Learning To Listen (Gary Burton autobiography)

[Ken Dryden]

Not all musicians who pen autobiographies or who are interviewed for biographies want to put down their fellow musicians or tell about their struggles with drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. Dave Brubeck's wife Iola worked long and hard on a book about his career, of which she was an important part. The family has it and I don't know if there are plans to publish it. There won't be any gossip about bad behavior in it, in any case.

Golson's story was a good read but a little frustrating because of his reluctance to talk about certain topics.

[jlhoots]

6 hours ago, Ken Dryden said:

Not all musicians who pen autobiographies or who are interviewed for biographies want to put down their fellow musicians or tell about their struggles with drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. Dave Brubeck's wife Iola worked long and hard on a book about his career, of which she was an important part. The family has it and I don't know if there are plans to publish it. There won't be any gossip about bad behavior in it, in any case.

Golson's story was a good read but a little frustrating because of his reluctance to talk about certain topics.

Make up your mind - or am I missing your point.

[Ken Dryden]

11 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Make up your mind - or am I missing your point.

It wasn't about missing gossip, but some people in Golson's book seem skimmed over. It's been a few months since I read it.

Duke Ellington hated saying critical things so he avoided doing so in his autobiography co-written with Stanley Dance. Mercer Ellington filled in some of the gaps in his follow up biography of his father.

[rdavenport]

Thanks for the replies. The Burton book does sound interesting, though I'm unsure I can handle having my Joe Henderson bubble burst. I find the older I get, the less I need to know, if you see what I mean?

[JSngry]

Hey, I met Joe Henderson's wife at the bar at Sweet Basil. She was really nice and chatty (to say nothing of being drop-dead gorgeous), and I was like, whoa, never say never, and then I found out that she was Joe's wife, and that she was there to do what you might expect Joe Henderson's wife to be at his gig for, keep everything on the rails and/or between the lines, and talk about a bubble burst...not a Joe Henderson bubble though, more like the "hey, I must not be that much of a geek, this hot adult woman is talking to me like I'm normal" bubble.

So much for bubbles!

[rdavenport]

Nice, when was this?

[JSngry]

Summer of 1981.

[xybert]

5 hours ago, rdavenport said:

Thanks for the replies. The Burton book does sound interesting, though I'm unsure I can handle having my Joe Henderson bubble burst. I find the older I get, the less I need to know, if you see what I mean?

I can relate to this in some ways. 

For me it's not necessarily about 'never meet your heroes'. For example, i didn't really enjoy Robin Kelley's Monk biography that much. It didn't burst my bubble or anything, i just didn't need it. Had to read it to find that out though.