Dvorák to Duke Ellington: A Conductor Explores America's Music and Its African American Roots [Hardcover] Review

Maurice Peress is an inspiring guide to the main roads and byways of American music. A conductor of distinction and a writer, scholar and thinker of substance, he offers a combination of personal reminiscences and exciting historical discoveries. He is a leading expert on Dvorak and his time, and offers fresh new insights into the material. His original research on Dvorak's American years has been quite influential in the development of this field more broadly and thus he may be considered the "Dean" of American Dvorak scholarship.

This is a splendid book to read straight through, or to browse and enjoy.

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Product Description:
In From Dvorak to Duke Ellington the prominent symphony conductor Maurice Peress describes his career and experiences with American music and musicians. Peress conducted the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, worked with Duke Ellington on the Suite from Black Brown and Beige and Queenie Pie, and reconstructed and recreated historic American concerts at which Antheil's Ballet Mecanique, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and Ellington's Black, Brown, and Beige were first presented. Peress also revisits Dvorak's three year residency in 1892-95, the controversy that greeted his radical notion that composers turn to Negro music for inspiration, and the careers of his students who went on to teach Copeland, Gershwin, and Ellington.

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Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece [Paperback] Review

A surprisingly brisk read for a book of such ambitious scope, the author begins a full decade before the recording it chronicles. A wide range of subject matter - the evolution of jazz, Miles as an artist and creative voice, recording techniques, even the business of jazz marketing - are covered engagingly, intelligently and leave the reader with a better context in which to place this seminal recording.
Long-time fans, who know the music and the myths inside out, will marvel anew at the dedication Miles showed not only to his music, but in what can only be called his sentimentality in working with the other artists on the dates. His relationship with pianist Bill Evans is especially poignant.
The rise of modal jazz and its off-shoot from bop, along with the impact on the post-war generation of players is juxtaposed against a record label system willing to actually bid for jazz artists(!) and put real thought and resources into promoting their works. There is a tinge of nostalgia to the writing, though the author is not a contemporary of the original recording's release. This tone is far out-weighed by the realization that Kind of Blue really did mark a second (or third) Golden Age in jazz and that men the likes of Miles Davis - or Babe Ruth or Marlon Brando - seem not to walk among us much anymore.
In an age of celebrity profiles and Behind the Music "documentaries", Kahn's book shows us that every story has many stories, and he tells each with a respectful touch.

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Product Description:
Now in paperback: "A small treasure" (The New Yorker) and the best-selling account of the creation of a jazz classic.
This critically and commercially acclaimed tribute to the most popular jazz album of all time is now available in paperback. With transcriptions of the unedited session tapes; in-depth interviews with musicians; freshly discovered Columbia Records files; never-before-seen photographs; and a foreword by the last surviving member of the band, drummer Jimmy Cobb, Kind of Blue is a vital piece of music history-and will be essential for fans and scholars for years to come.

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In a Silent Way: A Portrait of Joe Zawinul [Illustrated] [Hardcover] Review

One of the things that makes this such an interesting book is that it is about the music as much as it is about the personality of Joe. It has details such as how two Drummers were used on one of the Black Market Tracks. I so enjoyed listening to the songs after reading about them.

Half the book is about the Weather Report years, the other half is pre and post Weather Report.

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Joe Zawinul pioneered a seismic shift in American jazz, incorporating international rhythms and new electronic tonalities.

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So What: The Life of Miles Davis [Hardcover] Review

Prior to SO WHAT I felt that, as revealing as many prior Davis bios were (including Miles' own book), their sum was somehow less than the parts.That is, there was more to understand about Miles Davis than what was collectively written.Along comes SO WHAT, the most balanced and coherent one-stop source yet for getting to know about the entirety of Miles Davis' life.As much as Miles urged us to let the music speak for itself, the context and environment in which Davis' art was created is important, and author John Szwed is up to the challenge to walk down the many paths that lead to and from Davis' music and life (e.g., discussing the aesthetics of artists as wide-ranging as Stockhausen and Sly Stone, both of whom impacted Miles' musical vision in the 1970s).Szwed doesn't attempt to cram every interesting, revealing, or just plain provocative story from prior books into his bio.Still, his research does come up with some errors previously presented as facts, and there are plently of newfound "Miles Davis stories" to amuse and/or amaze the reader, for better and worse.
What the author seems to do is pick and choose among the previously-revealed tidbits about Miles and use them as supplements to 1) his open-minded knowledge about the entirety of Davis' music (as well as the cultural and commercial environment in which it was created), and 2) fresh, revealing interviews he conducted with family members and others close to the subject at key points in his life.Having unprecedented access to Davis' family was possibly the missing piece of the puzzle needed to really reconcile what was already known about Miles with the many contradictions that sat unresolved for decades (e.g., tough exterior, insecure interior).Even as Szwed stays in tune with Davis' music from beginning to end, he reveals with unprecedented detail just how chaotic his personal life was.Previously I thought Davis was unlucky to have died so relatively young...albeit at age 65.Given all of the substance abuse and other problems he faced (and created for himself), I'm now amazed that Miles lasted so long, and how he could--with a bare minimum of lulls over nearly a half-century--be artistically creative right up to his final hospitalization in 1991.
Being that Miles' life was often sensationalistic to begin with, Szwed plays it cool with this hot topic, writing the way that Davis played, sans ornamentation.SO WHAT stays focused on the big picture...with details that dip beneath the surface throughout Miles' entire life.The information seems mostly accurate; among the errors that I caught were that Szwed states the 1985 Artists United vs. Apartheid SUN CITY project in which Davis participated was a Quincy Jones production (in reality it was led by Little Steven and Arthur Baker). The author is confusing that benefit recording with WE ARE THE WORLD from the same year which Jones did direct (this error undermines Szwed's critique of the SUN CITY album).Also, it's unfortunate that the 20-CD COMPLETE MONTREUX boxed set came along too late to be included here, because the high quality of that music is the best evidence yet that Miles' final years were musically-productive ones.However, all this means is that understanding Davis remains an ongoing process.Even with its few minor flaws, no oneto date has better unraveled the enigmatic genius of Miles Davis than Szwed.I recommended this book first, with Paul Tingen's MILES BEYOND next in line.

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New Orleans Acoustic Blues Guitar:: The Babe Stovall Era 1964-1974 (Volume 1) [Paperback] Review

This is a complex and dense book, and way too short to satisfy most people's taste. What Collins says in one or two sentences aptly sums up the music politics of the city back in those days. This is the evidence and perspective of just one performer---but the plot of ground he has found for new orleans folk music in the city's jazz history is going to yield huge dividends for those writers coming afterwards. The book is obviously a text book written to accompany some sort of visual instruction. And thus, maybe hard to follow. The 8 song examples are really not enough, and Snooks Eaglin leads do not get much attention.Stovall and Lonnie Johnson material can be found elsewhere, as well. The book at times seems sandwiched in between discocography and references. Collins is aware that he cannot take the reader everywhere. But I agree this is a good place to start.

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Product Description:
The folk era of the mid to late 1960s in New Orleans has received little attention from historians and educators compared to the folk scenes of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.The book focuses on styles of Babe Stovall, Snooks Eaglin, and Lonnie Johnson and is the companion book for a university course on acoustic blues...

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The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records [Hardcover] Review

Ashley Kahn is carving out a serious niche for himself as a fans' chronicler of classic jazz CDs. I've found his works on "Kind of Blue" and "Love Supreme" helpful, and "House that TraneBuilt" expands the interviews and research he did for "Love Supreme" into a history that jazz fans will find insightful.

It's hard to move beyond Trane on Impulse. I've got most of his stuff for the label, and I'm hard pressed to think of albums that I listen to regularly outside of Trane from Impulse. Blues and the Abstract Truth comes to mind. Some Pharoah Sanders. I've been meaning to get Gil Evans Out of the Cool for awhile. But I haven't been collecting jazz much lately, and this book will inspire me to pick up some more stuff.

The story of this book is as much the producers of Impulse as it is 'Trane's work. I did not realize how Impulse differed from Blue Note in that it was born with the cash to make an immediate impact. Not only was it born with cash, but it was also born with an artist: Ray Charles, who hit with "One Mint Julep" on his album "Genius + Soul = Jazz". Creed Taylor, he of the more popular oriented CTI Records, shows a true heart for the music in his initial choices for impulse artists. Bob Thiele, however, is the costar of this book. Kahn goes through great pains to show how Thiele's opening up to Coltrane and avant-garde music helped give him the latitude and the courage to work with some of the more "out" artists like Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler.

For those readers who are new to jazz, a good way to decide whether you want to purchase the book would to be focus on the album sketches that are interspersed throughout the book. In the first two-thirds of the book, most of these are titles that jazz fans will recall with fondness. But there are some examples of albums that fell by the wayside like a Curtis Fuller orchestral session and some of the rock experiments that formed a small but significant part of Impulse's later years.

I dig this book. As a former musician, I'm always looking for background that helps to ground musicians in the history and tradition of the music. This book will help jazz fans understand how a jazz label can exist within a major conglomerate and still produce risk-taking music. One can only hope that somewhere someone can figure out to find similarly breathtaking music that can function as both commerce and art.

5 stars

--SD

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City Limits [Paperback] Review

I enjoyed Terry Teachout's book of autobiographical essays "City Limits". There is nothing terribly important in the book, but its tone and pace are leisurely & enjoyable and his stories reveal interesting details about an important cultural critic whose influence is rising each year through his books and articles in "Commentary", "The Wall Street Journal" and other influential conservative journals of opinion. Teachout's writing reminds me of my favorite writer, Joseph Epstein (it is probably no coincidence that you often find their pieces in the same issues of publications). Both writers are extremely culturally fluent with a lot of interesting things to say. Their writing is also very accessable to the average, educated person who is looking to learn more about literature, music, theater, art, and the good life in general.

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Riding On A Blue Note: Jazz And American Pop [Paperback] Review

When I was first getting seriously into jazz, this book (along with MartinWilliams's The Jazz Tradition) was the principal critical aid.Since thenI've reread it for pleasure countless times, for it's not only criticallyperspicacious but also has considerable literary merit.Da Capo isrighting a longstanding wrong by putting this book back into print, as theoriginal Oxford University Press edition has been unavailable forsometime.Not only new converts, but old sweats who happened to miss it thefirst time around should read this book, or just anyone who likeswell-written prose.One of the nice things about reprints is the chancefor an author to put in a contemporary word, and it's very nice to see thatthis book has a new preface by Giddins, written almost 20 years after theintroduction to the first edition.He comments with bemusement on theyounger writer represented in these pages, and gives valuble information onthe publishing history of Riding On A Blue Note, as well as updating theRed Rodney piece somewhat.
Though this is a book primarily about jazz, itlives up to it's subtitle (Jazz and American Pop) by including chapters onBing Crosby, Otis Blackwell, Bobby Blue Bland, the Dominoes, and FrankSinatra, though Giddins gives fair warning in the old intro that they arestudied from the viewpoint of a jazz critic.In fact, the chapter entitled"Just How Much Did Elvis Learn from Otis Blackwell?" is one ofthe most fascinating in the book as it attempts to uncover some of thetangled, subterranean back-and-forth influences between black and whitemusic.The chapter on Red Rodney ("Adventures of the Red Arrow")is funny as hell and functions as an entertaining short story even if it issomeday proved to be a Rodney-perpetrated hoax.I'm tempted to say thatGiddins is particularly sound on Ellington, Count Basie, and Dexter Gordon,but then I would have to add that he also does well by trombonist JackTeagarden, Irving Berlin, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie,and Charlie Parker... Though I hate to sound like a jacket blurb, the factis that this truly is one of those rare collections in which every essay isa gem, both informative on first reading and a delight to reread.The onlydrawback is that Da Capo charges top dollar for their paperback reprints,but it's worth it. Giddins has written several other fine books over theyears but there's something special about this one.

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Product Description:
"The most imposing figure in jazz writing today" (JazzTimes) on artists from Duke Ellington to Elvis Presley to Irving Berlin-all with that pervasive "blue note" of jazz in common
Gary Giddins, winner of the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award, has a following that includes not only jazz enthusiasts but also pop music fans of every stripe. Writing here in a lyrical and celebratory style all his own, Giddins dazzlingly shows us-among many other things-how performers originally perceived as radical (Bing Crosby, Count Basie, Elvis Presley) became conservative institutions...how Charlie Parker created a masterpiece from the strain of an inane ditty...how the Dominoes helped combine church ritual with pop music...and how Irving Berlin translated a chiaroscuro of Lower East Side minorities into imperishable songs.
"Nobody writes with greater style and authority about American music than Gary Giddins. The great musicians are all here-from Professor Longhair to Charlie Parker-and it's a pleasure to enjoy their company with a fine writer." (Pete Hamill)

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Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of Its Second Century [Hardcover] Review

Giddins, the author of the wonderfully detailed and perceptive biography of Bing Crosby, presents, interprets, and contrasts a wide array of topics revolving about the world of jazz: ranging from Rosemary Clooney to Louie Armstrong to the harmonious sibling act, The Boswell Sisters, as well as many essays on the state of jazz.
Separately, or in the context of the entire book, Giddins's personal assessments make for provocative reading on a complex, pulsating musical genre.
A great read!

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The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music [Hardcover] Review

Hardcover-278 pages,not including references or index.There are no photographs in this work.It is NOT out of print,but it is limited in availability.Check for sellers on Amazon

This book is not totally about Miles Davis,the making of "Kind of Blue",or the era that spawned this great music.Instead Richard Williams' concern weaves a sometimes loose,sometimes more focused pattern of various musical genres,that were influenced by the music.The author tells the story of the making of this album quickly-actually informing the reader of other volumes that go into greater detail on this recording,and how it was seen at the time.But he lays enough of a foundation so the reader has a good grounding going into his premise.

This book is concerned with the albums effect on other musicians,and the culture in general,over the past fifty years or so.In this book you will find names such as THE WHO,SOFT MACHINE,John Cale,THE GRATEFUL DEAD,Terry Riley,and others.The author makes a pretty convincing case on how Davis' (and the groups') music influenced a lot of the compositions and,in some cases,the very playing style of other musicians,by showing how "Kind Of Blue" fit in (or not) the culture of the time.He also makes a case for the continuing influence of this album,that shows no let-up.

This book isn't just a general overview of influences.Williams goes into some detail in order to show how the influence of "the most popular jazz recording of all time",has been much more important in the recent past,the present,and its influence into the future.An early chapter even goes into some detail on the title of this album,"Kind Of Blue",telling how 'blue',in its many permutations,was important throughout history.Jazz readers (and listeners) might feel this particular chapter,and others,go to far afield-maybe so,but they do contain some interesting information.Williams has done a great deal of work,in depth,and its evident.He then describes a number of Davis' tracks and albums,setting things up for his major premise-its continuing influence.He also describes the era and the thinking of the time,when jazz such as this,using a modal foundation,was not the norm. Using the above mentioned musicians,and a number of others,(John Coltrane,any number of other then current jazz musicians) he states the sometimes obvious influences,but also places other styles of music (TALKING HEADS,several "minimalist" composers,U2,James Brown,the VELVET UNDERGROUND for example) under this heading most readers/listeners wouldn't immediately think of.Williams has done his research and,taken together,the author makes several valid points,and opens up the reader's mind as to how this great music was assimilated,and to other possible influences.

There is occasionally a bit of technical "music speak"-scales,notes,clustered tones,etc.,but don't let that deter you from picking up this book.Reading this book is a bit like having an intelligent conversation with the author.He continually shares his viewpoint-you can take it or leave it. Even though,at times,the author goes far afield in his thinking,this is a good overview of this album,its influences,and how it was perceived,and the points he makes are both valid and interesting.If you're a Miles Davis fan,a jazz listener,or a music listener in general,this book can (and should) be placed alongside other works concerning this history making recording.

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Product Description:
A brilliant, wide-ranging book on how the seminal album revolutionized music and culture in the twentieth century."It is the most singular of sounds, yet among the most ubiquitous. It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions." Miles Davis's Kind of Blue is the best-selling piece of music in jazz history and, for many listeners, among the most haunting works of the twentieth century. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Richard Williams's "richly informative" (The Guardian) history considers the album within its wider cultural context, showing how the record influenced such diverse artists as Steve Reich and the Velvet Underground.

In the tradition of Alex Ross and Greil Marcus, the "effortlessly versatile" Williams (The Times) "connects these seemingly disparate phenomena with purpose, finesse and journalistic flair" (Financial Times), making masterly connections to painting, literature, philosophy, and poetry while identifying the qualities that make the album so uniquely appealing and surprisingly universal. .

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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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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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Stardust Melody: The Life and Music of Hoagy Carmichael [Paperback] Review

We owe Richard Sudhalter for preserving the often-forgotten history of America's early jazz pioneers and composers. His subjects are white musicians, but he doesn't write about them with a nasty political agenda. He just doesn't want their contributions to be forgotten. Along the way, he pays warm tribute to the black musicians who led the musical revolution. Unfortunately, politically-charged reviewers refuse to see this.
I especially love this Sudhalter work. Sadly, Hoagy is becoming a forgotten genius of American song. Duke Ellington once called him America's greatest songwriter, and Sudhalter goes a long way in providing the evidence to such a claim. I especially enjoyed the focus on Hoagy's home state of Indiana, which was an amazing hotbed for jazz in the 1920s. One should take this book and drive around Bloomington, Indiana, and find all of the haunts described in rich detail by Sudhalter. Then go to Indianapolis, and Richmond, Indiana. Sudhalter really did us all a huge favor in providing such a wonderful document.

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Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words: Selected Writings [Paperback] Review

Of the 21 books I have collected which are either by or about Louis Armstrong, this is definitely the one I would choose if I was allowed to keep only one. Basically a collection of autobiographical pieces, interviews, letters and so on, it reveals more of Armstrong as a man than all the other books put together. It also proves that, just as Armstrong had his own unique voice as a musician, so he has virtually invented his own language when doing his "typing" as he modestly called it. Grammar and punctation have been used this way nowhere else. Particularly moving are Armstrong's lengthy reminiscences of his early life in New Orleans, Chicago and elsewhere. Yes, his childhood was severely deprived but he recalls it not just without self-pity but with a kind of joy - joy in his family, in the friends who helped him along the way and, of course, his discovery of his own innate talent for both playing and singing. The book is filled with affectionate pen-portraits, as well as sharp social comment and, at times, with indignation at the injustices of life, whether suffered by himself or others. Equally moving are the pieces written when his life was nearing its end yet still exuding that same extraordinary open-ness and generosity of spirit which are humbling to experience. If anyone wants to know what Louis was like, and if they can take a little time to tune in to his vivid and utterly unself-conscious style, this is the book they should read.

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Tonight At Noon: A Love Story [Paperback] Review

I purchased this book because I have loved the music of Charles Mingus since I first purchased Ah Um. What I expected was a breezily written collection of Mingus stories, colorful anecdotes involving gigs and musicians and glimpses of the magic of creation. And certainly there is some of that in this book - Mingus' diet foibles and paranoid fears and erratic public behaviors elicit laughter and disbelief in the reader. Mingus opinions are never tepid - Miles' voice gets lost in his later fusion era, and Coltrane became a musical preacher that never changed his sermon. Those who played completely free (Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, for instance) were participating in a shuck and trying to trick both a white audience and themselves while neglecting the fact that any music has to come from an historical common place.
For a man as massive in stature and appetites as Mingus, his fragility is touching.He is demanding, mercurial, and larger than life; all qualities that get clearly demonstrated by the author. There is also some material that covers Sue's upbringing in an undemonstrative household that initially seems distracting but eventually becomes appropriate to the narrative. The tense switches from past to present on occasions, as though journal entries have been inserted.
However, the book is really, as advertised, a love story. Detailed at length is the Mingus household's battle with Lou Gehrig's disease, from the initial diagnosis to the increasingly desperate attempts to obtain a cure, to the heart attack that eventually takes Mingus' life. Underlying all the voodoo and the iguana blood cocktails and the wildly exploratory midnight rides through the Mexican countryside is a testament to the power of human love and kindness.

The reason I hoped this book would be a lightly written witness to Mingus is because I purchased it as something to read during the nights I am spending at the bedside of my dying father. Instead there is much that is grimly familiar here - after weeks of caregiving you find yourself not knowing what day it might be, idly speculating of ways to end a loved one's life that might look perfectly natural, wrestling with your own spiritual loneliness. Nevertheless, this is a great book for music fans in general, and Mingus fans in particular.

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The Big Band Almanac (Da Capo Paperback) [Paperback] Review

The low-key, down home alternative to George Simon's often-lauded "Big Bands," this has a charming, almost DIY, quality to it. The graphic layout is pretty funky, but there are more and better photographs than in Simon's book. Also the writing is less jaded and more breathless, conveying the author's continued enthusiasm for his favorite artists of year gone by.Most significantly, Walker puts all the artists on an equal footing, listing them from A to Z, whereas Simon makes a big distinction between "major" artists, and lesser or non-swing musicians, shunting them to separate sections in the back of the book. Both books are informative, but I have more of a soft spot in my heart for this one -- I'd recommend it first!

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Product Description:
With more than 500 pictures, and extensive entries on more than 350 orchestras, this complete coverage of black and white bands-from the almost-forgotten Basie, Ellington, Miller, Shaw, and Dorsey-will prompt memories and establish important facts about a glorious era of jazz and popular music. Forewords by Les Brown and Harry James and an index with more than 6,000 names bracket a book that should be part of any music library.

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Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation [Paperback] Review

Eric Nisenson claims that this is not a definitive biography of Sonny Rollins.I would have to agree.Not only does this book tell us hardly anything about Sonny's personal life (his inpirations, his heartbreaks, his relationships with other jazz musicians), it has neither a discography nor an index. It's list of sources is only a page and a half, half of which seem to be previous books by Nisenson.After an inspired first chapter, Nisenson just seems to list through Sonny's albums and notable achievements, using generous quotes from Sonny describing events that were just described by the author himself.There were some good discriptions of some of the albums and some of Sonny's better solos, but most of it reads like a textbook.I would suggest that someone wait for either Sonny's autobiography (for which he's obviously saved a lot of info) or a "definitive" biography.

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Bebop: The Music and Its Players [Paperback] Review

It is gratifying to find such a carefully written study of bebop -- a study which focuses from start to finish on the music. We know that many of the musicians had troubled lives and suffered with drugs and discrimination. The social and personal dimensions of bebop, however, have received ample attention in books, movies, and TV shows. This book is almost unique in providing a readable and scholarly analysis of the music. Owens faced a number of choices as to how to present his material, and he made the intelligent choice each time: Focus on the music (rare), not the details of "personal problems" (common); present just the right level of technical detail, never vague but never overly pedantic; trace the historical development of the music rather than an abstract description or a "how to play bop" approach (also common); and my favorite: organize the discussion around the idioms and masters of specific instruments -- sax, trumpet, piano, and so on. This last choice enables him to provide fresh insights as to how specific stylistic innovations on different instruments finally produced the characteristic ensemble style of bebop. I've bought two copies and I'm constantly recommending this book to friends.

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FOUR LIVES IN THE BEBOP BUSINESS [Paperback] Review

Spellman, a lucid analyst of the avant garde jazz movement in the '60s (see his liner notes, for example, on the original release of Coltrane's "Ascension"), has contributed with this book four compellingportraits of musicians who gave and have given their lives tojazz.
"Four Lives in the Bebop Business" profiles two altoists,Jackie McLean and Ornette Coleman; and two pianists, Cecil Taylor andHerbie Nichols. Spellman skillfully crafts the narratives, while wiselyallowing his subjects to tell large chunks of their stories in their ownwords.
It becomes clear as one reads the book that it took a lot of gutsto be a jazz musician during the '50s and '60s (and still does). All fourof the musicians faced major obstacles in pursuing their art.
McLean,who enjoyed the greatest amount of commercial success of the four,especially early on, battled drug addiction. Taylor and Coleman faced openhostility because of their challenging, groundbreaking approaches toplaying their instruments. Nichols (the only one of the four who is notstill alive) was just plain ignored, despite his brilliantly originalplaying (check out the two-disk Blue Note compilation of his music), andspent much of his all-too-brief career playing in Greenwich Villagedives.
In spite of bad accommodations, poor pay, public indifference,critical hostility and difficulty finding gigs, these artists, the bookmakes clear, would never play anything other than jazz. In this sense, thebook has an underlying inspirational message. Still, it remains for Americato fully embrace its only true indigenous art form, something which to thisday has not occurred.
The book also offers insights from the musicians onthe creative process and about the historic changes in jazz that occurredduring the '60s, from the perspective of men who were on the front lines ofthe battles between critics, musicians, and the listening public.
Required reading for the serious jazz listener.

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This book offers biographical sketches and quotations from four black musicians: Herbie Nichols, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Jackie McLean. Photographs.

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Blue Note Records: The Biography [Paperback] Review

Richard Cook apologizes in his introduction for the limitations of his text, and well he should, for a reading of the book reveals a paucity of research, both in the available text materials and in the Blue Note Records catalog, both in print and out of print. There are numerous errors and omissions in the history, especially on interesting and revealing items such as how Frank Wolff got to the USA, what he did when he got here, how Alfred Lion met Sidney Bechet, Ike Quebec and Art Blakey and what their various relationships were, what Quebeec did for the label and when, Lion's and Blue Note's relationship with Miles Davis, Monk, Bud Powell, Duke Pearson, ... For a long time jazz enthusiast like myself, these omissions were maddening.
What's worse, it's obvious Cook has not listened to all the Blue Note Records! This is especially true of the out-of-print stuff, such as much of the swingtet material, the 10" stuff that hasn't been released on 12"/CD, etc. His critical judgements are therefore completly flawed-he really does not understand what Blue Note was about and what they produced. He seems to use minimal understanding of Lion's interests in jazz and trends in music (such as the craze arising from Olatunji/Drums of Passion) that explain Blue Note records like the early Dixieland stuff, Art Blakey and Sabu drum fests, Bossa Nova Baccanal (never mentioned), etc.
The great book on Blue Note Records has still to be written.

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Blue Note Records is the first full history of the most noted label in jazz. Cook lingers with record-collector zeal in analyzing everything from Sidney Bechet's 78s to Norah Jones' recent chart-topper. Insightful scenes abound.

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Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation [Paperback] Review

DaCapo does it again, bringing back into print the best jazz criticism.I read this collection of Giddins' Village Voice essays a couple of years after it was first published by Oxford in 1985.The picture of jazz it captures from the early '80s is, for better or worse, not so different from the picture today.No revolutions, just an ongoing period of recombinations and the uneasy coexistence of various styles.

Giddins is catholic in his enthusiasms, but I was and continue to be more interested in the avant-garde.In addition to swing and bop players (including Monk, from whom he took his title), here are some of the players he writes about, mainly their recordings, but also some concerts -- Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Ronald Shannon Jackson, James Blood Ulmer, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Muhal Richard Abrams, James DeJohnette, Andrew Cyrille, James Newton, Anthony Davis, Arthur Blythe, David Murray, Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, the William Breuker Kollektief, and Alexander von Schlippenbach's Global Unity Orchestra.

He concludes a review of the "Young Lions" performance, including the 21-year-old Wynton Marsalis, at the 1982 Kool Jazz Festival in NYC with these prophetic lines:"My intuition tells me that innovation isn't this generation's fate...the neoclassicists have a task no less valuable than innovation:sustenance. [M]usicians such as Marsalis are needed to restore order, replenish melody, revitalize the beat, loot the tradition for whatever works, and expand the audience.That way we'll be all the hungrier for the next incursion of genuine avant-gardists..." (161)Of course "this generation" cannot be reduced to the neoclassicalrevivalists, but to the extent that they have dominated the jazz world since the mid-'80s, Giddins had it right "on the money," in every sense of the word.

That tendency has now persisted long past the time it was (arguably) making a needed contribution.Contrary to Marsalis, the living soul of jazz is creative improvisation, not ossified composition!As of 2005, jazz is still in need of rejuvenation.Having a jazz museum at the Lincoln Center is fine, but jazz can only be kept alive outside of museums through constant innovation.

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In a companion to his collections Riding on a Blue Note and Faces in the Crowd, Gary Giddins has assembled a mosaic of pieces that provide an essential guide to the jazz world. Moving with ease from sweeping surveys of jazz history to precise, vivid assessments of individual performers including Thelonius Monk, the Marsalis brothers, Ornette Coleman, and David Murray, Giddins demonstrates once again why he is lauded as "the best jazz critic now at work" (Newsweek).

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