Peter Pullman-- Bud Powell Biography

[Eric]

I have just the opposite response to things like the Monk bio - to me, such large and blunt doses of reality are inspiring. It's like having access to the the kind of consciousness which produces such important work, for better or for worse. You just have to face this stuff. Same with Bud. I find it exhilarating. We're not in Kansas anymore......

Hey, I am in Kansas and agree with what you are saying. It was inspirational and also interesting to learn the role of family in his life.

[AllenLowe]

yes, and the reality is that good bios capture the essence, as the Monk bio does. It's a rarity for a jazz book.

other good jazz books like this:

Sue Mingus' (Tonight at Noon?)

Death of a Bebop Wife (kinda like if James Joyce got drunk, was hit over the head, and decided to write about Al Haig)

Beneath the Underdog (yes I know; still, amazing book, more real than reality)

Sun Ra/Miles Davis (both by John Szwed, the smartest guy I know, even if he doesn't return my emails)

John Coltrane by Lewis Porter (yeah he plays piano with me but I am completely objective)

I may not be typical,

probably more but my mind is a blank; also, I find even the bad, tawdry, insane and psychotic stuff inspiring. But that may just be me. Whatever the reason, the life is just such a part of the whole thing that I want it all.

Edited September 29, 2011 by AllenLowe

[sgriggs2400]

I prefer getting words about musicians as close to the source as possible. If anyone can speak to why they create, what they want to express, and how they manage to handle obstacles, it's the artist. Even though musicians may get help from writers, I like these autobiographies:

Treat it Gentle - Sidney Bechet

Let's Get Down to the Nitty Gritty - Horace Silver

Really the Blues - Mezz Mezzrow

Q - Quincy Jones

A Call to Assembly - Willie Ruff

-Steve Griggs

http://stevegriggsmusic.blogspot.com/

[Larry Kart]

My review of Arthur Rollini's "My Thirty Years With the Big Bands," a likely to be passed over gem:

ARTHUR ROLLINI

[1987]

Arthur Rollini’s name does not loom large in the history of jazz, even though he was the younger brother of a major artist (bass saxophonist and mallet percussionist Adrian Rollini) and a member of Benny Goodman’s saxophone section from the inception of Goodman’s band until 1939. But perhaps because of his cog-in-the-wheel status, Rollini has written a very moving autobiography , Thirty Years With the Big Bands --a book that captures the feel of the Swing Era from a sideman’s point of view with an attractive blend of stoicism and wit.

Rollini’s tale also is suffused with a casual, peculiarly American grace, as though, like one of Sherwood Anderson’s narrators, the seeming innocence with which he addresses us were essential to his message. Rollini records that any early childhood memory was of “the brass and crystal Ansonia clock on our mantel, which never ceased functioning as long as it was wound every eighth day. It was always wound on time, and its little mercury pendulum kept beating back and forth and intrigued me. I would view it for hours.” Nothing more than nostalgia, one thinks, until, several pages and decade or so further on, Rollini’s father dies and “the only sound in the living room was the little clock on the mantel, which ticked away and gonged softly on the hour and half hour, its little pendulum still beating back and forth in perfect rhythm.”

Following in his older brother’s footsteps, Rollini was a professional musician at age seventeen--traveling to London to work with Fred Elizade’s orchestra at the Savoy Hotel, where the Prince of Wales often sat in on drums. (“He was, let us put it this way, not too good,” Rollini says.) Jazz fans will be most interested in Rollini’s account of his time with Benny Goodman, which confirms the widely held belief that Goodman was a difficult man to get along with. “Inconsiderate Benny, the best jazz clarinetist in the world!”--Rollini uses that tag, and variations thereof, time after time, even when a harsher adjective than “inconsiderate” might apply. Rollini and Dick Clark were Goodman’s initial tenor saxophonists, and “even at this stage,” Rollini says, “Benny would look at Dick’s bald head with disdain. He wanted a youthful looking band. ‘Fickle Benny,’ I thought, ‘the best jazz clarinetist in the world!’ Dick was a good player.”

Quietly authoritative, Rollini’s tales of the sideman’s happy-sad life have a cumulative power. And two of them, when placed side by side, virtually define the big-band musician’s paradoxical role. In the first, Rollini is playing a dance with Goodman when he meets an old high school friend, one Johnny Baker, who requests that the band play “Always,” on the recording of which Rollini had a solo. At the dance, Rollini deliberately plays “something entirely different from what was on our recording, and after it was over Johnny Baker said to me, ‘What did you change it for?’” Then, in the mid-1940s, when Rollini was an NBC Radio staff musician, he stops in a Manhattan bar after work and notices that “two young men were playing the jukebox and had selected Will Bradley’s ‘Request for a Rhumba,’ which we had recorded in 1941. Finally I stepped off the bar stool and asked, “Boys, why are you playing that record over and over?” One replied, “We like the tenor sax solo.” I felt elated, but did not tell them that it was I who played it.”

Arthur Rollini died in 1993.

[Fer Urbina]

Wail, Peter Pullman's biography of Bud Powell, is out in Kindle version at Amazon.com. I understand that it's coming soon to Barnes and Noble's too.

F

[jlhoots]

Wail, Peter Pullman's biography of Bud Powell, is out in Kindle version at Amazon.com. I understand that it's coming soon to Barnes and Noble's too.

F

I don't / won't use an e-reader so I guess I'm SOL.

[Face of the Bass]

Don't understand the resistance to Kindles and the like. I want this book to be great. Not merely good or serviceable.

[jlhoots]

Don't understand the resistance to Kindles and the like. I want this book to be great. Not merely good or serviceable.

To me (Luddite)it's not a "book" on an e-reader. Just me & probably a minority viewpoint.

[Dan Gould]

I'm interested enough in the subject to be satisfied with a PDF file.

My interest in the book (very high) + my interest in e-readers (approaching negative infinity at this moment) = zero likelihood that I would buy any e-reader in order to read this book.

[Clunky]

I'm interested enough in the subject to be satisfied with a PDF file.

My interest in the book (very high) + my interest in e-readers (approaching negative infinity at this moment) = zero likelihood that I would buy any e-reader in order to read this book.

that's where I'm at too.

[Brad]

I like the feel of a book and being able to turn to the notes, etc. I can see having an ereader if you go on a long trip. At any rate, I would get this in pdf, ereader no.

I suppose it's on a Kindle only so the publisher can save on costs.

[Dan Gould]

Well Mr. Pullman has updated his web page about purchasing, and the implication isn't encouraging for those of us who don't have or intend to buy an e-reader:

To Answer Those Who Have Asked

Wail: The Life of Bud Powell will be available soon, for download in either the Kindle or Nook format (to ebook reader or directly to your computer). Check back in mid-February 2012 for details on how to get your copy.

I've posted a comment asking about the PDF option - comments are moderated so perhaps this will trigger a reply confirming whether or not it will in fact be offered as a PDF file.

[Clunky]

I'm not sure I'd look through several hundred of PDF pages no matter how interested I was in the subject. I suppose if a PDF was cheap enough I might try but I'd rather spend proper money on hard copy.

[Chuck Nessa]

I'd be afraid of dropping a Kindle in the toilet and thus lose my library.

[Face of the Bass]

I've had a Kindle for a year now. I still like to read scholarly books on real paper so I can make notes more easily, but when it comes to regular reading of jazz biographies or novels or whatever, I much prefer to read them on a Kindle. Books take up way too much space. I'm not a big fan of digital music at all but for me the digital era is tailor made for EBooks. Now if I have the option between buying the book or buying the Kindle version, I get the Kindle version about 85-90 percent of the time.

Also, if you lost your Kindle that would not mean that you had lost your entire library. Your library is stored in multiple places...on your Kindle, yes, but also in your Amazon.com account. So in the case where you lost your Kindle, you would just need to replace the Kindle in order to access your library again. That said, the Kindle is not easily lost and I'd be rather astonished if someone managed to destroy theirs by dropping it in a toilet.

[jeffcrom]

I think I'll go for the Powell biography.

I like my Kindle. I hadn't thought of getting one - it was an unexpected Christmas present from my wife two years ago. I see it as the equivalent of my iPod. I like the iPod for the convenience and the ability to access music which I can't find in a physical format, but it will never replace my CDs and LPs (or 78s, for that matter). I like the Kindle for the same reasons - I have many of my favorite books at my fingertips when I travel, and I have books which are not available in any other format, like the recent Teddy Weatherford biography. It will never replace the experience of pulling one of my favorite books of poetry off the shelf and thumbing through it, but that's not what it's for, for me.

And depending on how much trouble the publisher takes to format an e-book, access to footnotes it pretty easy. The Kindle has lots of drawbacks, but I wouldn't discount it and other e-readers out of hand as a supplement to "real" books. And no, nobody asked me.

[Fer Urbina]

I'll only say that I'm familiar with the manuscript of this book, and it's an astonishing biography. Research-wise I don't think we've ever seen anything like it. If I'm not mistaken, Pullman has had access to all of Powell's medical and police files, so a lot of stories are going to be cleared up once and for all. As it's been said in previous comments in this thread, no stone has been left unturned, and the degree of meticulousness would drive a regular person mad.

At the price this is being offered, it's just a non-starter, whether you have an e-reader or not (I don't, for now). I'd even consider getting it and taking to a printer and have it bound in some cheap way to have a hard copy. Not ideal in any way, but that's how things are, at least at the moment.

F

Edited February 19, 2012 by Fer Urbina

[AllenLowe]

let us not forget that he had a great editor - Larry Kart.

[Dan Gould]

At the price this is being offered, it's just a non-starter, whether you have an e-reader or not (I don't, for now).

Yeah, $80 for the cheapest Kindle plus $10 for the book.

I'd even consider getting it and taking to a printer and have it bound in some cheap way to have a hard copy. Not ideal in any way, but that's how things are, at least at the moment.

F

I have no idea about the law in the UK, but in the US no printer would copy and bind a copyrighted book.

[mjzee]

Kindle e-books can also be read on smart phones, iPads, and your computer. The software is free.

I think some bookstores have kiosks that will print out-of-print books while you wait. I don't know if the licensing will extend to Kindle e-books.

[Pete C]

what room DOESN'T have it's own exit?

I'm guessing an exit to the street in addition to the intra-residential doorway.

[Dan Gould]

Kindle e-books can also be read on smart phones, iPads, and your computer. The software is free.

Well this would explain why they dropped the PDF concept. Thanks for the info - I think I'll be downloading the software available here and start reading Pullman's masterwork soon.

[Fer Urbina]

I have no idea about the law in the UK, but in the US no printer would copy and bind a copyrighted book.

Hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

F

[mjzee]

Book printing kiosks. See page 9 (I couldn't link directly to that page).

I'm not saying this will work with Pullman's book, but it could be down the road.

[fasstrack]

just wondering about Triglia because Bill told me a story about Powell coming over to this house some time in the 1950s to get away from the drug dealers et al; he went to sleep for two days and Triglia's wife was freaking out because she was afraid Bud had died.

Triglia's story in general is interesting because he told me how he and Al Haig, quite literally, followed Powell everywhere to as many gigs as they could get to, night and day. His story just epitomizes that time and place; I gave Peter the contact info, but I gues he never got to it - oh well -

my favorite Triglia story (sorry so OT): he was working with Lester Young and there was another guy on the gig that, as the night progressed, Prez was becoming more and more dissatisfied with. Between sets everybody was talking and this guy says to Young: "Hey Prez, when was the last time we worked together?"

Lester Young answers: "Tonight."

I heard Triglia a few times with Chuck Wayne at Gregory's. We never met, but he and Eddie Diehl called shit-faced 3 in the morning to say how much they dug a tape we had made. Woke my father up....

A guy named Dave Ellson rented a house in Bogota, NJ and Triglia apparently was a regular visitor. So, Ellson told me, a session was going on and the front door open. Triglia didn't want any of the young players getting self-conscious with him there, so he stayed in the front room out of sight on a sofa.

Several hours later Ellson heard a loud snoring. He went into the foyer and was amazed to find Bill Triglia on his sofa, asleep.