... The history of country music folk Country Music USA, by Bill C. Malone (Equation, £9.95) Books about country music, unlike folk and jazz, are inclined to be biased towards the fan, with plenty of pictures. They deal with specific artists or are reference books of a sort, with heavy emphasis on recorded output. But this is a book with a difference, a genuine history of country music written ...

... I Remember Jazz, by A1 Rose (Thor- sons, £6.99) Described as recollections of six decades among the great jazzmen, this is a book of generally brief impressions of jazz musicians and jazz people by a man who, though not a musician himself, seems to have had his finger in a lot of pies in and around the jazz world. He is, or has been, a promoter, publicist. record producer, author and ...

... Are you decent? Ossia Trilling on a theatre language dictionary--worth its weight in words wealthy reader or institution. But if our reference libraries are not /stinted of public subsidy and drama schools and university departments know what is good for them and their students this should be no problem. Nobody can read a complete diction ary of this sort from cover to cover. But a sampling ...

... post and packing) To mark the centenary of Maurice Elvey's birth the BFI have produced a printed dossier, expertly researched and written by Linda Wood, which traces the career of this most indust rious of film producers and directors. Born on November 8 1887 into a humble household in Darlington, Elvey went on to direct more films, before his death in 1967, than any other man who has lived. ...

... Tuning into the big band sound -^ar Music and Maiden Overs, by Vic Lewis with Tony Barrow (Chatto and Windus, £12.95) It is good to come across a book which deals mainly with post-war big band history, for this aspect has been neglected in comparison with the research carried out about pre-war British dance bands. After 1945 the situation was very different, for virtually none of the kings ...

... Americans write such impenetrable books on sub jects that are of interest for the general reader with a taste for the entertainment business? Here is a prime example, about a man whose films, particularly those of the late thirties, had an appeal that stretched across the Atlantic, although they were specifically Amer ican in tone. Often derided as a populist, from among the dense mass of ...

... a faithful amanuensis of Stravinsky is famous, Craft is revealed here is this collection of 49 essays as a judicious and sensitive observer of all the arts. Mostly gathered frm the pages of the anglophile New York Review of Books, most of these pieces are reviews of specific publications and perform ances. They are divided into five sections art, ballet, music, literature, film -and the ...

... are the only people to have an arts crisis, should be interested to read this thoroughly researched and interestingly written history covering 40 years of the French theatre. It ranges from the wartime years--Paris theatre in particular boomed during the Occupation--to me penoa ai me ocguuiuig ui una decade when it was realised that the Maisons de la Culture and Centres Dramatiques, those ...

... a wealth of reference books on the performing arts, and this old friend, returning after a year's absence, now prefaces its title with the word original. Comparisons with the recently published newcomer are both invidious and unwise. Suffice it to say that for two or three pounds more wim mis one you get a nara cover, which is probably necessary consider ing the wear this and its ...

... the RAF, as a promis ing jazz pianist, never thought that, in middle age, he would turn into a distinctive humorist and chairman of one of the BBC's most popular and instructive television and radio panel games. But although this collection of some of the sillier things which people have said and written deals in pan with music, Steve Race has cast his net far and wide, linking his discoveries ...

... of what is perhaps the most famous play in the world, from the author's early days just after the turn of the century to the present day, is a unique study. Few of us would have this span--85 Hamlets seen across some 60 years. Two points emerge clearly from this account: in living memory theatre pro fessionalism was not all that it ought to have been, and there are very few good Hamlets. ...

... Academic secrets of 'real life' Public Secrets: EastEnders and its Audience, by David Bucking ham (British Film Institute, £6.95). It is strange, one might think, that no serious critical attention has yet been lavished on Dallas and Dynasty, whereas EastEnders, essentially a more moral and responsible series, has undergone close scrutiny ever since it began. This is presumably because the ...