It wasn’t the first time that the writer Kevin Pearce had introduced me to an artist whose path I hadn’t crossed before, but one occasion, a few years back now, that artist happened to be the poet / writer LeRoi Jones, whose book, Black Music, Kevin had nominated for inclusion in the Caught by the River Music Book Reader. It set me off searching for a copy of the book and several more of his titles have since followed it on to the shelf.
This morning I found out that LeRoi Jones, known now as Amiri Baraka, had passed away at the age of 79. Richard Williams, on his essential Blue Mountain blog pays great respect by calling him “…an irreplaceable figure, a man of his time.”
You might also be interested in paying a visit to the Reality Studio blog for a look at their Kulchur magazine archive, a collection of covers and notes from a bible of hip that Mr. Jones played a key editorial role in putting together in the ’60’s.