It’s been a bit quiet since the publication of last week’s reviews of Hi De Ho, but now along comes David Schwartz on The Die Is Cast, who normally blogs about matters to do with gambling history and chance theory. He seems to like the book, though – he calls it “a masterpiece of well-researched historical biography”! Can’t do better than that…

After being dubbed “workmanlike” by the Washington Post, it was a great delight to find today’s second review of Cab Calloway by Ted Gioia, whose History of Jazz is usually stocked alongside mine in bookshops and whose book on the West Coast scene is a marvel. So if you;d like to read what Ted has to say, click here.

Long if slightly critical review of my Cab Calloway biography in today’s Washington Post. I hope most readers will find the book a bit more than workmanlike – even this reviewer said it made him want to get the records out and play them again! And you can see more about the book in the “writing”section of this site.

News just in that my latest NPR interview about Cab Calloway is now up on the web. This was a nice chat with Mark Lynch at WICN, the jazz station in New England, which I spent time listening to when I was working there a few years back. So to hook up with INQUIRY on WICN click here. And there’s stuff about the Cab book itself on the music and writing pages of this site.

19th of November at the Royal Academy of Music is going to be the BBC Radio 3 London Jazz Festival celebration of Jelly Roll Morton. Philip Martin’s playing the kind of music Jelly heard when he was growing up. Keith Nichols and the band are doing the Peppers and New Orleans Jazzmen repertoire, and I’m doing the chat and playing the bass. Tickets are free, so if you’d like to know more, click here!

Interesting multi-media concert at the Barbican last night. Some compelling music by Michael Nyman, but I got the feeling it was all variations on the same (now rather dated) theme. My review here.

This Saturday’s Jazz Library on BBC Radio 3 is a show that looks back on Barbados born trumpeter Harry Beckett who died this summer. There’ll be bits of an interview that Soweto Kinch and I did with Harry, and a lovely choice of music by Chris Batchelor, who knew Harry well and is a fellow trumpeter. My own tribute to a great player, and someone who despite being a very private man was a very giving interviewee and a warm human being.

Tomorrow’s Jazz Library is my personal tribute to wonderful Chicagoan saxophonist Fred Anderson, who died in the summer. I made the trek to the old Velvet Lounge, which has to be one of the greatest jazz clubs ever, seedy, run down, in the middle of a redevelopment area and yet full of amazing atmosphere. The bar seemed to be a relic from the repeal of prohibition and Fred presided over it all, most successfully when he stepped out from behind the bar and played his heart out on the tiny stage with all 75 members of the audience crammed into the restricted space.

The NY music blog Daily Swarm has picked up my Cab Calloway interview from last night, so if you want to hear it, then you can click on the link here. It was a pleasure to chat to John Schaefer, and also if you listen to it and you’re puzzled by the opening, I was suffering from walking briskly to the BBC a mile and a half through the autumnal murk, hence my wheezing and coughing, and this was because of the Tube strike. The previous item on WNYC had been about the musicians of the Detroit Symphony being on strike and picketing in full evening dress.

If you happen to be in the Florida area or if you are an online radio addict, then check out Mark Hayes Passing Notes on 88.9 fm Serious Jazz in the Miami area. I shall be talking to Mark this Friday at 11am EST, and he’s also put up a great selection of Calloway short movies on his blog site for the programme. Be there or be square…