Bird Lives!: The High Life And Hard Times Of Charlie (yardbird) Parker [Paperback] Review

Ross Russell was the president of Dial records when Parker was in California. He recorded several sides while there, but Mr Russell, an obvious fan of Parker, makes a huge effort to desribe Parker's whole spectacular and at the same time tragic life and career. When I read this book, I literally could not put it down.
Parker was a great clown and entertainer, something which Clint Eastwood's disappointing movie "Bird" never portrayed, instead sticking to the sad and seedy sections of the great Parker's life. I read this book years before the film came out, and I was shocked because I knew Eastwood to be a big jazz fan.
Anyhow, every major event in Parker's short life is chronicled, giving an excellent narrative of an extraordinary career.
Miled Davis in his autobiography said that Bird was a con, a cheat, and that Ross Russell exploited him. Nonetheless, this book presents many facets to describe Parker's life, in vivid detail. I'd call this essential for any true jazz fan to understand the man, his music, and the truly monumental and unsurpassed contribution Parker made to all music. Also revealed are all the main players of the time and their relation to the music and the man.
Also, there are three books I recommend (in this order) to anyone who really wants the inside scoop on the jazz life: Bird Lives, Miles Davis' in-your-face-autobiography, and Albert Goldman's biography of Lenny Bruce. All three books can be read as companion pieces and give a realistic portrait of 3 of the most influential people of the 20th century and the world that created them. At the same time all three books provide an excellent reality check to anyone contemplating a heroin habit!

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Product Description:
This work on Charlie "Bird" Parker offers a picture of not only of the saxophonist-composer as an artist and as a human being, but also of zeitgeist and the musical/social setting that produced him. It shows his complex personality; his great appetites; the extent of his influence; and his work.

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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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From Birdland to Broadway: Scenes from a Jazz Life [Paperback] Review

I was never gripped by Bill Crow as a bass player. As an author and story writer however, his books are one of the most engaging I havecome across amongst the plethora of writings that exist on the development of this great art form.Bill Crow has a natural gift for narration.He tells you all straight from the heart, of the lives and travails of musicians who one has heard so much but never got close to.His anecdotes brings them closer; as if they were living and breathing right next to you.And all, with a constant undercurrent of humour. He seeks no sympathy and there isno deprecation.Yet, one is saddened, sometimes angered, at the circumstances of the time. I ended uploving even more, all those musicians whose names are now etched in memory. I bought more copies of the bookfor my friends once I was done.

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Visions of Jazz: The First Century [Paperback] Review

Gary Giddins has performed a remarkable feat. He has covered one hundred years of jazz history in one volume. At 700 pages it is big for sure but it is well researched and very readable. At first glance it appears thatGiddins has structured and organized the book in the worst possible way byhaving one chapter on each of the seminal figures of jazz history, and insemi chronological order.
The pitfall here is that it lends itself to abook that looks like lots of note cards strung together. This structure canalso obscure the larger picture; jazz is not just the history of a bunch ofindividuals. Giddins very skillfully avoids both of these traps. Eachchapter is well researched, filled with anecdotes about the musician orgroup, and through the chapters flows the larger background of the historicmovements and issues in the development of jazz.
Giddins also approachesjazz with a refreshing "inclusiveness" and wastes precious little energy indefining what jazz is or in dismissing various movements as"unpure" or other such nonsense. In fact he makes the point rightup front that jazz owes as much to popular music for its genesis as it doesto spirituals or black folk music. In the chapter on Irving Berlin hepoints out that Tin Pan Alley was a mixture of black, Jewish and otherethnic blends of music, and in fact, Berlin was even accused of having anunderground railroad of black song writers in his back room that he wasghosting for. And this, at the time, was not meant as a compliment..
Ofcourse, jazz cannot be discussed in a vacuum and race plays an importantpart in its history. Giddins adds two bits of trivia, which I find speakvolumes in themselves about where we are and where we have come from. Onewas that Al Jolson lobbied Gershwin for the part of Porgy. He, thankfully,did not get it. Second was that Ellington's all black orchestra played inan Amos and Andy movie in the 30's and the producer had the lighter skinnedmembers of the orchestra blacked up with makeup for the scenes. I supposethis was to dispel any idea in the minds of the movie audience that theband might be integrated.
The book lacks a recommended discography, whichwould have been valuable. Giddins does comment on the recordings of hissubjects in their respective chapters so that is a big help. There is a 2CD companion set with the same title which is a nice-to-have but it islargely an afterthought and the only connecting material is the 4 inchsquare flimsy comment sheets that come with the CD which does not reallyrelate back to the book itself.
This is a essential book for any jazzlovers library.

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