cover image Jazz Spoken Here: Conversations with Twenty-Two Musicians

Jazz Spoken Here: Conversations with Twenty-Two Musicians

Wayne Enstice. Louisiana State University Press, $24.95 (316pp) ISBN 978-0-8071-1760-6

For seven years, Enstice, an art professor at Indiana State University, and Rubin, a Phoenix-based writer, hosted and produced ``Just Talk'' for a National Public Radio affiliate in Tuscon, Arizona. Between 1975 and 1981, they recorded informal interviews with 22 of the best jazzmen (no jazzwomen here). Some (Art Blakey, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, Sonny Stitt and Gabor Szabo) have since passed away; others (including Mose Allison, Anthony Braxton, Ray Bryant, Mercer Ellington, Tommy Flanagan, Lee Konitz, Joe Pass, Clark Terry and Henry Threadgill) still soar. Each of these wonderfully fresh and insightful interviews opens with a concise biography of the performer; then the musician speaks for himself about getting started, influences, feelings about jazz, survival. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)