New from Five Leaves, Mixed Messages by Peter Vacher

From journeymen musicians to stars with many albums to their name, Mixed Messages includes interviews with 21 American jazz musicians – on music, mostly, but the world intrudes, as it does with the best of jazz music.

The musicians range from the late trombonist Louis Nelson, who was born in 1902, through the New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis, who is still playing and on to Byron Stripling, who plays trumpet with his Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Peter Vacher has been interviewing American jazz players since the 1950s and this is his second collection of interviews. As well as Nelson, Marsalis and Stripling this book includes interviews with Norman 'Dewey' Keenan, Gerald Wilson, Fip Ricard, Ruby Braff, George 'Buster' Cooper, Bill Berry, Benny Powell, Plas Johnson Jr., Carl 'Ace' Carter, Herman Riley, Lanny Morgan, John Eckert, Houston Pearson Jr., Tom Artin, Rufus Reid, John Stubblefield IV, Judy Carmichael and Tardo Hammer.

Mixed Messages is lavishly illustrated with rare and original photographs and will be of interest to any serious follower of jazz. The book is large format, 315 pages - you get a lot of book for your money.

Peter Vacher knows just about everybody in the jazz world. His interviews and articles have appeared throughout the English-speaking world, including in the Melody Maker, Jazz UK and CODA. His previous book of interviews is Soloists and Sidemen (Northway). He also writes too many obituaries of jazz musicians for The Guardian.

Copies of the book will be in bookshops very shortly, but are available meantime from www.inpressbooks.co.uk/mixed-messages-american-jazz-stories/