0 7043 2685 X.

^ ^ ^ ^ _ lçg4 Chris Stapleton &. Chris May. African all-stars: ISBN 0 7043 2420 2.

the pop music of a continent. — 1987.

ISBN 0 7043 2504 7.

Musica Jazz: the Italian jazz magazine which is also a record

Pino Candini (Milan)*

Musica Jazz, has been published monthly in Milan since 1945 and is the only jazz magazine to

incorporate an LP recording. The recordings, which often contain rare and previously unavail

able material, reflect the central feature of each issue. Since 1984 the editor has been Pino

Candini.

Musica Jazz, published monthly in Milan, eleven issues per year, is the only Italian jazz

magazine and one of the oldest in Europe. It was founded in August 1945, just at the end

of the war during which jazz was prohibited by the fascist authorities and survived

underground. Despite years of difficulties and spartan accommodation never a month

was missed.

Since November 1981 Musica Jazz has been published by Rusconi Editore, one of

Italy's leading publishers. This gave the magazine, already well-known to Italian jazz

fans, a greater circulation and a more stylish appearance. Nowadays, each issue of the

magazine runs to about ninety pages and, unique among jazz magazines, includes a

33rpm, 12-inch LP devoted to a leading jazz musician, a period of jazz history or an

instrument, etc. The LPs contain fortyfive minutes of music. Famous or rare titles, in

some cases never previously issued on record, are obtained for us by tape collectors.

We have now produced about eighty records and these are not obtainable in any other

way. Featured musicians range from James P. Johnson (rare compositions for piano) to

Duke Ellington (alternate takes of his symphonic works), from Eric Dolphy (including

an unissued recording from the Enja archives) to jazz interpretations of songs by Cole

Porter. The eleven records of 1988 featured Jimmy Giuffre, Charlie Christian, Roy

Eldridge, W. C. Handy, Stan Getz, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk (unissued

Pino Candini is Editor of Musica Jazz.

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