The Beatles Live At Candlestick Park

Antonio G. Pereira  ©  2026  Antonio G. Pereira

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        The Beatles Live At Candlestick Park by Jim Marshall. Published by Chronicle Books. https://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Jim-Marshall-Live-Candlestick/dp/1797243969 This is a wonderful book, and there is a feeling of closure in as far as the association of the Beatles as live performers is concerned. They had reached the point where technologically at this time period (1966), they had gone as far as they could go. (Places like Atlanta Stadium in 1965, which was brand new, with a brand new state-of-the-art sound system and stage monitors, was an ultra rare exception.) Amelia Davis and the staff at Jim Marshall Photography LLC, have put out another masterpiece. From the Introduction by Amelia Davis, to the written essay by Journalist Joel Selvin, the story of this concert unfolds before your very eyes, and it is something to see. Jim Marshall Himself, collaborated on a smaller, earlier version of these photographs in the book, 'The Beatles Last Concert', with Journalist Eric Lefcowitz in 1987/2006. I reviewed that book on this blog in 2013. https://observer1984.blogspot.com/2013/10/tomorrow-never-knows-beatles-last.html I also reviewed another wonderful book published by the Jim Marshall team: https://observer1984.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-haight-love-rock-revolution.html (Interestingly, there was a book of photographs of the Beatles, published by Shinko Music in Japan in 1973, that had several full colour photographs of the Beatles in concert. Some were taken in Shea Stadium in 1966, and some that could have been from Candlestick Park; which makes me wonder if Jim Marshall also shot a roll of colour film during their performance as well! Put it to the Japanese to find the rarest photographs there are!) Anyway, The Beatles Live At Candlestick Park by Jim Marshall, is a treasure trove of historical pictures. From their arrival at San Francisco Airport, to the Stadium itself, backstage with everyone from all of the Baez sisters (Joan, Mimi and Pauline), Music Journalist Extraordinaire and host of Jazz Casual Ralph J. Gleason, Promoter Tom Donahue, Beatles Press Officer Tony Barrow and of course, Jim Marshall himself. The timing for the release of this book, couldn't have been better. BRAVO! 

 Jazz Life

Antonio G. Pereira  ©  2026  Antonio G. Pereira

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Jazz Life

       https://www.archive.org/details/jazzlifejourneyf0000clax/mode/2up https://www.amazon.com/Jazzlife-Journey-Jazz-Across-America/dp/3836542935 by Music Photographer William Claxton and German Musicologist Joachim E. Berendt. Though this book was done more than 70 years ago, it is a timeless piece of work. And well worth reading. 

        There is one thing I find questionable about this book that is never addressed, and which I find open to question. In William Claxton's Preface, he mentions stopping off with co-author and 'Jazz Expert' Joachim E. Berendt, at a hamburger and malt shop on Highway 101 in California. The middle aged man and his wife, who own the place and speak English and German , are very friendly at first, until they hear Berendt speak to them in German; and the atmosphere turns to ice. It transpires that the man and his wife are Holocaust survivors, and the husband has numbers tattooed along the entire length of his forearm. The icy atmosphere continues until they leave the shop. We find out throughout the book, that Joachim E. Berendt, the 'Jazz Expert', served in the German Army during World War 2 at the Russian Front, and also served time in a Prisoner of War camp after the war. There is a blank area here about him, which is never addressed. Now aside from the obvious frauds like openly racist trumpeter Nick La Rocca in New Orleans (a complete moron if there ever was one), and Gunther Schuller (a Symphonic composer) who made a laughing stock of himself with his so-called creation of  'third stream music', this book belongs in the personal music library of every Jazz fan. It is that good. There are trumpeter Clifford Brown (his album 'Clifford Brown With Strings' is just gorgeous) and bassist Scott LaFaro (the very  inventive musician who played with Bill Evans), and who both died young in automobile accidents, and left a legacy of recordings of wonderful music, that will last forever. Wardell Gray, the very innovative Be Bop saxophonist, who was murdered in the desert of Las Vegas as an example to the integrated (and at the time successful) Moulin Rouge Hotel (the only integrated one on the Strip) by the Cosa Nostra. This book is an incredible archive of photographs, and a picture of America just before the Civil Rights Movement went into full swing and changed the face of America forever; dragging it kicking and screaming into what became a decade of change. As Miles Davis would have put it, "All Them Great Motherfuckers Are Here". Everyone from Miles himself, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gil Evans, Sarah Vaughn, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Mary Lou Williams, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Nina Simone, Peggy Lee, you name 'em, they're here. The collection of photographs taken across the country in 1960 will blow your mind! I was astounded to see a picture of a teenage Billy Preston playing piano, that was taken in Hollywood. The photographs that were taken near the end of the book, that finished the author's journey across America in 1960, of a cross section of Folk Musicians playing together in Washington Square Park, is a marvelous ending to Jazz Life. A prediction of what was to come. This is quite a masterpiece. And worth the money!