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Post by minorkey on Aug 17, 2014 16:24:26 GMT -5
Anyone have any recommendations for good books on jazz. History of jazz and biographies? I like to read about creative people, people like Theolonius Monk and Miles Davis.
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Post by johnt on Aug 18, 2014 16:24:42 GMT -5
I am currently reading and enjoying this recent (2013) bio of Ellington. After I finish it, I am going to search out Teachout's bio of Louis Armstrong.
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Post by johnt on Aug 18, 2014 16:31:37 GMT -5
This is the book that first "taught" me about jazz in a more formal way. I read it when I was about eighteen. I'd heard jazz before that, of course, but this book gave me a framework for understanding what I was listening to. A very good book.
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Post by johnt on Aug 18, 2014 16:36:58 GMT -5
If you can get through the first 50 pages or so, this one is a good read.
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Post by minorkey on Aug 18, 2014 17:26:46 GMT -5
Cheers guys keep em coming
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Post by tom1960 on Aug 18, 2014 18:54:52 GMT -5
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Post by tom1960 on Aug 18, 2014 18:59:18 GMT -5
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Post by johnt on Aug 19, 2014 13:46:02 GMT -5
I like some of Gene Lees' writing and some I'm not so keen on (too much "I"). Or to put it another way, Lees' writing is often the literary equivalent of taking a "selfie".
However, I recommend this one without hesitation. It is IMO, his best book, with excellent portraits of Bill Evans, Paul Desmond and Woody Herman, among others.
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Post by johnt on Aug 19, 2014 13:51:23 GMT -5
The only book on Miles Davis I've ever read and it's a good one, I think.
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Post by tomd on Aug 19, 2014 14:08:53 GMT -5
The only book on Miles Davis I've ever read and it's a good one, I think.
That's quite good, and I think it's the Miles bio of choice. Weirdly, the Miles / Quincy Troupe "autobiography", which was published later but which I read much earlier, seems to plagiarize Chambers wholesale! I do recommend the Miles / Troupe, however, if you want to read a whole bunch of colorful, opinionated (and arguably a**holic) Miles quotes. Ted Gioia is a highly recommendable jazz author. His "History of Jazz" is pretty good, but it can't cover much in detail (big topic, moderate size book). I strongly recommend his "West Coast Jazz", though it's oop and much harder to find.
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Post by tomd on Aug 19, 2014 14:20:10 GMT -5
I really like Art Pepper's Straight Life, both as a jazz autobiography and (probably more) as a "warts and all" (to put it mildly) study of the addictive personality. Not easy to find, but worth seeking out. Kind of in the same vein (bad pun ), still in print and easy to find is Hampton Hawes's autobiography Raise up off me. Highly recommended. Many good jazz biographies seem to get published in small runs and go oop very quickly. Three I regret missing are: Tadd Dameron ( Tadd: the life and legacy) by Ian MacDonald, Al Haig ( Death of a bebop wife) by Grange Rutan, and Gigi Gryce ( Rat Race Blues) by Cohen and Fitzgerald. Downside of such small editions is that the books are pricey (which is probably why I tend to miss them). I think there's a new Dameron bio by Paul Combs (U of Michigan Press) which I haven't read but should!
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Post by johnt on Aug 19, 2014 14:41:10 GMT -5
This OOP book by English writers Max Harrison et al is perhaps the best guide (though not infallible) to post-war jazz. I've had it for years and have acquired most of its recommended recordings (apart from the "free" jazz side, which is generally not to my taste).
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Post by billf on Aug 19, 2014 14:44:31 GMT -5
If you can get through the first 50 pages or so, this one is a good read.
Yes, a great read. I wasn't attracted to the first 50 pages either (pre-musician life) and only read them after getting to the end of the rest - which was fascinating.
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Post by billf on Aug 19, 2014 15:08:33 GMT -5
I really like Art Pepper's Straight Life, both as a jazz autobiography and (probably more) as a "warts and all" (to put it mildly) study of the addictive personality. Not easy to find, but worth seeking out. Kind of in the same vein (bad pun ), still in print and easy to find is Hampton Hawes's autobiography Raise up off me. Highly recommended. Many good jazz biographies seem to get published in small runs and go oop very quickly. Three I regret missing are: Tadd Dameron ( Tadd: the life and legacy) by Ian MacDonald, Al Haig ( Death of a bebop wife) by Grange Rutan, and Gigi Gryce ( Rat Race Blues) by Cohen and Fitzgerald. Downside of such small editions is that the books are pricey (which is probably why I tend to miss them). I think there's a new Dameron bio by Paul Combs (U of Michigan Press) which I haven't read but should! Yes, Straight Life - greatest jazz biog ever, followed in second place by the Hampton Hawes book. I don't really recommend the Haig book. It's more like an assemblage of raw materials for a biog than a book in its own right. Nearly all of it is verbatim recollections of Al by those who knew him. Grange may have been married to her subject, but she seems to lack the authorial skills to digest all the material she collected into a coherent book. Recently I've had a binge on jazz biogs. Anita O'Day's High Times Hard Times follows close behind the Pepper as a study of what you call "the addictive personality". Tad Hershorn's scholarly study Norman Granz is a fascinating book, as is Canadian guitarist Peter Leitch's autobiography, Off the Books. Just in case anyone's interested in British jazz, altoist Peter King's Flying High is another good one on the junkie life, which involves hanging out with the likes of Philly Joe. Other British books worth a mention are Tom Perchard's study of Lee Morgan and tenorman/clarinettist Vic Ash's nicely titled I Blew It My Way (yes, he played in the Sinatra orch.)
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Post by johnt on Aug 19, 2014 15:53:20 GMT -5
Two good big band bios. (The Kenton is definitive; the Herman not so much but still pretty good).
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