Beautiful images from the legendary Ann Arbor Blues Festival – a long-running even that's pulled together an amazing range of talent over the years – a good number of whom are featured here! The festival probably hit its biggest fame in the early 70s – when recordings documented work by Sun Ra, Art Ensemble, and many blues musicians – and most of the images here even predate those years, as almost all the photographs appear to be from 1969 and 1970 – huge appearances for still-living blues legends! The quality of the images is great – and the book features images of John Lee Hooker, Son House, Sippie Wallace, Sunnyland Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, Fred McDowell, Little Brother Montgomery, Willie Dixon, Robert Lockwood, Buddy Guy, Lowell Fulson, and many others – all in crisp, vintage black and white. 128 pages, softcover, with images throughout. Book

A fantastic slice of work from WEB Dubois – materials showcased at the Paris Exposition of 1900, in a special exhibit in which Dubois tried to convey the reality of black life in America to a larger international audience! The materials include a number of handmade charts, graphs, and maps – all created by DuBois as an early sort of data analysis, with a very visual punch – images that instantly conveyed the black experience in America in the years after the Civil War – combined with a range of photographs that provided visual illustration of the contents. Much of DuBois' efforts were to showcase advancement and achievements – and the large 11" x 17" presentation of the softcover book allows the reproductions of these materials to really get the kind of prominence they had at the exposition. The book is the first-ever reproduction of all these items, along with the photographs – and features a new essay by historians Stephen G Hall and Jacqueline Francis. Book

A great look at a really unique moment in fashion – a time when the mainstream trappings of ivy league styles were taken up by African-American cultural figures – a moment of cooption that led was key to a rising sense of pride and power in the postwar years! You'll instantly recognize the look from the image of Miles Davis on the cover – and Davis is one of the figures who gets focus in the book – alongside other jazz musicians like Billy Taylor and Sonny Rollins, writers like Amiri Baraka and James Baldwin, and civil rights icons like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X – all of whom wore button down shirts, well-crafted blazers, and hip skinny ties as they helped forge a whole new identity for black America in the 50s and 60s. The book is beautifully done – and ties together so many images we know from the press and record covers, mixed with others we're seeing here for the first time – all give thoughtful text along the way by British writer Jason Jules. The heavy, hardcover book is 224 pages in all – with color and black and white images throughout. Book

A pretty amazing survey of the Cali art scene of the late 70s – served up here in a book that's half essay, half images – with work from dozens of important artists who include Edward Ruscha, Jim Melchert, Charles Gaines, Joe Goode, Patrick Hogan, The Kipper Kids, Hal Fischer, Judy Chicago, Robert Arneson, Peter D'Agostino, Karen Carson, Robert E Brown, Tony Berland, Terry Fox, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, and even the folks at Survival Research Laboratories! The book offers up large, full-color images of dozens of important art works – and the writing does a great job of contextualizing the material – as part of an exhibition put together by the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. 312 pages, hardcover, and super-heavy! Book

A well done book about the continuing importance of soul and R&B in black culture over the decades – one that begins its journey in the 70s, and moves right up to the present with a key chapter on the music in the post-George Floyd landscape in America! Author Alexander Ghedi Weheliye has a very particular bent at times – and the chapters work together more almost like related essays, instead of an exhaustive whole – a format that allows him to shift topics easily – between cellphones, new wave, remix technology, and diaspora – while still also bringing everything together through continuing themes, and copious notes that accompany the writings. The book also features two interviews, and directions to an accompanying playlist on Spotify – and this softcover edition is almost 300 pages, with some black and white images. Book

A hefty paper presentation of the fantastic Smithsonian exhibit of the same name – filled with images from the important showcase at the Museum Of African American History & Culture – and balanced with new essays penned for the book! The book is filled with striking images throughout – of groundbreaking artists, musicians, and even pop culture figures – a lineup that includes Sun Ra, Betty Davis, Black Panther, Nona Hendryx, Jordan Peele, Samuel Delaney, Nick Cave, Octavia Butler, and dozens of others – alongside images from films, books, records, artwork, posters, and other sources – interwoven with writings from Angela Tate, Vernon Reid, NK Jemisin, Eve Ewing, Elaine Nichols, and others. The mix of voices and subjects is huge, and stunning – and this softcover volume is 216 pages, with full color images throughout. Book

A well-known book around these parts – and a very important piece of Chicago history! The playful title is no mistake – as Dempsey Travis tells the story of black Chicago through his own history – his youth on the south side, rise as an important African-American businessman, and his continued years of service to and interaction with the community. Travis is one of those names that may not ring that strongly outside the Windy City, but here in Chicago he left an undeniable impact – where his story of hope and hard work have gone onto inspire many over the years. But more than tale of success, the book's just a great read – and a really fascinating portrait of the changes in mid-century Chicago through one man's eyes. 216 pages, softcover. Book

A well-written account of one of the most important record labels in the early years of 78rpm singles – the legendary Paramount Records, home to important work from blues legends like Son House, Skip James, and Blind Lemon Jefferson – and key jazz musicians such as King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Fletcher Henderson! The label was up in Wisconsin, an unlikely spot to showcase sounds that came from the south – but as the title indicates, Paramount was an important cultural partner to the great northward migration after WWI – a relationship that's brought out here in vivid detail, but with a narrative sensibility that would also make for one hell of a movie! Scott Blackwood provides details on the artists and their scenes alongside the label's history and production process – and as fans of Paramount know, the whole thing culminates in a very famous story at the label's end. Book is hardcover, 199 pages, with a fair bit of black and white images. Book

Chinese detective fiction, but with a fascinating twist – a series of separate, but related crime stories – all involving a single detective – presented in reverse order from the present to the past! Written that way, the story takes on a completely different perspective than in a more conventional mode – as the details as a whole are a bit more oblique, and only get greater exposure and understanding as you move backwards in time. As part of that process, the story also follows the changes in Hong Kong, moving backwards – and as with all great detective fiction set in New York, the city is as much a character of the story as the individuals within it. 490 pages, softcover. Book

An incredible look at the format of vinyl – put together by a guy who's got one of the hippest record collections we've ever seen! John Corbett's been writing about music, art, and other formats for decades – but his real labor of love is vinyl records – a format he continued to embrace even at the height of the CD era – so much so that he talked Downbeat magazine into letting him write a special column on musical delights that had never made it to the digital format! Corbett helped plenty of music get reissued on CD himself – thanks to countless label projects – but he also always held a special place in his heart for the kinds of records that never got reissued – and those are the sorts of titles featured here – a massive run of music that runs from jazz to funk, American and European, totally obscure to completely common – presented beautifully together in this massive book! The volume doesn't just bring together Corbett's columns, but also offers up full color reproductions of all the record covers, along with a few other details too – to support efforts on dozens of artists – a huge list that includes Melvin Jackson, Bill Leslie, Black Grass, Night Blooming Jazzmen, Phil Seamen, Khan Jamal, Klaus Doldinger, The Mad-Hatters, Tommy Jones, Guy Warren, The Three Souls, United Front, Johnny Lytle, London Experimental Jazz Quartet, Paul Smoker, AK Salim, Noah Howard, Jack Wilson, and many others – a good number of whom have yet to be reissued. The book is wonderful – and Corbett's longtime declaration of being a vinyl freak is more important than ever, given the rebirth of the medium! Book is 250 pages, softcover, with color images. Book

A rich overview of the role of Jewish creators in American comics – from the early days of the art form, through important 60s and 70s underground years, to some of today's best indie moments! The book features plenty of images – from the likes of Art Spiegelman, Will Eisner, Robert Crumb, Milt Gross, Ben Katchor, Harvey Kurtzman, and others – but it also features a fair bit of writing on the role of Jews, and Jewish identity in comics, by author Paul Buhle – listed on the cover as the editor, but much more the driving intellectual force of the whole book. 198 pages, with black and white images, hardcover. Book

A very different sort of book on bebop – one that looks at the music during its key years of midcentury, but through a very different prism than the sorts of all-star players who usually get most coverage by jazz writers! Author Jonathan Leal digs very deep to uncover three obscure players who cross race, cultural, and creative lines – Raul Salinas, Harold Wing, and James Araki – figures who were not huge on the scene, but who intersected with some very big names – and whose experiences here really enrich an understanding of the social possibilities offered by jazz at the time. Leal gets past the platitudes about the music and opens up the communities and opportunities created by jazz – tracing the histories of each of these three unique and overlooked players, while also putting their individual experiences in a larger context too. The notes alone are huge – really showing the work that Leal put into the project – and the book is 238 pages, softcover, with a small amount of black and white images. Book

An overlooked history in jazz – a huge book that not only documents important female-led groups and solo artists in the music, but also focuses on those that were heavily featured in visual media as well! The scope might seem small at first, but the author expands with a voluminous range of artists from the 20s through the 50s – leaders, musicians, and singers who were able to get exposure in film and television that they might not have received otherwise! The book has dozens of black and white photos – many illustrating the visual potential of the artists – and subjects include Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, Peggy Lee, Ina Ray Hutton, Phil Spitalny & His Musical Queens, International Sweethearts Of Rhythm, The Ingenues, Carl Adams, and others. Softcover edition is 316 pages, with black and white photos. Book

The full story of one of the most important indie labels in the world of folk, roots, and acoustic music – an imprint who are maybe only second to Folkways Records fo the way they've not only preserved the past, but helped foster a new future as well! Rounder Records was begun as a labor of love in the Boston scene after the more popular folk boom of the 60s – and as the dust settled from the years of Kingston Trio and The Brothers Four, Rounder helped find a way forward for the more interesting, more important acoustic artists – while also opening the door to new sounds and styles along the way – a huge legacy that ended up including superstars as well as very obscure musicians and singers. The book has a great narrative drive, and really gets at the kind of enthusiasm that started the label and kept it going and growing for decades – tracing both its influence on other musical scenes, and the way that artists continued to help Rounder from ever falling into cliche. Hardcover edition is 196 pages, with some black and white images. Book

A hilarious book, and one that's exactly what it promises in the title – a huge compendium of once-popular advertisements that are now pretty darn creepy by today's standards! Almost all the ads are from old magazines, presented here in both color and black and white – depending on the original source – and they're about as sexist, racist, and misguided as you might imagine – filled with bad advice, false claims, surprising images, and all sorts of goofy stuff that makes the book as funny as it is historical. 166 pages, color, softcover. Book

The music scene in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is one that's had an undeniable impact on cultural activity in recent decades – yet it's also one of those scenes that initially happened without most folks taking place – that is, it was a real artist and musician's scene, and not the kind that was easily open to outsiders until many years later! In this really well-done book, Cisco Bradley (who also gave us a great volume on William Parker) digs deep into the earliest days of the Williamsburg scene – that late 80s moment when Manhattan and other spots had become too expensive for the truly creative – and the other side of the East River emerged as a great place to move, live, and continue to make music. Bradley really gets at the criss-crossing elements of the scene at the time – and follows it well into the 21st Century, to a time when the changing real estate market in Brooklyn, and subsequent zoning changes, started to give Williamsburg the same creative fate as Soho, the East Village, and other important New York scenes in previous decades. Different initial chapters look at key spaces as forces – warehouses and lofts, clubs and galleries, and even pirate radio – and later chapters look at the larger forces causing change in the 21st Century. A really hefty book, as well-researched as it is well-written – 388 pages, softcover, with some black and white images. Book

Peter Guralnick has written some mighty big, career-defining books on key figures in music – but from the start, we've always loved his shorter pieces the best – the kind of work we first fell in love with in books like Sweet Soul Music and Lost Highway! And if you dig his shorter pieces, there's plenty of those here – really wonderful essays on artists in a variety of genres – penned by one of the few figures who can balance an understanding of their music with a mixture of historical detail and unabashed fandom! Guralnick's writing has gotten better and better over the years – and it's great to have it focused back on his roots – in chapters that focus on artists who include Solomon Burke, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, Howlin Wolf, Tammy Wynette, and even the great country trucker Dick Curless! Hardcover book is 554 pages, with black and white illustrations throughout. Book

If you love records as much as we do, you know that often the producers are as important to the sound of the music as the artists themselves – a fact that's spun out again and again in this look at some key record producers of the 20th Century! The book shows that, in the right hands, the studio is as important to the outcome of the records as the singer and the songs – and the author features detailed chapters on recording legends who include Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, David Axelrod, Norman Whitfield, Willie Mitchell, Brian Eno, Lee Scratch Perry, and Martin Hannett – all names that are on the back of some of the most treasured records in our collections! This softcover edition is 307 pages, with some black and white images, and assorted lists of key recordings by each producer. Book

Journalist Philip Clark spent a good deal of time with piano legend Dave Brubeck in his later years – then did a really wonderful job of going backwards, and putting together all the many pieces of Dave's musical puzzle! There's no doubt that Brubeck was one of the most important jazz musicians of the 20th Century – especially in the 50s and 60s – but Clark also really helps us understand why that is, and paints a picture of Brubeck's music and influence that stretch far beyond the smaller world of modern jazz! The hardcover volume is 445 pages, with some black and white images – and covers key moments of Brubeck's career in great depth. Book

The cover image features a classic quartet date from trumpeter Blue Mitchell – and the issue looks at important records in a similar format – all of which feature either a saxophonist, trumpeter, or trombonist with a rhythm trio for backing! The issue follows the Jazz Critique mode and has a discography of nearly 100 albums – with album cover art and other text in English, and longer reviews on Japanese – all as part of this issue that has other Japanese articles on jazz topics both past and present, all graced with very nice black and white photos! 200 pages, book-style format, and a great layout and design. Book