Free Jazz Communism

The fourth (silver) edition of Free Jazz Communism with the reprint of the entire script of Archie Shepp’s play The Communist (Junebug Graduates Tonight: A Jazz Allegory) is out!

Free Jazz Communism actualises the concert of Archie Shepp–Bill Dixon Quartet at the 8th World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki 1962. Edited by Sezgin Boynik and Taneli Viitahuhta, the book contextualizes the politics of free jazz music in light of global decolonisation movements, anti-war activism, structures of racial capitalism, and forms of avant-garde music. 

Apart from the theoretical and historical overview by its editors, the book includes testimonies of the collective and international spirit of the 1962 Youth Festival, translated documents from the Finnish press, a new interview with Archie Shepp, commissioned text by Jeff Schwartz on the historical context of political engagement of free jazz musicians, and reproduction of three hard-to-find texts by Shepp.

Designed by Ott Kagovere, the book was published in December 2019. Since then the two editions are sold out, and it was reviewed in The Wire, Jazz Journal, Critical Studies in Improvisation, Social Text, and Il Manifesto.

Description taken from the publisher.