Book Reviews

Jazz Survivor: The Story of Louis Bannet, Horn Player of Auschwitz, by Ken Shuldman. London and Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005. ISBN: 0-85303-476-1 (paper). Pp. 70. $18.50.

In the Museum of Jewish Heritage/A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City is displayed a large-bell Bb trumpet on permanent loan. The owner had been Louis Bannet. An inscription in the exhibit information informs the viewer that it was that actual trumpet that gave Bannet the strength to live through the unimaginable horrors of Auschwitz. Musicians often have a strong tie to their instruments but few can be credited with life-saving power. This and many other aspects of Louis Bannet’s life are effectively related by Ken Shuldman, but perhaps of even greater interest to readers of this Society is the examination of how jazz was embraced by one of Europe’s early proponents of this music.

Guide to the Euphonium Repertoire: the euphonium source book
Eds. Lloyd E. Bone Jr. and Eric Paull under the supervision of R. Winston Morris. Indiana University Press, 601 North Morton Street, Bloomington, IN 47404-3797, USA. ISBN 0-253-34811-0. 589 pages. 2007. $75.

Since 1996 tubists have turned to The Tuba Sourcebook when researching anything to do with their instrument’s repertoire, players or composers. Guide to the Euphonium Repertoire is a companion volume in identical format for players of the companion instrument.

Origins and Development of Musical Instruments by Jeremy Montagu. Published by Scarecrow Press, 2007. 
ISBN 13: 978-0-8108-5657-8. Cloth 280 pages $75.

Jeremy Montagu has been remarkably productive since his retirement as the curator of the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments in Oxford. He has written four books, three of which are of immediate interest to members of the Historic Brass Society and have been reviewed in these pages; Timpani & Percussion, Musical Instruments of the Bible, and this present publication. He has also written a recent book on reed instruments of the Montagu Collection. The book under discussion here describes the creation, use, and development of musical instruments from the Stone Age to our present day. Montagu presents a fascinating way of telling the tale of instruments that is quite different from many other studies on this topic. He presents ways in which many different cultures use instruments and uses those examinations as a spring-board for discussion on how and why various instruments developed. Performance practice, social and cultural traditions as well as detailed descriptions of instrument design are all given full attention by Montagu.