Which jazz book are you reading right now?

[Rabshakeh]

Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation by Paul F. Berliner.

It's structured as a "jazz ethnography", and focuses a lot on how improvisers learn and grow.

As a non-musician I am finding it interesting.  

[Gheorghe]

My father bought me this for Chrismas in 1978. This was my second jazz book after the Joachim Ernst Behrend book. I still like it very much. Arrigo Polillo really had a lot to say and he met many great musicians and had a lot of inside infos......

[ghost of miles]

Rereading this for a Night Lights show in progress—highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Hazel Scott:

[EKE BBB]

Revisiting 

[Ken Dryden]

I just finished Phil Woods' autobiograhy Life In E-Flat. There are a lot of great stories that he shared in interviews and his Phil In The Gap column for the Al Cohn Memorial Newsletter, plus additional material about his personal life that isn't as widely known. Woods discusses his own shortcomings with candor, while Ted Panken, who edited the book, wrote an excellent introduction and Brian Lynch shared his thoughts about working and talking witht he late jazz master. 

 

[AllenLowe]

1 hour ago, Ken Dryden said:

I just finished Phil Woods' autobiograhy Life In E-Flat. There are a lot of great stories that he shared in interviews and his Phil In The Gap column for the Al Cohn Memorial Newsletter, plus additional material about his personal life that isn't as widely known. Woods discusses his own shortcomings with candor, while Ted Panken, who edited the book, wrote an excellent introduction and Brian Lynch shared his thoughts about working and talking witht he late jazz master. 

 

I'm also reading the book, and though I haven't liked any of Woods playing since, maybe, the early 1960s, he is an interesting and important figure. One thing I am very disturbed about is that they would use the same title that Chan used in her autobiography. It's clearly done, in my opinion, because Woods was pissed off at her negative portrayal of him. This is really unethical and should not have been done.

Edited Sunday at 1:05 PM by AllenLowe

[sidewinder]

Just ordered a copy of this one. By all accounts an outstanding biography of an elusive legend who disappeared in 2000 and remains to this day on the missing list with still no real leads.

I saw him, unexpectedly, in what must have been, based on the timings, a very late performance in his career (PJ Perry Quintet). Even by then a legendary figure, a bit of a buzz went round the house and I have to say, I was impressed. Remember the permanent cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

Edited Sunday at 2:25 PM by sidewinder

[BeBop]

"San Quentin Jazz Band" by Pierre Briançon.   I grew up looking at the place across the San Francisco Bay and realizing that several of the cats I was listening to were there or had been.

 

 

[Ken Dryden]

One of my best friends from Tulane spent 30 years at San Quentin, as a staff psychiatrist.  I don’t know if there was still a jazz band there during his tenure, which began around 1982-3. 

[porcy62]

On 12/10/2020 at 5:58 PM, Gheorghe said:

My father bought me this for Chrismas in 1978. This was my second jazz book after the Joachim Ernst Behrend book. I still like it very much. Arrigo Polillo really had a lot to say and he met many great musicians and had a lot of inside infos......

It was the Jazz Bible over here back then, the first Jazz Book I had, lost it somewhere in my many movings. There are other excellent books of an italian critic, and photographer, about the history of jazz, never translated ASIK, Gian Carlo Roncaglia.

Edited Thursday at 2:34 PM by porcy62