LEROI JONES (AMIRI BARAKA) - Black Music

I’ve been waiting for a proper reprint of this book ever since I discovered it at the big York U. library over 15 years ago. Rereading it now, it’s amazing how much of an influence the former Leroi Jones' (now Amiri Baraka) attitudes toward black jazz music had on my musical outlook. Better known now as an incendiary poet/playwright, he was also a publicist for Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Billie Holiday, and an influential jazz critic for Downbeat, Metronome, and Jazz Review in the '60s, the period from which this collection is derived.

Jones/Baraka took an uncompromising stance in support of the jazz avant-garde, lamenting its lack of commercial viability vis-à-vis the more successful hard bop (which he disdained) and third-stream. His writing would become increasingly militant during the loft jazz period of the 70’s, when left-field jazz became further marginalized.

Time has vindicated his canonization of such figures as John Coltrane (who had widely alienated the jazz mainstream by the time of these writings), Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry, and many others whose work continues to grow in stature for music fans who favour intensity and raw emotion over mindless technique.