This list, compiled by the JJA’s Book Award committee chaired by Bob Blumenthal, comprises titles to be considered for the 2022 Award for best book on jazz, its influences and offshoots. Links are provided for convenience — the JJA urges purchasers to seek these volumes out from local and independent booksellers. Note that JJA members Debbie Burke, Jordannah Elizabeth, Bill Milkowski and Deanna Witkowski are among the authors! Congratulations to all on their books.
Sven Bjerstedt, Storytelling in Jazz and Musicality in Theatre: Through the Mirror (Routledge)
Cisco Bradley, Universal Tonality: The Life of William Parker (Duke University Press)
Patrick Brennan, Ways and Sounds (Arteidolia Press)
David Burke, Giant Steps: Diverse Journeys in British Jazz (Desert Hearts)
Dottie Dodgion & Wayne Enstice, The Lady Swings: Memoirs of a Jazz Drummer (University of Illinois Press)
Debbie Burke, Klezmer for the Joyful Soul (Queen Esther Publishing), and also Tasty Jazz Jams for Our Times, Vol. 2.
Jordannah Elizabeth & Briana Denguoie, She Raised Her Voice: 50 Black Women Who Sang Their Way into Music History (Hachette)
Caseen Gaines, Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way (Sourcebooks)
Arlen Gargagliano & Ulysses Owens, Jr., The Musician’s Career Guide (Allworth)
Ebony Gilbert & David Calcano, Billie Holiday: The Graphic Novel: Women in Jazz (Fantoons)
Joel Harrison, Guitar Talk: Conversations with Visionary Players (Terra Nova Press)
Philip Johnston, Silent Films/Loud Music: New Ways of Listening to and Thinking About Silent Film Music (Bloomsbury Academic)
Jackie Kay, Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography (Vintage)
Joe LaBarbara, Charles Levin, Times Remembered: The Final Years of the Bill Evans Trio (University of North Texas Press)
Geoffrey Littlefield & Christopher Riddle, Nelson Riddle: Music with a Heartbeat (Grosvenor House Publishing)
John Lurie, The History of Bones: A Memoir (Random House)
The Songs of Alan Broadbent and Georgia Mancio (self)
Mike Mattison & Ernest Suarez, Poetic Song Verse: Blues-Based Popular Music and Poetry (University Press of Mississippi)
Josephine Matyas and Craig Jones, Chasing the Blues: A Traveler’s Guide to America’s Music (Backbeat Books)
Bill Milkowski, Ode to a Tenor Titan: The Life and Times of Michael Brecker (Backbeat Books)
Kevin Mooney, Texas Jazz Singer: Louise Tobin in the Golden Age of Jazz and Beyond (Texas A&M University Press)
Margriet Naber, John Tchicai: A Chaos with Some Kind of Order (Ear Mind Heart Media)
Jeremy Pelt, Griot: This is Important! (PeltJazz Publishing)
Ed & Diane Reed, Double Helix: A Memoir of Addiction, Recovery and Jazz in Two Voices (Reedswrite Books)
Marc Ribot, Unstrung: Rants and Stories of a Noise Guitarist (Akashic Books)
Kate Soloman, Amy Winehouse (Laurence King)
David Sulzer, Music, Math and Mind (Columbia University Press)
Jay Thomas, Life and Jazz Stories (McVouty Publishing)
Mike Titlebaum, Jazz Improvisation Using Simple Melodic Embellishment (Routledge)
Traci N. Todd & Christian Robinson, Nina: A Story of Nina Simone (Penguin Random House)
Richard Brent Turner, Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz and Black Internationalism (NYU Press)
Eberhard Weber, translated by Heidi Kirk, Eberhard Weber: A German Jazz Story (Equinox)
Deanna Witkowski, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul (People of God) (Liturgical Press)
James Gordon Williams, Crossing Bar Lines: The Politics and Practice of Black Musical Space (University Press of Mississippi)
Misc., Steve Lacy Unfinished (Lenka Lente – multi-lingual)
