[Dixielandjazz] Martin Williams

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

The writings of Martin Williams on jazz are of a high standard and include a wide range of the music --- a lack of interest in Miles Davis won't encourage some readers to look at Williams on that musician, but if you get the chance to read him on people whose music interests you, read him. 


As I recall the King Oliver book wasn't in a book for younger listeners, the glossy hardback format of a series also including Eddie Lambert on Johnny Dodds was just a publishing curiosity. These were brief serious introductions with I'd suppose some ambition to attract and inform and deepen the interest of people with a general liking for older, but then not so old, jazz, while at the same time making observations of interest to the already fairly well informed, and this at a time when the amount of older jazz easily to be had on record was not that great, other than on 78 rpm. 

The series had all been printed by the time I was old enough to take a serious interest in jazz, and some of the importance in the books was in directing attention to what was worth looking out even in junk shops or fleamarket stalls. 

A great experience, finding in one trip to one shop a ten inch French LP of McKinney's Cotton Pickers and a pair of hiking boots!

Or finding one of these books and the illumination within --

kicks!
Robert R. Calder