The African-American Century : How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country [Paperback] Review

Even though this book gives brief biographical sketches ofsignificant African Americans, I still give it five stars for the following reasons:
1) It is a very neatly organized resource for notable African-Americans, that can give quick and accurate information about these people and their times.I like that each page clearly shows the decade during which that person made major accomplishments. For each person profiled, there is at least onephoto, and a provocative, "boxed" quote.
2) This kind of book is desperately needed by most of America's schoolteachers. Many are not well-informed about the achievements of African-Americans, and here they get a quick, clear, and stimulating profile of many who made major contributions.Further, Professors Gates and West provide a bibliography that leads the reader to at least one significant in-depth work about each person profiled, so those who want to know more are "pointed in the right direction."
3) While there are some sports and entertainment figures, I don't think there is any bias in that direction. With personages like Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Aaron, you MUST include them in a work like this because they really transcended sports, and became larger-than-life symbols of social issues.
4) Professors Cornel West and Henry Gates Jr. write in a very clear manner, and don't candy-coat their subject manner.They point out the contradictions in many of these peoples' lives, mention their social critics, and demonstrate that meaningful lives are seldom neat and tidy ones.To professors Gates and West, I say "Thanks, fellas, for not coming across like the stereotypical "stuffy Harvard scholars!"

Finally, if you know of a school teacher who is well-intended about teaching more about African American history, but maybecan benefit from an attractively presented and easily accessible resource book, think of this as a thoughtful gift to that person.Next time February (Black History Month) rolls around, they will have lots of suggestions for class projects and pupil reports.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The African-American Century : How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country [Paperback]



Buy cheap The African-American Century : How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country [Paperback] now Get 32% OFF

Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra [Paperback] Review

First let me say that I am a bigtime Sun Ra fan. If someone did not like Sun Ra's music, this book would probably not be as much fun, but it still might be interesting - say, a three-star rating instead of a five.
Ra has made much of his swing era big band background, having arranged for and performed with Fletcher Henderson ca. 1947, during that band leader's years of decline. This book documents something much less obvious: Ra's indebtedness to doo wop, R&B and even mood music. Who would have guessed the resemblance to Les Baxter? I now hear both Ra and Baxter with new ears. Starting in the first chapter, the book provides important background available nowhere else, such as detailed description of the 1930s Birmingham social clubs, a little known musical scene.
About two thirds of the way through, the narration freezes and the book gets bogged down in describing Ra as a philosopher and poet. This is rather thin soup. Szwed tosses out twenty-dollar terms like "gnosticism" without giving any clear evidence that he, or Ra for that matter, really understands them. Fact is that Ra's genius was largely intuitive, and his uses of Egyptian history and futuristic technophilia were largely metaphorical posturing. Ra's philosophy and poetry are valuable only because he was a musical genius. Students of the music should remember that the programmatic content was used ritually in performance but in no way validates his music or makes it better.
The chapters covering the 1930s through 1960s are fairly detailed. In contrast, the narration about Ra's last 15 years (1977-92) is curtailed (perhaps by a deadline), and we get barely one page per year of activity. A complement to Szwed's book is Robert Campbell's discography, The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra (Cadence Books), which gives very few pages to the early years but becomes thick by listing recordings made in the 1980s, when technology had made live recordings commonplace.
...I am about to read John Szwed's book for the fifth time. After reading it the second time, I was so sorry to finish I had to start over again. That's why I wish there were more about his late recording and touring career.
If you don't know Sun Ra's music, start with the Evidence CDs and get with it. If you already know and like Ra's music, then you will enjoy this book.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra [Paperback]



Buy cheap Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra [Paperback] now Get 10% OFF

Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West [Paperback] Review

Jelly Roll Morton, the self proclaimed "inventor of Jazz," remains one of the most complex figures in American music.Largely forgotten by the time of his death, Morton had pioneered the early New Orleans style jazz on record and seemed to be on the comeback trail and to be experimenting with the dominant swing style of the 1930s.Pastras provides an insight into Morton by examining his years on the West Coast(roughly the late teens to early twenties and then again in the early 1940s).The first period was among Morton's most satisfying both musically and personally, and the second seems to indicate an attempt at a comeback.Pastras sheds light on Morton's relationships with his godmother and his long time companaion Anita Gonzales and in the process examines the roles played by voodoo and "passing for white" among the Creole community.While the contributions of this book are many, one of the main thrusts is the often conflicting and, at times untrustworthy, nature of oral history as evidenced by Alan Lomax's previous oral history biography of Morton.In the end Lomax's book is more folklore than history.However this does not negate Lomax's contribution, but rather illuminates the pitfalls of not balancing oral history with other evidence if such evidence exists.It is Morton as he wished to present himself to the world. Pastras' text is not only interesting but instructive to those dealing with oral history, but the average reader may want to start with Lomax's book and then move to Pastras' more compelling investigation.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West [Paperback]



Buy cheap Dead Man Blues: Jelly Roll Morton Way Out West [Paperback] now

Songs of the Unsung : The Musical and Social Journey of Horace Tapscott [Hardcover] Review

SONGS OF THE UNSUNG: THE MUSICAL & SOCIAL JOURNEY OF HORACE TAPSCOTT is an engaging read. Not only is the book the autobiography of Los Angeles pianist and bandleader Horace Tapscott, it is an informative history of West Coast jazz and Los Angeles black arts.

Tapscott worked with writer Steve Isoardi for several years through the 1990s. They first connected for the Isoardi-led book CENTRAL AVENUE SOUNDS. Read both of these books as well as THE DARK TREE for the hidden hitory of West Coast community arts. Horace Tapscott was a major musical pioneer for over 40 years, read details of his amazing story here.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Songs of the Unsung : The Musical and Social Journey of Horace Tapscott [Hardcover]



Buy cheap Songs of the Unsung : The Musical and Social Journey of Horace Tapscott [Hardcover] now

Raise Up Off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes [Paperback] Review

If you like jazz, get your hands on this book and read it! Its humor, honesty, attention to detail, and readability put other autobiographies (mingus, miles) to shame.
Hawes was the bluesiest of the beboppers and could rightly be called the unrecognized father of hard bop.Unfortunately, he also had a herion habit that crippled his career.For more on that, read the book.Some of his recordings are still in print.Give them a listen, and then start calling DeCapo Press to get them to reprint this jazz literature classic!END

Click Here to see more reviews about: Raise Up Off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes [Paperback]

Product Description:
Hampton Hawes [1928-1977] was one of jazz's greatest pianists. Among his peers from California the self-taught Hawes was second only to Oscar Peterson. At the time of his celebration as New Star of the Year by downbeat magazine (1956), Hawes was already struggling with a heroin addiction that would lead to his arrest and imprisonment, and the interruption of a brilliant career. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy granted Hawes an Executive Pardon. In eloquent and humorous language Hampton Hawes tells of a life of suffering and redemption that reads like an improbable novel. Gary Giddins has called it a major contribution to the literature of jazz. This book includes a complete discography and eight pages of photographs.

Buy cheap Raise Up Off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes [Paperback] now Get 32% OFF

I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath [Hardcover] Review

Temple University Press has released one of the best, most thorough jazz histories/biographies I can recall reading. I WALKED WITH GIANTS is written by and about Jimmy Heath, with Joseph McClaren and a forward by Bill Cosby.Jimmy Heath is the middle brother of the Heath Brothers: Jimmy on tenor sax, Percy on bass and Tootie (Albert) on drums.
Jimmy Heath played with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1940's.Jimmy Heath was 21 when on was on stage with Coleman Hawkins, Howard McGhee, Erroll Garner and Slam Stewart before they were giants. Jimmy Heath grew up in the rich, musically fertile south, South Philly, that is.

As a composer and arranger, Jimmy Heath has made an deep, indelible groove in music.Pick a song, pick
"A Sound For Sore Ears."You will find the embodiment of Jimmy Heath within: the dexterity, wit andinvention that is tapped in so many veins throughout I WALKED WITH GIANTS.

Everything is here: the music, the friends, the good times in concerts, the hard times in prison (Jimmy
sold dope to an undercover cop and did time) and the long off and on road to recognition, and finally acclaim.

I WALKED WITH GIANTS is brilliantly organized.Jimmy tells his wild stories as only he can, and he is supported throughout the book by the voices and reminiscences of Wynton Marsalis, Slide Hampton, Benny Carter, Cedar Walton, Billy Taylor, Hank Jones and a few dozen other vital musicians.

This book is a fast moving, fascinating biography of the brilliant Mr. Heath, but it is also a very strong, serious study from the inside of American history and culture in the second half of the past century.Only geniuses could have put I WALKED WITH GIANTS together so succinctly, so vividly, and only a genius could have lived it. As soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to read it again.

Click Here to see more reviews about: I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath [Hardcover]



Buy cheap I Walked With Giants: The Autobiography of Jimmy Heath [Hardcover] now Get 34% OFF

Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum [Paperback] Review

I am ecstatic that this marvelous book has been written.I truly believed, until this book became known to me, that I would for all my life enjoy Art Tatum without ever knowing anything about him.To me, this is a first rate book that will stand the test of time and be cherished by future generations. The author is an accomplished pianist and he writes about Tatum in a way that I, as a pianist, can profoundly relate to. I suspect this will probably be the only book that will ever be written about Tatem, as he wasborn in 1909 and the people who knew him are dying off. For me, the journey to this book was to first read the wonderful biography of Bud Powellby Francis Paudras, then read the fascinating biography of Bill Evans by Peter Pettinger, and then read this incredible Tatum biography.Reading this book has inspired me to study, more deeply, Fats Waller.The era during which which Art Tatum, Fats Waller, J.P. Johnson, Willie the Lion, et al., were kings, is a fascinating, riveting period that deserves study by all who have a love of jazz piano.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum [Paperback]



Buy cheap Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Genius of Art Tatum [Paperback] now Get 12% OFF