Trad dads, dirty boppers and free fusioneers - Duncan Heining

The 196s was a decade of major transformation in British Jazz and, of course, in pop music in general. The previous decade had seen the separation of jazz into modern and trad but during the sixties the British Jazz scene began to assert its independence from America. At first slowly but with gathering speed, it began to define an identity that drew increasingly on sources from within its own culture and from its shared European cultural heritage. Duncan Heining charts this remarkable history and explores the reasons for it, showing how forces outside the music acted upon it and both created and limited its potential for development. The book follows the movers and shakers, the drugs and addictions, jazz's relationships with rock music and blues, the impact of new technologies, the venues, the record companies and, not least, the economics of Jazz. In dong so, the book challenges many conventional understandings of British Jazz and its scene and rewrites its cultural history. It will be the first port of call for any music lover interested in this period of exceptional artistry in British jazz.