There is a long fascination with the masters of jazz and several volumes dedicated to the echelons of the music that bear the title of ‘Jazz Masters’. Jazz Masters of the Twenties by Richard Hadlock (Reference Hadlock1965), Jazz Masters of the Thirties by Rex Stewart (Reference Stewart1972; a distinguished trumpeter who played with Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington), Jazz Masters of the Forties by Ira Gitler (Reference Gitler1966), Jazz Masters of the Fifties by Joe Goldberg (Reference Goldberg1965) and The Jazz Masters in Transition, 1957–1969 by Martin Williams (Reference Williams1970) are among the most popular ones. Other volumes include, but are not limited to, The Masters of Bebop, Jazz Masters of New Orleans, Jazz Masters of Piano and Jazz Masters of Guitar, volumes that account for the life and works of celebrated musicians who practised the genre. This fascination is not a recent trend. Boosted by its designation by the House of Representatives and the United States Senate as ‘a rare and valuable national American treasure’ in 1987, each year since 1982 musicians whose contributions are deemed exceptional to the advancement of jazz receive the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, the highest honour that the United States bestow on jazz artists. It's a sort of ‘hall of fame’ for jazz, if you will, firmly establishing the ever-unstable dialogue between public enjoyment and critical acceptance, between audience demand and the critical canon, all necessary to keep the whole precarious industry financially afloat. Being ‘a master’ appeals to a larger audience and serves musicians and promoters well, as it turns performances and albums into more saleable products, further endorsing the locomotive energies of the already profitable enterprise of jazz criticism. Students and scholars of music will know, as much as most musicians in this new compilation of interviews by Peter C. Zimmerman do, that there are long-standing problems with such descriptions, but this is beyond the scope of this review.

Zimmerman's work is a thoughtful tribute to many well-known jazz musicians, some of whom have left us in recent times, as well as to some who are celebrated in jazz circles but are yet to reach stardom. It includes interviews with 21 artists, and the interviews themselves are predated by brief biographical commentaries as a means of introducing the artists. The interviews span over 250 pages, and some are longer and far more interesting than others. Zimmerman's volume is subtitled ‘Setting the Record Straight’ but I do not understand what record exactly the author is referring to, as this is not made clear neither in his introduction nor during the interviews. Were these interviews meant to be followed up from earlier ones, in which some of comments made by the interviewees needed explaining (setting, therefore, the record straight)? I get the impression that this is not the case. The author should excuse me for being critical of the interviewing strategies here, but I do not think that some of the questions asked allow the interviewees to ‘improvise’ as he claims (p. xv), at least to the extent that these masters can. The language is also a problem in many respects. The vocabulary is dated and some of the comments archaic. The author tells us that ‘whenever I played the record [Coltrane's Creation] at a party, my female friends would scream “TAKE IT OFF!”’ (pp. xiii–xiv). In similar terms, the author explains in his introduction that he has included two musicians of ‘the fairer sex’ (p. xvi). While I must confess to my own shortcomings of the politically correct language – I am never too sure what is appropriate to say or not these days in what is effectively my third language – I am surprised that these comments have made it through editorial review and I fail to see how such declarations benefit the world of jazz, its readers and listeners. In case it is of any interest, most of my friends, regardless of their gender, do not bear listening to jazz today (especially at a party!), let alone to Coltrane.

Do not get me wrong; there is value in the content included here. The inclusion, for example, of those individuals known in jazz circles but less known to the public is an important contribution of the volume (the discussion with Valery Ponomarev is very informative). But the interviews with some of the most celebrated – and interviewed – participants are revealing for reasons that are less expected: some answers are very short as some musicians seem uninterested. There is a sense of repetition and distraction, and this volume will be useful to students and scholars for the exact reason that a certain exasperation is communicated by some of the jazz musicians interviewed, especially those of an older generation. For example, the author here reveals a story in conversation with Buster Williams: when he tried to contact Jimmy Heath for an interview, the saxophonist responded, ‘have you read my autobiography?’ prompting Williams to explain that maybe Heath didn't want to share anything more with the public (p. 260). A similar comment comes from Yusef Lateef: ‘You should know that the name of my music is autophysiopsychic’ (p. 264), highlighting the fact these people have been interviewed countless times before. On some occasions the interviewer's request to speak about race is dismissed (for example, with Clark Terry p. 52 and Yusef Lateef p. 265). So many journalists, scholars and promoters have pressed these musicians for the same questions, in discussions that rarely led anywhere. How exactly are the interviews that we conduct as scholars, journalists, students or aficionados of the music are contributing to existing knowledge about jazz besides serving our own agendas? What becomes clearer and clearer is that some of these masters who the world so persistently seeks to celebrate and interview seem to have little interest in the consumption industry that accompanies jazz today. It is perhaps time we let them be in peace and focus more on the work they have so generously bequeathed us, as well as turning to the work of a newer generation and lesser-known musicians. The masters don't seem to want any more of it.