Sunday Best: A Netflix Documentary

by Thomas Cole
August 14, 2025

Ed Sullivan, at one time was the most renowned name in US television. Most of us hear that name and think of Elvis Presley and his electrifying game-changing performance in 1956. Few of us will ever forget the hip-shaking gyrations that captivated a nation. Nothing like it had ever been seen on national television. Or so ...

The Master of Drums: Gene Krupa and the Music He Gave The World

by Richard J Salvucci
April 29, 2025

The Master of Drums Elizabeth J Rosenthal 320 Pages ISBN: 978-0-8065-4320 Kensington Publishing Company 2025 In the interests of full disclosure, I spent an extended period with Gene Krupa as an adolescent. Relatives were friends of Krupa's. All the nice things Elizabeth J. Rosenthal says about Krupa as a ...

The Jazz Men: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie Transformed America

by Richard J Salvucci
January 19, 2025

The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America Larry Tye 416 pages ISBN: 035838043X Mariner Books 2024 In 1986, a guy walked into a Post Office in South Texas--no, this is not the opening line of a joke. He lined up to buy some stamps. ...

No, Don Porfirio Did Not Invent Jazz, but It Doesn't Matter

by Richard J Salvucci
October 18, 2024

Visiting Mexican Bands, 1876-1955 Dan Vernhettes 220 pages ISBN: #9782900946046 2022 It is a safe bet that asking a group of music aficionados “Who invented jazz" is likely to elicit a range of answers from “Everyone" to “No One." Even the earnest seeker is apt to come up with a ...

Eric Todd

For two decades, Eric collaborated with Grammy and Clio-winning creatives and C-suite executives in strategic development, A&R, and creative capacities. A career highlight includes a recent UN 2030 SDG music initiative consultancy to engage Gen Z.

Music aspirations came to life in a move to NYC at eighteen with multiple artist development deals, including a career-changing pivotal connection with Julian Lennon, son-of-a-Beatle. An early jazz record deal with iconic artist Chuck Mangione's management team and Columbia Records landed before age twenty, yet stardom was not in the cards. Focus shifted to the business side of music to develop a successful twenty-year consultancy, while producing and discovering emerging talent.

Eric is a Wipf & Stock Books published author, a former recording artist (REX Records), composer, producer, artist manager to emerging jazz artists, Corinne and Audrey Kreitner, and founder of iProdigy.

In With The In Crowd: Popular Jazz in 1960s Black America

by Richard J Salvucci
February 16, 2024

In With The In Crowd Mike Smith232 Pages ISBN: 978-1496851154 University Press of Mississippi/Jackson 2024 There is a legal adage that hard cases make bad law. Extreme circumstances make it difficult to accommodate less fraught or complex situations. Histories of jazz in the United States can be a bit ...

Sly Stone: Thank You (Falettinme be Mice Elf Agin)

by Richard J Salvucci
January 26, 2024

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir Sly Stone With Ben Greenman 297 Pages ISBN: 9780374606978 Auwa Books2023 Some readers may remember a time before Sly and the Family Stone. There was music--music you might reasonably call funky. The word “funk" first appeared in the early seventeenth ...

Solid. Life and Death of a Jazz Genius: Scott LaFaro

by Richard J Salvucci
May 3, 2023

Solid. Life and Death of a Jazz Genius: Scott LaFaro Vincenzo Staiano 180 Pages ISBN: 9781470 LuLu2023 It may be an exaggeration to claim there was double bass before Scott LaFaro, and double bass after Scott LaFaro. A modern jazz bassist may say, well, not exactly. Yet reading ...

On Jazz: A Personal Journey

by Richard J Salvucci
November 16, 2022

On Jazz:A Personal Journey Alyn Shipton300 Pages ISBN: 978-1-108-83423-0 Cambridge University Press 2022 Alyn Shipton is a distinguished jazz journalist, bassist, BBC radio presenter and biographer who may be best known for his A New History of Jazz (Continuum, 2001). In some ways, the present volume is a ...

Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld

by Richard J Salvucci
September 19, 2022

Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld T. J. English 420 Pages ISBN: # 978-0-06-303141-8 William Morrow 2022 The subtitle of this not uninteresting history by T.J. English could well be “Sex, Drugs, Jazz, and the Mob," because, for the most part, that is what you get. It is a ...