CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
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Spontaneous combustion
Memoirs of a great jazz drummer fizz with the sense of improvisatory freedom inherent in his music, says CHRIS SEARLE
[vortexjazz.co.uk]
TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall
A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking
New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage
An Uncommon Music for the Common Man
by Edwin Prevost
(Copula Publications, £20)
ANYONE who has heard Eddie Prevost play drums live or on record knows that his music is an amalgam of passion, intellect and artistry — blood and brain fused with a relentless practical and imaginative invention.
He is a fine writer too and this “polemical memoir,” as he calls it, is an ensemble of autobiographical narratives, thoughts on contemporary musical culture and reflections on the nature of free improvisation.
In the latter, he is a true pioneer and believer in “the principal maxim of searching” to ground his music.
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