The World of Jazz in Printed Ephemera & Collectibles
I'm always hunting about for books that explore a subject through the use of ephemera. So, when I stumbled upon The World of Jazz: In Printed Ephemera and Collectibles, I thought I'd write a post about this cool, little-known tome edited by Jim Godbolt.
Here's what one Amazon reviewer had to say about The World of Jazz: "The history of jazz and its sociocultural battles within U.S. culture are portrayed in this spectacular collection of documents, photos, newspaper clippings, concert announcements, album covers, advertisements, jazz magazines, and other ephemera of the last 100 years or so. The book's extraordinary photos and well-researched narrative give a fond but unsentimental portrait of jazz history; of brilliant music played against a backdrop of hardship and white expropriation.
The book is a delight: A museum of rare and evocative materials from turn of the century Storyville, New Orleans (the oldest picture is of jazz legend Buddy Bolden's Band circa 1894) up to around 1990 (with posters of recent movies like "Bird" and "Round Midnight"); however, the bulk of the collection is from the early New Orleans days through bebop. We see the very young Louis Armstrong in the "Colored Waif's Home" brass band, and later with his "Hot Five" group in 1925, and then a racist ad for Armstrong's OKEH recording of "St. James Infirmary." Numerous pictures of jazz in Europe, featuring two Django Reinhardt album covers, a "Jazz Illustrated" article about a 1949 Paris concert with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Tad Dameron, and "Hot Lips" Page..."
The World of Jazz editor, Jim Godbolt, served as the editor of the Ronnie Scott Jazz Club House Newsletter for 26 years. While I'm not a huge fan of the music, I've been fascinated by Jazz culture and the interesting characters who populate that world. One such character was my late Great Uncle Willie Berg, who is credited with inventing the mute at the request of the legendary Glen Miller, something I wrote about here.
