WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Critical biography of a neglected jazz genius
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
Stratusphunk: George Russell, His Life and Music
by Duncan Heining Jazz Internationale, £14.99
THE great Wolverhampton-born bassist Dave Holland said of Russell: “He’s done something which a lot of musicians aspire to, which is to create a world of his own within the music.” Yet this world was never an introspective one or enclosed behind musical walls.
As a young man in New York, Russell knew and worked with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Mingus. The knowledge which formed the foundation of his genuinely influential theoretical work, the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organisation, was based on active exposure to such jazz revolutionaries.
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Re-releases from Bobby Wellins/Kenny Wheeler Quintet, Larry Stabbins/Keith Tippet/Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Charles Mingus Quintet
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ethiopian vocalist SOFIA JERNBERG
