Red Groove is a different kind of jazz book, filled with spirited and well-informed essays by a man who has listened to and loved the music passionately and critically for more than 50 years. Searle emphasises the musicians’ links with the real social and political world of which they are a vital cultural part, as well as demonstrating how jazz has become a world musical phenomenon with his writing on jazzmen and jazzwomen and their musicianship, from as far apart as Japan and Argentina, Chicago and Sheffield, Bengal and Benin and Iraq, Norway, Cuba and Cape Town.

“A delightfully detailed and imaginative evocation of innumerable moments of recorded and live magic. There’s rigorous scholarship here, yes, but essentially Red Groove is a dazzling celebration, motivated by a sense of respect, gratitude and love.” – Robert Wyatt

Chris Searle is mostly known as an educator. He came to national fame when sacked for publishing his students’ poetry – and was eventually reinstated by Margaret Thatcher, then Minister of Education! He has worked as a teacher in Canada, Tobago, Mozambique, Grenada and England. His books include Lightning of your Eyes, Classrooms of Resistance, Words Unchained, This New Season, We’re Building the New School, The World in a Classroom, Grenada Morning and The Forsaken Lover (for which he was awarded the Martin Luther King Prize) He is the jazz correspondent for the Morning Star and his other jazz book is Forward Groove (Northway).