fasstrack Posted March 9, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2013 For $30 w/standard issue Metro PCS Kyocera you get a Stupid Phone.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertoart Posted March 9, 2013 Report Share Posted March 9, 2013 For $30 w/standard issue Metro PCS Kyocera you get a Stupid Phone.. I knew I was gonna be somebodies Straight Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 Well, I've just about finished-and I must say it's a remarkable story. It still is unclear as to whether actual threats from factions in the biz or his own paranoia (both?) caused Gryce/Qusim to fold his tent and leave both publishing and performing. (For those unfamiliar with the story in the early '60s he withdrew from performing, severing ties w/all his jazz colleagues, dissolved his publishing concerns-causing speculation that he had been threatened, and reinvented himself as Basheer Qusim, a dedicated music teacher working in the Bronx). The authors and interviews with his then wife, and musicians like Richard Wyands and (then publishing partner) Benny Golson uncovered no real evidence of threats against him or his family. Those interviewed did notice changes in his behavior, chiefly a secretiveness and nervousness. Then he was gone-bam! There was a fire raging inside the man. The authors cite 'emotional frailty' at the beginning and end of the book. I wish they would've pursued that a bit more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeweil Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 Maybe he was just tired of fighting at some point of his life ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted March 10, 2013 Report Share Posted March 10, 2013 Much abuse dumped on "the business" via paranoia. Not all "business" is bad and not all ...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2013 All in all it was pretty good. Not great. Next I want to read What it Is (Dave Liebman talks about the jazz life in long interview with Lewis Porter). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Stryker Posted March 12, 2013 Report Share Posted March 12, 2013 Don't have the book yet but am curious why Byrd left the Jazz Lab. Can someone provide a brief summary? Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brownie Posted March 12, 2013 Report Share Posted March 12, 2013 It seems there was no formal departure from the Jazz Lab. No specific reason is given. To quote from the book: 'Donald Byrd left the Jazz Lab in early 1958, reuniting for a time with his friend from Detroit, Pepper Adams, before traveling to Europe in the Summer and remaining there several months.' Byrd teamed with Bobby Jaspar for an European tour in mid-July then returned to the States before heading back to Europe and another reunion with Jaspar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 12, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2013 (edited) And aren't there many books like this? Case in point: "Infatuation - The Music and Life of Theodore Fats Navarro" by Petersen and Rehak. There the music really is dissected almost to the tiniest atom. And though I have almost all of the released key recordings examined it is extremely tough listening closely enough to make something of ALL the analyses. So I must admit so far I've skipped a good deal of those analyses - and yet I don't regret having bought it. I tend to regard it as a sort of "commented discography" to be pulled out when I feel like spinning Fats' Savoy or BN recordings, etc., at length. Yes, there are many books like this, that micro-analyze every record date. It can get tiresome to read (especially when there's an extensive discography at the end). I think it might be a better approach to have the book come with a companion CD which bears witness to the key analyses---or (better yet) lets the listener listen on his own and draw his own conclusions. Not to put down the arduous research and scholarship that went into this book. I got a lot more insight into Gryce from the oral histories included. The Jimmy Cleveland interview was especially illuminating. There's something about reading an interview, the prose just moves. And the interviewee was there as said history unfolded. Just my opinion. Edited March 12, 2013 by fasstrack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cohens2 Posted March 23, 2013 Report Share Posted March 23, 2013 I am co-author of the Gryce book and thank everyone for their comments. FWIW, the book got excellent reviews and even won an award. It's interesting that this thread started up now because Mike Fitzgerald and I are well along in the preparation of the 2nd edition which we hope to have out this year. It will have new and updated information not available when we were researching the first edition. It will also be available as both a paperback and ebook and as opposed to the first edition, it (hopefully) will not go out of print just a few years after its publication. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clunky Posted March 23, 2013 Report Share Posted March 23, 2013 I am co-author of the Gryce book and thank everyone for their comments. FWIW, the book got excellent reviews and even won an award. It's interesting that this thread started up now because Mike Fitzgerald and I are well along in the preparation of the 2nd edition which we hope to have out this year. It will have new and updated information not available when we were researching the first edition. It will also be available as both a paperback and ebook and as opposed to the first edition, it (hopefully) will not go out of print just a few years after its publication. Fantastic, I've been regretting missing out last time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2013 Mr. Cohen, thanks for your comments and for checking in. (FWIW we have a mutual friend in Ben Salzano-and I love your web page's Jazz in Rocherter resource). I trust you took my critical remarks in the spirit they were meant. A search for Gryce the man to present had to prove elusive owing to his very inwardness and lack of a public profile. You (and Michael Fitzgerald) are to be commended for a work of great scholarship. How about a book on Teddy Charles? (i saw you in the audience and aswpart of the Q&A at the reconfigured Tentet concert at the Riverdale Y a few years back.His story was pretty amazing too-and what a character! I played with him and hung at his house way out on L.I. His is a great story begging to be told.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cohens2 Posted March 23, 2013 Report Share Posted March 23, 2013 Master of the Groove - feel free to contact me privately via my website: attictoys.com. Have we met? I wrote an article about Teddy Charles for Coda magazine in 2000. it's actually on my website. I did two lengthy interviews with him back then but we never talked about a book. These projects require huge amounts of time (and money) and with relatively obscure or forgotten artists like Gigi and Teddy, sales of anything are going to be minimal. Teddy was another "dropout" having left music in the 1960s and only reappearing 20 years later. It's tough to establish a lasting legacy when you do that because jazz is very much out of sight, out of mind. And it's very hard to write books now about artists from the 50s because few of them and their colleagues are around anymore. If we started to write a book about Gigi now, it would be very difficult if not impossible because most of the people we interviewed the first time around are now deceased. So the book would have far fewer direct quotes and would rely more heavily on other written sources (of which there aren't many). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2013 By 'master of the groove' I presume you meant Fasstrack. No, we haven't met. I started to approach you at Teddy's concert but you guys were busy. Yes, I know it's swimming against the tide writing books about lesser-known jazz figures. Yet such documentation is of such importance. I myself got 200 or so pages through a memoir of the NY scene of the '70s-'80s, the linchpin of which is Barry Harris' Jazz Cultural Theater and the denizens thereof (C. Sharpe, Tommy Turrentine, Chris Anderson, et. al.) who befriended me as a young man and taught me the ways of the jazz life. The sad fact is that though the 3 I mentioned were great people and musicians and part of the spine of this music they are not marquee names, thereby a tough sell. I will finish it though and see if anyone bites. That you got that book out is remarkable, I know. I'll get in touch sometime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cohens2 Posted October 18, 2014 Report Share Posted October 18, 2014 The second edition of "Rat Race Blues: The Musical Life of Gigi Gryce" is now available as a paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Rat-Race-Blues-Musical-Gryce/dp/0990668606/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413642180&sr=1-1&keywords=rat+race+blues We may publish it as an ebook, but not in the near future. The second edition does contain new and updated information relative to the 2002 edition. There is also a new website dedicated to Gryce: http://gigigrycebook.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertrand Posted October 23, 2014 Report Share Posted October 23, 2014 Just ordered a copy! Bertrand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted October 23, 2014 Report Share Posted October 23, 2014 will get the second edition when it comes out. I foolishly slept on it the first time around, which in retrospect is so absurd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted October 23, 2014 Report Share Posted October 23, 2014 Does the second edition include the discography? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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