Stardust Melodies [Hardcover] Review

Did you know that Evelyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope Diamond and a backer of the production of 'Show Boat', was so aghast when its creators wanted to take 'Ol' Man River' out of the show during out-of-town tryouts that she bet them the Diamond that it would be the hit of the show? She didn't have to give up her gem, and this gem of a song was saved. Did you know that Stan Freberg recorded his own politically correct version of the song, retitling it 'Elderly Man River'? Or did you know that Herman Hupfeld, the writer of both the words and music for 'As Time Goes By' had only one other hit in his long career, and that was 'When Yuba Plays the Rhumba on the Tuba'?
This book is not just a collection of trivia about twelve popular American songs, but it is filled with such oddball facts as these. Will Friedwald starts each chapter with the story of how the song came to be writen, gives a neat analysis of the technical details of the song, and then describes the major recorded versions of each song. This is indeed a treasure trove of information about these songs, and if nothing else, reminds us of the long and rich history of American popular song.
The twelve songs, each with its own chapter, are, in chronological order, 'Star Dust', 'The St. Louis Blues', 'Mack the Knife', 'Ol' Man River', 'Body and Soul', 'I Got Rhythm', 'As Time Goes By', 'Night and Day', 'Stormy Weather', 'Summertime', 'My Funny Valentine', and 'Lush Life.'

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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

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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.

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Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954-2001 [Paperback] Review

OK, Whitney Balliett never got into Miles Davis's electric stuff. So he's a Moldy Fig. To quote Miles, "So What?" For my money, he's still the greatest observer of the modern jazz scene. What makes him great is the accuracy of his observation: No other jazz critic ("Notes and Tones" was written by Art Taylor, a drummer) has been as generous as Balliett at letting the musicians speak for themselves. Reading his reviews, you often forget he's there. That never happens with Stanley Crouch, now does it? I don't like to think about how old Balliett is, nor do I like to think about what jazz criticism will be like without him. By the way: Balliett is not an exclusionary writer. You do not need a Hip Merit Badge to read and enjoy his work. He's a national treasure. Recognize his greatness while he's still here to enjoy it!

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The History of Jazz [Paperback] Review

Anyone purportedly writing a "History of Jazz" faces a daunting task: A complex history of interwoven musical strands, the linkages and evolutions (sometimes skipping a generation), the geographic spread to Europe and elsewhere, the eventual fragmentation of jazz into diverse sounds and approaches, and the opinions of knowledgeable, rabid fans.
Ted Giola succeeds magnificently: This is the best single-volume history of jazz I've seen.While not without some minor flaws (see below), this is a comprehensive, generally very well written, and intriguing story of the genesis and development of jazz. It is a compelling story, and Giola writes without mythologizing jazz, or constantly needing to remind us that this is, indeed, art. The giants of jazz-- Armstrong, Ellington, Parker, Holiday, etc. are critiqued rather than lionized.
Giola proceeds through the now familiar African, American, African-American, and European roots of jazz that emanated first from New Orleans.He traces its developmental routes through Chicago and New York, the Armstrong solo evolution, and the diverse "territory bands" such as those of Bennie Moten and Count Basie.
Fortunately, Giola does not limit himself to a strictly chronological narrative.He interrupts the timeline with revealing excursions into topics such as the development of instrumental styles (e.g., piano, trumpet), and jumps ahead to show the impact of early influences on later styles (e.g., Lester Young and bebop).He also pays attention to cultural, technological, and economic context, without letting these subtexts blare over the music.Giola knows music from the "inside" as well as the outside, and his discussions of jazz technique and harmonic and rhythmic innovations are detailed and precise.His deconstruction of various solos and styles is illuminating: Charlie Parker's "Indiana" is a version "where almost every bar features one or more altered tones-an augmented fifth, a major seventh played against a minor chord, a flatted ninth leading to a sharpened ninth...a textbook example of how bop harmonic thinking revolutionized the flow of the melodic line in jazz."Yet Giola is also astute in directing our attention to the "core of simplicity" ...the "monophonic melody statements" in bop.
Giola's critiques of various musicians are generally fair and accurate, and he discusses the famous as well as the overlooked.Every jazz fan, however, will probably find some favorite musician given insufficient coverage, or will disagree with a Giola critique.There's no mention of Carmen McCrae, about half a page on Sarah Vaughan, very little mention of European jazz, not much discussion of Miles Davis' or Basie's later work ("The Atomic Mr. Basie," for example).For my tastes, there is not enough on Mingus' sidemen (other than Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk) and he describes the Mingus Town Hall Concert as a fiasco. (Organizationally it was a disaster, but musically it succeeded.)Giola's statement that "Mingus was the closest jazz has come to having its own Ezra Pound," is baffling.To a large degree, however, these are editorial(the book is only 395 pages long), as well as critical decisions.Not everyone would agree, as I do, with Giola's dismissive statement that Kenny G. "sold over $20 million of emaciated pseudo-jazz to a devoted audience.A critic cannot and should not please everyone.
Giola commands our respect because of his thorough knowledge of jazz and its web-like variations and influences.He knows his material well, whether it's the origins of jazz or the "Third Stream" and "Free Jazz" movements of relatively recent years.I recommend this book very highly to both musician and non-musician alike, jazz aficionado and novice.You may read the book as an introduction to jazz, or to achieve a greater synthesis of what you already know.It may also serve as a springboard to more narrowly focused jazz writing, such as Rosenthal's "Hard Bop" or Lees' "Meet Me at Jim and Andy's."There is a general index, an index of songs and albums, 15 pages on recommended listening, eight black and white photos, some notes on sources, as well as suggestions for further reading. This book, and perhaps a copy of the "Penguin Guide to Jazz," could easily serve as the core of a jazz lover's bookshelf.

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