BLUE NOTE RECORDS: A BIOGRAPHY by Richard Cook

[Leeway]

I don't know if Cook deserves all the blame. I thought I read somewhere or other that he was not given access to Blue Note's records and archives. If that was the case, he probably did as much as he could with what was publicly available. But I agree that Cuscuna is the person who needs to write the definitive story of BN.

[ajf67]

Although I have some sympathy if he didn't have sufficient access, I guess I still can't give him a pass. He and his publishing house are making money off of the Blue Note name and Cook's own well-deserved reputation as an authority on jazz, and they are doing so with a really half-assed effort in my opinion. He comes close to admiting as much in his introduction to the book if I remember correctly (I'm at work -- and obviously not working! -- and don't have it with me, but I think I remember him semi-apologizing for the title "Biography" and claiming that was the publishers doing, that he saw it as more of a sketch or something.)

[PFunkJazz]

It's not so much that it's a shallow book, more that it's such a relentlessly pedestrian one. Session details follow session details follow session details ad nauseam. A real missed opportunity, for which I suppose I should be grateful because......

I have just concluded a social history of Blue Note 1939-70, for publication this fall, which gives as much space to people, personalities and off-mike activities as it does to the recordings themselves. If I say so myself, it's the page-turner to end all page-turners and a book that every post-bop jazz fan will want to own, for a good read and for a rich seam of previously unknown information.

So those of you who know and love me as PFunkJazz will shortly know my real identity (!)

Edited June 3, 2004 by PFunkJazz

[Gary]

I wont hold my breath for the sweepstake.

[PFunkJazz]

Hey Gary - a clue: I was born in Knowle (of & Dorridge fame), as I previously told you in a PM. You didn't reply, presumably thinking I could be some sort of maniac. You are right, I am! And you'll learn my real ID when the book is out.

[Dan Gould]

This from the same clown who started a thread with this:

Does anyone else wonder how the typical Organissimo board member would be defined? By gender, income, age, etc etc.

Based on observation of the board rather than strictly quantifiable research data, the picture of a typical member that I get is of:

an obese American white male, who puts in a straight six hours a day on the board, shovelling junk food and beer in one end while expelling Bronx cheers out the other, occasionally breaking to surf some porn and maybe jerk off, who thinks Kerry is some sort of radical, and all the while imagines, Walter Mitty-like, that he's an influential and respected arbiter of taste at the centre of the jazz world.

Does this ring any bells?

I don't care if you held a seance with Alfred's ghost. We'd be better served if you kiss off.

[PFunkJazz]

Hey Dan - How ya doin', fatso? And how's your wrist holding up?

[Dan Gould]

Hey Dan - How ya doin', fatso? And how's your wrist holding up?

I have a problem with my wrist, P(unk)Jazz?

[Indestructible!]

I have just concluded a social history of Blue Note 1939-70, for publication this fall, which gives as much space to people, personalities and off-mike activities as it does to the recordings themselves. If I say so myself, it's the page-turner to end all page-turners and a book that every post-bop jazz fan will want to own, for a good read and for a rich seam of previously unknown information.

So those of you who know and love me as PFunkJazz will shortly know my real identity (!)

Hmmm,

Fall 2004 has long since passed us by, and I don't recall seeing any "social history" of Blue Note on the shelves. Did I miss this, or did PFunk overstate ("supersize"?) his contribution to the field???

After all, you'd think we'd have been heaping praise on the "page turner to end all page-turners" the day it hit the streets, no?

Hmmmm.... guess that porn he was surfing got in the way of his deadline!

Cheers,

Shane

[Adam]

Richard Cook's slight effort in writing about Blue Note makes it all-the-more

LIKELY for a BETTER, more inclusive and personal book to be written.

Yes, if Michael Cuscuna could take a one-year sabbatical, he might very well write the authoritative, 'inside' book of Blue Note that we are clamoring for.

It might make it more likely for one to be written.

But it probably will make it tougher for it to be PUBLISHED. Publishers generally will see another book on that topic in the stores, and ask whether the market can sustain another.

Granted there are plentiful exceptions. But honestly the history of Blue Note is a rather specialized topic.

[Dmitry]

HEADS-UP - BARGAIN ALERT

I was at a local deep discount book emporium yesterday and they had a dozen or so of the BN Cook books [so to speak] on sale for about $6.

It's a paper-back edition, which normally retails for about $15. I bought one copy for myself, haven't started on it yet.

I could pick up a copy for anyone who's interested. PM me.

[jazzbo]

Yes figures, I get footnoted twice in a book and it gets cut out!

This was available for about that price in hardback through Daedalus for some time but I believe that bird has flown. . . .

[Dmitry]

Well, I finally finished the Cook book. In short - I wasn't thrilled. I think Cook is an ok writer, and the book itself, somewhat pompously titled, "'Blue Note Records: The Biography'", is rather pedestrian. It certainly isn't a bad book, just a forgettable one. Most of the interesting parts in it were culled from the Mosaic booklets and from Cuscuna's interview by Lon. If I were just starting out as a jazz listener, I am sure I would've had a different opinion of it, but for someone who knows the music and the label it is almost a waste of time.

Shame that the most famous jazz label and the people that ran it still aren't getting their due. Can't EMI spare some money and hire someone like Ashley Kahn to do a nice fact-filled and researched volume on the label?!

[jazzhound]

Well, I finally finished the Cook book. In short - I wasn't thrilled. I think Cook is an ok writer, and the book itself, somewhat pompously titled, "'Blue Note Records: The Biography'", is rather pedestrian. It certainly isn't a bad book, just a forgettable one. Most of the interesting parts in it were culled from the Mosaic booklets and from Cuscuna's interview by Lon. If I were just starting out as a jazz listener, I am sure I would've had a different opinion of it, but for someone who knows the music and the label it is almost a waste of time.

Shame that the most famous jazz label and the people that ran it still aren't getting their due. Can't EMI spare some money and hire someone like Ashley Kahn to do a nice fact-filled and researched volume on the label?!

somehow those of us who buy original blue notes feel they are getting they due.

[Dmitry]

I just re-read it, almost a dozen years after reading it for the first time. I also re-read this thread. 

While not nearly as terrible, as some indicate, the book could've been better researched. Many of the BN golden age musicians were still alive when the book was first published 15 years ago. Alas, the author chose not to interview them. The book would serve very well as an introduction to Blue Note, for someone who's just fallen in love with BN.

Still waiting for THE book.