Our critics cast their eyes over the latest books on all things music...

The unconventional instrumentation favoured by Tortoise is an indicator of how many different lineups have always jostled for space under the jazz umbrella. The national treasure that is The Pete Alle

A composer’s idiosyncratic guide to western classical music

After the premiere of his orchestral piece Coptic Light in 1986, Morton Feldman was described by an irate American critic as ‘the most boring composer in the history of music’. Listeners coming to his

‘Searching for music is like searching for God… there’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable.’ So reckoned the great David Bowie, and few have ‘searche

Best books… Mark Kermode The film critic picks his ...

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers