WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
In search of the man who defined Brazil musically
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a book that explores imaginatively the disappearance of Francisco Tenorio Cerqueira, the famed precursor of Brazil’s contemporary popular music
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
They Shot The Piano Player
Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, SelfMadeHero, £29.99
ON MARCH 18 1976 one of Brazil’s most innovative musicians of the time, Francisco Tenorio Cerqueira, aka Tenorio Jr, played a concert with Vinicius de Moraes and Toquinho at the Gran Rex in Buenos Aires. He returned to his hotel and his companion, and shortly after 3am the 34-year-old left to buy a sandwich. He was never heard of or seen again.
Argentina was a dangerous place at the time, convulsed by extrajudicial kidnapping and murder instigated against all manner of social activists by a ruthless military junta.
By borrowing from the title of Francois Truffaut’s 1960 film Shoot The Piano Player (The Truffaut films Jules and Jim and The 400 Blows were very popular in Brazil) the authors set the tone for a noir-ish investigation.
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