A beautiful book on the dancehall scene in Jamaica – one that's done in a different style than some of the other Soul Jazz books – which are often focused more on album cover art! This book's got a very different approach – and is more an art book with photos of the dancehall scene in Jamaica, as well as lots of detailed information – including a history of Jamaican dance culture, bios of artists, and more information. Beth Lesser has already given us other great writings on reggae, and she really knows her stuff – and her care here is apparent, and a great complement to the hundreds of photos included within! And don't worry, there's still some pictures of records – but the book also offers up a lot lot more. Over 200 pages, oversize, and full color throughout – and this new edition also includes a fresh introduction from Duro Olowu, and more material than the original volume! Book

A tremendous look at an under-documented genre – the huge wave of Chicano soul that sprung up from LA, Texas, and other southern spots in the 50s and 60s – then went onto have a huge impact on wider culture in the mainstream! Although issued on an indie press, this book is top-shelf all the way through – beautifully packaged, with lots of color images, photos, and other visual bits that are as illuminating as the great writing from Ruben Molina. Molina really knows his music, and takes the whole thing up from its 50s roots into 70s superstardom – and even finishes the whole thing with a well-done discography at the end! 160 pages, softcover, with lots of images. Book

A loving look back at The Face – one of the most important British magazines of the 80s – and a key outlet for music, style, and all things that had to do with the cutting edge of culture! The Face was a beautiful publication that combined art and criticism – all with a very left-leaning approach during the Thatcher years – and with an aesthetic that rose above the music weeklies like NME, taking things a bit deeper, while also setting a new standard for visual representation in the post-punk, post-disco generation. This huge book presents The Face in all its glory – with huge oversize full color pages that present some of its best covers and inside images – alongside the history of the publication, which is also a history of changing British culture from the late 70s through the early 90s. 352 pages, softcover, with full color images throughout! Book

A really amazing look at the secret art and language of gang culture in Chicago – the most detailed book we've ever seen to examine the words on the street during the 60s, 70s, and 80s! Chicago had a very special sort of language to communicate gang activity and culture during the heyday of the city's big gangs – graffiti that was filled with codes and symbols, and which really predated major street art in New York – plus a network of patches, business cards, and other objects that conveyed a special sort of numerology and message – sometimes harmless words about parties and events, sometimes essential details about the criminal underworld. This book is fascinating on so many different levels – not just a prurient true crime story, but instead a very detailed examination of gang culture in terms of linguistics, visual media, and representation. Yet all that detail doesn't make things too dry, either – as the book is overflowing with photos and images – examples of street graffiti, countless business cards, patches, portraits, and more – even some maps at the back. The whole thing is a massive 375 pages, full color throughout, and very beautifully done! Book

A really beautiful book, and one that's very different than most other hip hop books we've ever stocked – as this well-done volume is a companion piece to a show at the Baltimore Museum of Art – one that looks at the way that hip hop has influenced different strands of art and culture in the 21st Century – presented here in a variety of ways that are sometimes very subtle, sometimes a lot more direct! The book is full color, and has a really unique design – and presents 70 different art objects, by artists who include Devin Allen, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hank Willis Thomas, Vivienne Westwood, Pharrell Williams, Stan Douglas, Shabez Jamal, Gordon Parks, Kahlil Joseph, and many others – next to essays by Greg Tate, Lester Spence, Devin Allen, Simon Reynolds, Seph Rodney, Noriko Manabe, Ebony Haynes, and many others too! Book

A book that's as lively as the image on the cover – one that traces the role of drums and percussion in the music of New Orleans – following a legacy that runs from the 19th century all the way up to contemporary sounds as well! If you know the sounds of Nola, you know that the drum is the key – and that because of the city's placement as a crossroads of culture, New Orleans helped create all sorts of new grooves, from the early years of jazz up through more contemporary soul and hip hop as well. The book is square, almost like a record cover – and is filled with images of both instruments and players – as it traces a long legacy that begins in Congo Square, then runs through improvised percussion experiments, early jazz, then blues, funk, soul, and later styles as well. Book is hardcover, 227 pages, with images throughout. Book

An amazing collection of 40s and 50s jazz drawings by Gene Deitch – the complete anthology of his work for legendary jazz magazine Record Changer! Gene was an amazing artist and cartoonist, whose work helped solidify the legacies of some of the most famous cartoon characters in the American pop culture canon – from Popeye, to Tom & Jerry and beyond – but we're especially in love with his jazz-centric Record Changer era! Gene adored jazz and his love for it really shows! Cat On A Hot Thin Groove includes all of his magazine covers, cartoon panels and other bits from Record Changer – versatile work that ranges from fun, cartoon-y panels of "Jazz Cat" characters, to more elaborate and abstract illustrations. Wonderful, vital stuff – and it's very nicely anthologized here by Fantagraphics! Coffee-table scale paperback – 160+ pages of prime Deitch jazzy drawings with text accompaniment. Book

A beautiful treatise on the lasting power of classic soul music – yet a book that also goes way beyond the simple readings and overdone cliches that are often attached to accounts of the music! Instead, author Emily J Lordi looks at not just the source recordings, but also the evolving theories about their role within black culture, and the larger American story – tracing shifts over time, while still focusing on the core contributions of artists like Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, Isaac Hayes, and Marvin Gaye! The writing is smart, but never too academic – and Lordi does a great job of tying together the strands of her different arguments throughout. 217 pages, softcover. Book

A great contrast to some of the more straight-ahead James Brown biographies on the market – as writer James McBride takes a circuitous path to look at the genius of The Godfather – not the shining stars of the bigger highlights in his career, but the lost corners and more distant pathways that shaped not just the man and his music, but Brown's role in our culture as well. The book is beautifully written – no surprise, given McBride's literary talents – and amidst all the hype and overblown myths about James Brown, the author really seems to unlock something new, and very personal as well. 232 pages, softcover. Book

An incredible book from Nicole Mitchell – an artist that most know for her work as a jazz musician on flute, and a range of other musical projects – yet one who's developed into a cultural force far beyond music, as you'll see in this really groundbreaking literary project! The book works at so many different levels – part memoir, part scrapbook, part manifesto – as Mitchell mixes personal reflections with political statements, poetry, musical scores, photographs, and a variety of other writings – overflowing with the sorts of ideas that are only hinted at in some of her recent recordings, and which really come into much sharper focus here on the printed page! The hardcover volume is a unique blend of words and images – the latter of which are printed in blue and white, following the aesthetic of the cover – and given the mix of art and ideas, culture and knowledge, the whole thing rivals, if not beats, some of the printed work of Sun Ra from years back. 255 pages, hardcover, with blue and white images throughout. Book

A fantastic collection of images from Times Square, pulled from the years before Disney took over – at a time when the action moved 24 hours a day, and at a non-stop pace! Bill Butterworth was right on the streets during the early 80s – and presents stunning full color shots of a range of figures from the Deuce – strippers, short order cooks, merchants, hustlers, b boys, Guardian Angels, and others – often in posed portraits in their environs, but occasionally captured in more candid ways too. The look and feel of the photographs is great – similar to some of the Powerhouse books on old school hip hop culture – and the whole thing is hardcover, and overflowing with great shots. Book

The biggest book we've ever seen to focus on the photography of Jamel Shabazz – a Brooklyn photographer who was out on the streets in the glory days of the old school – famous for his work capturing key sides of the early hip hop scene, and plenty of other New York culture as well! The book follows strongly from other volumes to collect the work of Shabazz – like Back In The Day and Time Before Crack – but the presentation is a bit different, as each page represents a page in one of Jamel's photo albums – usually with a few different color photographs on each page, often in arrays that bring together images from a single location or which have a way of resonating with each other. Subject matter is similar to other books of the photos of Shabazz – lots of early 80s New York street scenes and street portraits – and the huge book comes with a few essays on the work as well. Hardcover, 320 pages, and full color throughout – with hundreds of images! Book

One of the deepest explorations of the disco era we've come across from author Peter Shapiro – not at all a nostalgic look back, really more of a cultural study that looks into the music and the world around it. Shapiro does a great job of putting it all into perspective, from the social factors leading to the growth of the music, to the technological and artistry behind it, from the dawn of the sounds, to full blown pop culture fad that exploded it and sunk it back underground later in the decade, and how it survives in the new millennium. Softcover edition is 346 pages, and features a new epilogue, a timeline, and helpful appendix details! Book

An insanely detailed book on the role of drugs in American music – written by a guy who's already written a fair bit about drugs and culture! This time around, Martin Torgoff turns his eye towards the postwar years – looking at the interwoven landscapes of jazz, underground culture, and drugs from the late 40s through the 60s – with chapters that look at both famous figures and lesser-known personas – in a list that includes Billie Holiday, Lester Young, William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie Parker, and many more. The book's filled with short chapters that almost each read like a story themselves – never too exploitative, and often never with any sort of judgement at all – just surprising detail about the relation between drugs and performance, writing, or other artistic creation. These short chapters work well to weave together a world behind the scenes – subtle forces that later shaped more famous creations – and the book is a hefty 412 pages, with some black and white images. 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

Ralph J Gleason might just be one of the coolest cats to ever write about music – a key part of the San Francisco scene during the postwar years – where his talents helped illuminate both the worlds of art and music during the beat generation – then really helped shine a spotlight on all the cultural changes in the city during the 60s – which even led to Gleason's role in the founding of Rolling Stone magazine! Gleason always had a great eye (and ear) for things that were new and special, but never in a way that was slavish to the moment – or to its creator – and the book features an initial section on his writings on jazz and blues – with essays on John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Carmen McRae, BB King, John Handy, Vince Guaraldi & Bola Sete, Cal Tjader, Ben Webster, the San Francisco Jazz scene, and other diverse topics. The second section features Gleason on folk and rock – with bits on Jefferson Airplane, Hank Williams, Lenny Bruce, Odetta, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and others – and the final section features articles on politics and culture – covering topics that include Richard Nixon, radio payola, Law & Order, flower children, and other slices of society, seen from the Gleason viewpoint. Book is hardcover, and 309 pages. Book

Techno isn't a style that just evolved from 80s Detroit – as the authors of this book go way way back to the early 60s – to start digging for the roots of space-age music and electronic sounds that would explode on dancefloors many years later! The book offers up an array of records in many different styles – presented in the best Japanese disc guide mode – which means full color images of the cover and basic details in English – plus a small Japanese review that you can read using Google Translate. Chapters include a Space Age section on the 60s, a Krautrock section from the early 70s, Synth Pop of the late 70s, Electro of the mid 80s, and on up to chapters on Rave Culture, Detroit Techno, Artificial Intelligence, Glitch/Drone, Dubstep, Glitch/Drone, and Juke/Bass Music. The book features images of hundreds of records that will help you digging in the crates while drinking in this history lesson – and this softcover volume is 286 pages, full color throughout! 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 book that's way more compelling than you'd guess from the title and the cover – especially if you love the lower-reaches of pop culture from the 70s! The book features an essay by the author, but is primarily a random combination of images from a huge host of lesser-known material from the late 60s through the early 80s – b-movie posters, comic book covers, weird advertisements, strange drawings, and more – all laid out with little in the way of explanation, at a page-by-page juxtaposition that makes the whole thing even more startling overall! There's so much unusual stuff here – Cliff Robertson movies we hardly remember at all, beautiful horror magazine covers, and lots more – plus some shots of this material laid out in a Super Trash gallery show. 222 pages, softcover, and full color. Book

A fascinating look at the long legacy of live recordings of the Grateful Dead – initially a small community within the group's fan culture, now an industry unto itself – and one that's kept the groups revenues flowing for many years after their demise! The book really digs deep, and is especially good at bringing together information on the original grass roots movement to capture the group in concert setting – the recordings and tape trading that took place between fans, and which evolved in a really fascinating way as the decades moved on! Softcover edition is 216 pages, with very copious notes – and some black and white images. Book

A totally cool book – one that offers up full-size reproductions of the eleven different newspapers published by the legendary Fluxus art group in the 60s and the 70s! If you know Fluxus, you know that they're not just artists, but tricksters as well – a group dedicated to causing slight disruptions in the public sphere through their creative activity – in ways that are sometimes subtle or whimsical, but which have a larger challenge to power behind them. That's definitely the case here with their newspapers – sporadic publications that sometimes take on the look of a more conventional paper, sometimes have a more artistic approach – and which take the format to offer unique takes on culture and society, but in the inventive approaches of the artists. Between them, the issues feature work by over 60 artists – including La Monte Young, Joseph Beuys, Christo, Alice Hutchins, Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, Gyorgy Ligeti, Yoko Ono, and others – all serve up here on oversized black and white pages, but in a much more durable format than the original papers. Book

A book that really gets to the heart of the cassette tape and the way it helped shape modern music – a long journey that's run well into the 21st Century – which might come as a real surprise to anyone who gave up on the format many years ago! The book looks at the way tapes helped underground movements share music, go global with tape-only releases, share live experiences between fans, and open doors of musical communication through the circulation of mixtapes. There's a lot more going on here too – a very vivid account of the greatness of tape culture and its durability – served up in a softcover edition of 209 pages, with some very cool black and white images. Book

Jazz music didn't start on vinyl – but the advent of the long-playing album really helped the music take off and grow – expanding out to much longer performances than were allowed by the 78rpm single, which in turn allowed artists to reach out to new and exciting styles from the 50s onward! The long legacy of the relationship between vinyl and jazz is explored here in ways that go beyond the simple details that most jazz record collectors already know – as Darren Mueller looks at specific case studies within the world of labels and artists to highlight some of the challenges and crossroads that helped define jazz on record. One chapter looks at the early albums of Prestige Records and some of the mistakes along the way, the recording of Duke Ellington At Newport, the 50s albums of Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley's famous live recording in San Francisco, and the recording challenges of Mingus Ah Um. There's also a great chapter on "Jazz As A Culture Of Circulation" – and the book has a discography and other details too. Softcover edition is 435 pages. Book

To those in the know, Mike Nesmith has always been way more than a Monkee – a genius at business, a sensitive songwriter, and a guy who's had a hand in so many key moments in music and culture – even if he doesn't always take credit for his work! That understated quality has always been one of Nesmith's greatest calling cards, and it comes through wonderfully in this book – less a narrative memoir than a series of well-penned snapshots from different moments in his life and experience – open and honest about challenges and frustrations, but also with a good sense of perspective too. The man's done a hell of a job of carving out a great life for himself, and that really comes through here – and the book is softcover, 306 pages, and has some black and white images. Book

A richly-detailed look at England's Ambassador magazine of the postwar years – a publication devoted to promoting the rise of the British cloth industry, but which had an approach that made it much more like a fashion magazine overall! The book is lovely – heavy, oversize, and overflowing with photographs, images from the publication, and other ephemera – all brought together as part of an exhibition at London's V&A museum. Obviously, the publication was not one that we saw on our shores – but the book brings forth this crucial addition to magazine culture in all its glory – in a heavy hardcover book that's 240 pages in length, with images throughout. Book

A huge testament to the power of New York City in American music – especially during those 20th Century years when the city was able to foster scene after scene, style after style – serving as a launchpad for sounds that would forever transform the world! The book looks at Latin, bebop, folk, doo wop, punk, disco, and other styles from the pre-hip hop years – and traces the way that local styles became national ones, via the recording opportunities and entertainment showcases that were unique to NYC! The author has a keen knowledge of cultures in all five boroughs, and the music as well – and this softcover edition is almost 500 pages, with some sections of black and white images. Book

As any fan of the live Grateful Dead experience will tell you, improvisation is the key to the way the group puts their music over on stage – long jams that are filled with musicianship that just got better and better over the years, and which can lead to a very heavenly experience for concertgoers at their shows! Yet this book also gets past some of those overused tropes and really digs deeply – viewing their improvisation from a musical perspective, and showing the larger cultural perspective that such practice created within the subculture of their fans and listeners. There's a very strong focus on the role that improvisation played right at the start of the group's career – especially when they were in a mind-altering, spiritual mode. Softcover edition is 294 pages. Book

A wide-ranging book on soundtrack cultures from around the globe – presented as a series of different essays on the music by a variety of different academic who specialize in film music! Mark Slobin edited the volume, and contributes a few early essays on American film music – including a look at the cult around Max Steiner – and other essays look at Bollywood soundtracks, Hindi film music, other cinematic sounds in Chinese, Brazilian, Tamil, Indonesian, Egyptian, Mexican, and other cultures. The book is hefty – 383 pages for this softcover edition, with some black and white images – and contributors include Greg Booth, Abdalla Uba Adamu, Joseph Getter, Marilyn Miller, Sue MC Tuohy, Sumarsam, Eric Galm, Martin Stokes, and Brenda Berrian. Book

Images of the Caribbean in many styles – from the striking color image on the front, to vintage black and white shots throughout the book – all at a level that really illuminates the criss-crossing cultures of the island scene! The book's got a wonderfully sharp sensibility – as it mixes images of vacation paradise with rural poverty, American tourists with ongoing slavery, local ritual with political overthrow – all in a series of wonderfully well-chosen photographs! The book was put together by Stuart Baker – who's done so many other great books and records for Soul Jazz – and text is by Paul Gilroy, author of There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack. Book is hardcover, super-heavy, LP-sized, and full of glossy pages! Book

Even though the days of sleaze and sin are long gone, New York's Times Square still stands strong as one of the most vibrant spots in the world – a meeting place of so many faces, bodies, cultures, and styles – it's hard to think of any other place with so much going on! The images here are all contemporary, but they're really well-done too – and have a special eye for tying the Times Square of the present with currents of its past that still seep through – served up in an array of all black and white images, which really help create this time-shifting mode in the photos. The mix of images is great – street performers, solo individuals, and some really mindblowing full scenes that seem to have space folding in on itself – presented on lavish oversize pages, done in the best mode of art book giant Steidl press. Book

Not just a book on Motown – despite the image of The Supremes on the cover – but a story of Detroit itself – told as a series of intersecting paths that include the famous soul music label, as well as all the manufacturers, cultures, communities, and political forces that were shaping the city in the early 60s. The decline of Detroit has been a story for decades now – but David Maraniss looks at the city in the years before the fall – focusing on 1963, where he shows that tensions were already strong in some sectors, and the ground upon which so much was being built could easily shift and allow the whole thing to topple. The book is one of the most fascinating city portraits we've ever read – with lessons that are still completely essential to the 21st Century urban environment – and the whole thing is 441 pages, hardcover, with some black and white images. Book

A beautiful book that does a great job of capturing the wide range of creative and community activity of Theaster Gates – one of the most important artists to emerge from the Chicago scene in the past few decades! Gates is way more than just an artist, though – as his works involve constant interaction with the city around him, sometimes as larger social projects that seek to offer opportunity and transform the community – sometimes with aspects that work almost to document lost or unseen cultures in Chicago – but always with an inventive, genre-defying quality that continues to keep all his creativity and ideas relevant over the years. The book is divided up into a variety of sections – including an interview with Gates, a studio visit, a document of important works, and even a timeline of his creative activity and role in Chicago – served up in an oversized, softcover volume – full color throughout, with 158 pages in all. Book