Your wonderful book arrived yesterday, it´s really stunning & my mouth is still open ...
thanks a million!  I hope for volume two! 
Winne Freyer

It's a fantastic bit of work you and Bo did. I think of it as a real major accomplishment.
Dan Barrett, California.

I'm speechless, can only say "WWWOOOOOWWW".
Larry Gushee

It is the model for other jazz researchers.
Bill Haesler, Australia

Luca Cerchiari
Intorno al jazz
Sabato 26 11 2011 Il Giornale del Popolo, Lugano

Proprio dalla Francia, che con la scuola storica anni Sessanta della rivista Les Annales(March Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Georges Duby) suggerì una revisione della propria teoria disciplinare, allargando la messa a fuoco dai macroeventi a quelli anche minori, dai “grandi” ai “comprimari”, viene un contributo eccezionale nella saggistica sulla musica afro-americana. Lo dobbiamo a due studiosi e appassionati-apparentemente, due dilettanti della musicologia-, l’ingegnere svedese Bo Lindstrom e il grafico e trombettista francese Dan Vernhettes, co-autori di un volume riccamente illustrato sul trombettista afro-americano Tommy Ladnier(1900-1939). Ladnier ci appare, in prima istanza, appunto un “minore” di notevole livello. Una carriera relativamente breve, interrotta prematuramente da un infarto, come diversi altri protagonisti della fase tradizionale e classica del jazz egli si divise fra esordi statunitensi e fortune europee, figurando ripetutamente nel nostro continente come membro delle orchestre di Sam Wooding(1928), Bennie Peyton e Herb Flemming(1929)e Noble Sissle(1930-31), in contesti che variavano dalla rivista teatrale allo spettacolo più strettamente musicale. Già collaboratore di King Oliver e Fletcher Henderson, molto apprezzato anche su disco nella Chicago degli anni Venti per il suo stile già maturo, sintetico e venato di blues, Ladnier avrebbe quindi figurato nel gruppo Feetwarmers di Sidney Bechet, il sassofonista neworleansiano che conobbe in Russia durante una delle citate tournée. Lindstrom e Vernhettes ricostruiscono l’intera vita e carriera del trombettista partendo da lontano, dalla colonizzazione della Louisiana e dall’albero genealogico della famiglia Ladnier, che mostra antecedenti in Francia.In questo lo sforzo di ricerca degli autori è stato fuori dal comune, coinvolgendo per anni con ottimi esiti archivi notarili, biblioteche, collezioni, fonti iconografiche, giornalistiche e grafiche, nonché l’intero lascito di musica incisa dal trombettista.Il rapporto di Ladnier con l’Europa è particolarmente ben documentato:le lunghissime tournèe con la rivista Chocolate Kiddies, da un lato, svelano come il jazz si sia diffuso ovunque nel nostro continente, in un’epoca di scarsa circolazione discografica, anche grazie a questi spettacoli, mentre la documentata presenza newyorkese del critico francese Hugues Panassiè, nel 1938, giunto nella metropoli per registrarvi numerosi dischi, indica come Ladnier, scomparso dopo il 1934, sia stato rilanciato da Panassiè assieme a Sidney Bechet, nel segno di una precoca manifestazione dei quel revival del jazz tradizionale che ebbe luogo verso la metà degli anni Quaranta, contrapponendo il neonato jazz moderno, detto bebop, agli stili primigeni di questa musica(la bagarre ebbe per protagonista principale Panassiè, che a Parigi litigò col collega e amico Charles Delaunay, e fondò una nuova rivista contrapposta alla storica Jazz Hot, ed ebbe una coda negli Usa animata tra gli altri dal “modernista” Leonard Feather). Ma non c’è momento o documento della carriera di Ladnier, apprezzato maestro dell’invenzione melodica e della sonorità del suo strumento, che l’importante libro di Lindstrom e Vernhettes, consigliabile anche come strenna natalizia, non ci faccia apprezzare.L’unica riserva formulabile riguarda la mancanza di una bibliografia, peraltro abbondantemente diffusa nelle note dei singoli capitoli.

Bo Lindstrom e Dan Vernhettes, Traveling Blues. The Life and Music of Tommy Ladnier, Jazz ‘Edit, Parigi (www.jazzedit.org).

"I have got 3000 jazz books on my shelves, and you book is the most beautiful!"
Chris Smith (USA).

The book & CD arrived here yesterday and I have become totally oblivious to my wife and family and spend every free moment poring over your writings, the photos and the beautiful layout and not least, the music on the MP3 Cd.
Tom Buhmann

An enthusiastic review from Michael Steinman: here

"This is without doubt the handsomest jazz book I’ve ever seen.
The book is absolutely beautiful. "
Paige van Vorst, Jazz Beat, 2009.

Your book is absolutely splendid! Daniel F. Havens, St. Louis, Missouri

The book about Tommy has arrived today, it is superb! You (Bo & Dan) have found the right balance. Pr. Larry Gushee

The book is a knock-out, I'm reading it the second time around while listening to Tommy's recordings! Frank Naundorf, New Orleans.

I am totally flabbergasted. I have never read anything similar in the field of jazz, and I have read an awful lot of books. Nothing comes close to this absolutely marvelous piece of work, a labour of love. Scientificly approached, an enormous lot of higly interesting footnotes. This biography is perfect. And the lay-out, I have never seen anything like this. You have difficulties to put the book away once you have started reading. You have become trendsettes for how to write a biopgrahy in the 21th century. After this every author in spe or biographies and other books of jazz will have to face enormous expectations how to write and do the lay-out. Claes Rigqvist, Sweden

Once again congratulations for the Tommy Ladnier book. The sheer volume (and the quality) of the scholarship is amazing! Eric Schultz

One more congratulations my friends. Your work is even bigger than what I expected. Philippe Baudoin

Your book is absolutely splendid! Daniel F. Havens, St. Louis, Missouri

What a book! A monument! Christian Declume (Toulouse).

What a wonderful book, it arrived tuesday and I couldnt put it down, i HAVE TO REST FOR A WEEK AND THEN RE-READ IT ! What a labour of love! Cuff Billett

An absolutely superb production! Doug Landau

Fantastic, what an incredible precision in the text, and the lay-out is great too! Fabrice Zammarchi

I received your magnificent book yesterday and started to read it immediately. It is indeed an impressive piece of work! I hope it will sell magnificently. Supposedly, you made a major impact, not least through the layout which I found most impressive.

I received the Tommy Ladnier book today. It is simply beautiful! It’s so rich with pictures, and so well designed that I find it hard to stop flipping through. When I sit down and read, it’s beyond fascinating. You’ve done a wonderful job, and done jazz history a great service. I would recommend it to anybody interested in understanding jazz and where it came from. Patrick Tevlin, Toronto, Canada

As a professional geographer, I appreciated the spatial aspect, especially with all maps (not least that of Mandeville) and various discussions of places. Göran Hoppe, Uppsala

I'm awfully proud to be associated with such an informative and beautiful monograph. You have every reason to be awfully proud yourself, and I'm sure it will be sold out quickly. CONGRATULATIONS on a major contribution to jazz historiography, Herzlichst, Karl Gert zur Heide

I should like to express my great satisfaction with your product. I have never seen (or heared) anything of this kind with a similar high quality. Your research. Hans Christian Nørregaard, Copenhagen

I'm overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of it and the obvious completeness. Marcel Joly, Belgium

Traveling Blues received a Special Price of the French Academy Jazz 2009.

It is a superb production, a veritable magnum opus of which I am sure you are proud. It gives us meticulous research about the life and music of Tommy Ladnier. As a jazz fan of some fifty years standing , with an interest in the history of the music, I thought I new all about Tommy Ladnier. But now I know the real Tommy Ladnier (his music and career in superb detail). What I liked as well were the references to his contemporaries who were around at the same time , but not necessarily playing with him, setting the scene for his career. The book gets off to a great start with a fine history lesson , putting in to context what is to follow about Tommy’s life and career. We are then given some fascinating genealogical detective work on his family. Subsequent chapters are joy to read; I don’t think they can be surpassed on the amount of detail we are given on a single musician – in fact it sets the standard for a book on an individual jazz musician. The amount of research you went through to get the full story on Tommy is evidenced by the copious footnotes on each page. By the way what a relief to have them on the same page and not have to scurry back and forth to an Appendix of footnotes. I have one final pleasure to come and that is now to play the 189 MP3 tracks, using the relevant musical interpretation comments by your good selves (important for a non musician like myself).
Paul Harris

Review from the Darmstadt Jazz Institute: http://www.jazzinstitut.de/books/books-de.htm