About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
In the 1950s and ’60s, co-operative jazz clubs opened their doors in Canada in response to new forms of jazz expression emerging after the war and the lack of performance spaces outside major urban centres. Operated by the musicians themselves, these hip new clubs created spaces where jazz musicians practised their art. Live at the Cellar looks at this unique period in the development of jazz in Canada. Centered on Vancouver’s legendary Cellar club, it explores the ways in which these clubs functioned as sites for the performance and exploration of jazz as well as for countercultural expression. Jago combines original research with archival evidence, interviews, and photographs to shine a light on a period of astonishing musical activity that paved the way for Canada’s vibrant jazz scene today.
Contributor Notes
Marian Jago, originally from Canada’s west coast, is now a lecturer in popular music and jazz studies at the University of Edinburgh. She has published frequently on a wide variety of jazz topics for the Journal of Jazz Studies, Jazz Perspectives, Jazz Research Journal, Routledge, Bloomsbury, and others. Some of her recent work looks at the relationship of jazz to the writing of Jack Kerouac, the jazz economy of New York in the 1960s, and extended studio techniques versus “liveness” in jazz recordings. She also maintains an active interest in the Canadian jazz scene as well as the music and pedagogical practices of Lee Konitz and Lennie Tristano.
Editorial Reviews
Good books on jazz are filled with intriguing stories about the relationships that generate such an energizing art form. This book is that, and more. The more is a carefully considered framework for making sense of the social dynamics that create a jazz scene. Put the stories into the framework and you’ve got a must-read book.
— BC Lookbook/The Ormsby Review
Live at the Cellar does important work helping to tell the story of the music in Vancouver at this foundational moment in the city's history as well as drawing connections with other major Canadian scenes during the same period.
— CAML Review
Jago’s book is a sparkler. It shows how a small group of believers can make real change and quietly kick ass to boot. Bless ’em all! ... This is Vancouver’s book of the year, hands down.
— Subterrain, Issue 81
With verve and insight, Veronica Strong-Boag’s account of Laura Jamieson challenges many widely held myths. The book shows how a seemingly conformist, middle-class matron became an unstinting champion of social change – including women’s enfranchisement, birth control, and social democracy. The Last Suffragist Standing is a stunning accomplishment, notably for its fresh and compelling twist on Canadian political history.
— Vancouver Sun
Live at the Cellar deserves an audience beyond jazz aficionados: in a town that tends to endlessly reinvent the wheel, it tells how the first wheel was forged.
— The Georgia Straight
[...]The way Jago sets the stage to explain how and why a musician-run, co-operative jazz venue emerged at this specific time in Vancouver, as in several other places, provides a fascinating window into Canadian history.
— Canada's History
Good books on jazz are filled with intriguing stories about the relationships that generate such an energizing art form. This book is that, and more. The more is a carefully considered framework for making sense of the social dynamics that create a jazz scene. Put the stories into the framework and you’ve got a must-read book.
— The Ormsby Review
Marian Jago has performed a genuine service in capturing one of the places that did exist [in the early jazz scene], with a diligently researched and amiably written study of a unique time and place in Vancouver’s musical past.
— Literary Review of Canada
