Underdogs all: Robert Ryan, pictured, is in our list of 10 inspirational jazz writers. Guy Barker's 'Underdogs' heard on the trumpeter and big band leader's classic Soundtrack was inspired by a Rob Ryan thriller.
1 Geoff Dyer. Hugely prolific essayist, journalist, novelist and Keith Jarrett fan. We'd recommend But Beautiful or the non-jazz Jeff in Venice: Death in Varanasi. A dazzling writer of meta fiction and insightful observer of the mystique of art, music and life.
2 Brian Morton. No one reads the Penguin Guide to Jazz much now because of the Internet. But this fabulous Scottish writer in a distinguished life of Brian has dashed off equally essential - if brief (!) - liner notes that adorn the releases of the Italian Cam Jazz label as he did leading the way in summarising and critiquing vast numbers of jazz albums in tandem with the much missed equally elegant stylist lifetime Londoner Richard Cook.
3 Richard Williams. The Blue Moment (book more than the regular blog of the same name) was an erudite peroration weaving beyond music and into the mystic on how the colour blue was represented in their work by such disparate figures as Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso. It's the distinguished motor racing loving newspaper writer and obituarist's masterpiece.
4 Robert Ryan. Rob's non-jazz thriller inspired Guy Barker classic 'Underdogs'. Read him in the Camden New Journal.
5 Rafi Zabor. The only American author in this list. Author of the classic The Bear Comes Home it's the funniest book about jazz that we know. No one on this list of 10 can do humour nearly as well as the mercurial Zabor.
6 Clive Davis. A fine theatre critic as well as - more in the past - a jazz writer. Read Davis' theatre pieces and simply wish he wrote more on jazz again.
7 Kevin Le Gendre. Often on Radio 3, the veteran London based writer's books include Soul Unsung.
8 Martin Longley. Veteran freelance hack whose best work is globetrotting gig coverage. His is a unique classic newspaper journalist style that no one on the list has quite bettered.
9 Philip Clark. A classical music writer as well. Clark's book on Dave Brubeck A Life in Time is a first port of call when checking out his work.
10 Alyn Shipton. The tweedy Oxfordshire based writer's achievement to surpass all others is surely his Dizzy Gillespie biography, Groovin' High.
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