Book review: Burgin Mathews - Magic Town. 'How the Birmingham Jazz Tradition Shaped the Sound of America'

New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Kansas City - cities that are well represented in the annuls of jazz history. Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia and other cities also play peripheral roles in the music's spread across America and all are documented to a greater or lesser degree in jazz literature.

Until now, apart from the tune Tuxedo Junction, Birmingham, Alabama has been overlooked as one of  jazz's melting pots.

Of course the whole world is familiar with Birmingham and for all the wrong reasons. Children being killed in church bombings and  harassed by police on a civil rights march. Segregation persisting even after a law had been passed making it illegal. Nat King Cole attacked on stage and so many more acts of racial violence that, even now, make me shudder just reading about them.

In Magic City, Burgin Mathews, writes about those events alongside the stories of the city's musicians who moved on and achieved success such as Erskine Hawkins (composer of Tuxedo Junction which was an actual junction on the edge of Birmingham), Sonny Blount (later to become Sun Ra), Joe Guy (early bop trumpet player and at one time Billie Holiday's lover), Al Killian (Ellington trumpet player murdered in L.A.), Avery Parrish (composer of After Hours), sax and clarinettist Haywood Henry (did I see him at Sunderland Empire with Earl Hines? I think I did), Paul and Dud Bascombe and many more.

There were also those who stayed in Birmingham often as teachers and bandleaders who nurtured and prepared their students for a career further afield.

The matt black and white photos have been stunningly restored without any of the graininess common to so many older photos.

It's a compelling read. Full of sadness and injustice but also with some lighter moments. Many of the local Birmingham musicians I'd never heard of yet, by the end of the book, I felt I knew them as well as the more famous names. Lance

MORE INFO.