Mixed Messages: American Jazz StoriesFrom journeymen musicians to stars with many albums to their name, Mixed Messages includes interviews with 21 American jazz musicians on music, mostly, but the world intrudes, as it does with the best of jazz music. The musicians range from the trombonist Louis Nelson, who was born in 1902, through the New Orleans pianist Ellis Marsalis, who is still playing and on to Byron Stripling, who plays trumpet with his Columbus Jazz Orchestra. Peter Vacher

Tom and Raks are ready and up for it - it ain’t football - but Tom is hooked and can’t wait for the next home game

many of whom appear in Dylan Thomas-like character sketches

Those unfamiliar will be pleasantly surprised at the range and quality of his poetry

every coal mine they lead you down eventually opens to a great and fragile light

Blonde Bombshells of 1943

In just a few words he unlocks a new world

Inkle and Yarico has the same magic and pertinence

The pictures are brought to life by the author’s own account of the process by which his lino-cuts are made

Emilio García Gómez

he will die at the hands of his nemesis

Lawrence Normand is Senior Lecturer in English

and the loss that goes with it