Off the Books: A Jazz Life

Many jazz lives have unfolded as marginal existences, as jazz guitarist Peter Leitch attests in this honest memoir of a life lived in search of excellence in music and art, but also a life lived battling depression, alienation, and narcotics addiction. Leitch vividly relates trying to eke out a living in jazz clubs, nightclubs, and studios in Montreal, Toronto, and New York. He tells of growing up as an Anglophone in Montreal’s working-class and predominantly French-speaking East End refine...