Mère. Wajdi Mouawad

10 × 19 cm 160 pages softback october 2022 retail price: 17 €

Jean-Pierre Jackson was born in 1947. A publisher, jazz drummer and member of the French jazz academy, he wrote a series of books about American serials, Jayne Mansfield, Mizoguchi, and Russ Meyer and has translated philosophers (Schopenhauer, Hume, Spinoza and Locke). He has collaborated with Classica and Pianiste. With Actes Sud he has published books about Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Benny Goodman, Keith Jarrett and a Discothèque idéale du jazz.

Jean-Pierre Jackson

In many ways, the life of the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane reads like a novel of education. His career was forged by encounters, experiences and the acclaim of great musicians who played with him: Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. Having began his career with a quest for perfection in pre-existing musical forms – initially he admired and imitated the perfect Apollinian, Johnny Hodges - he went onto develop musical forms of Olympian dimensions. Jean-Pierre Jackson has already written critically acclaimed biographies of Charlie Parker and Keith Jarrett. His latest book takes us into the work of John Coltrane, telling how through musical trance and the abandonment of the self and preestablished musical forms, Coltrane gradually strove to connect with the profound, universal energy of the world. Appreciating the beauty of Coltrane’s playing beyond his accomplishments means perceiving, at each stage of its existence, the mystery of creation at work. He was not driven by money or ambition; this was a quest for meaning, original oneness, of a love supreme which is musical at heart.