Jazz Books To Avoid (and some to seek out)

[BeBop]

I like: ... Lewis Porter's Lester Young collection, and his Coltrane book. One Prez book by a European whose name I cannot remember.*...

Pony Poindexter's autobio. Babs Gonzalez is always entertaining; .

* You Got to Be Original, Man!: The Music of Lester Young, by Frank Buchmann-Moller, perhaps? (or You Just Fight For Your Life)

I liked Pony Poindexter's book too. I was blessed to be able to hang out with him a dozen or so evenings, late in his life.

Edited February 18, 2015 by BeBop

[Larry Kart]

Thumbs up for Larry Gushee's "Pioneers of Jazz"

http://www.amazon.com/Pioneers-Jazz-Story-Creole-Band/dp/0195161319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424275187&sr=1-1&keywords=lawrence+gushee

Ross Firestone's "Swing, Swing, Swing: "The Life And Times of Benny Goodman," Humphrey Lyttleton's "The Best of Jazz" (I and II), Francis Newton's "The Jazz Scene," Gordon Jack's "Fifties Jazz Talk," Max Harrison's (ed.) "Modern Jazz: The Essential Recordings" I(if you can find it), Walter van de Leur's "Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn," Peter Pettinger's "Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings," Brian Priestley's "Chasin' the Bird," Eunmi Shim's "Lennie Tristano," Andre Hodeir"s "Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence" and his "Toward Jazz," Bruce Talbot's "Tom Talbert," Andy Hamilton's "Lee Konitz," Richard Sudhalter's "Lost Chords," Safford Chamberlin's "Warne Marsh: An Unsung Cat," Max Harrison (ed.) "Jazz: The Essential Records" (several volumes, though the last one has some problems IMO), "Albert McCarthy's "Big Band Jazz," and many other books, including many that already have been mentioned.

[paul secor]

Also fascinating is to consider how much of a stage was given to Kofsky by Bob Thiele. Mutually beneficial there for a while.

I only remember Kofsky interviewing John Coltrane and trying to lead Coltrane into places he didn't want to go. Trane didn't take the bait. After that, I had no interest in reading Kofsky's book.

Thiele ran Jazz & Pop magazine, in which Kofsky often appeared, and of course, impulse!, where Kofsky's liner notes were placed. I've long wondered if Kofsky got the hookup to do that Trane interview through Theile

That was my impression.

[l p]

i would stay away from any autobiographies by record executives (i.e. bob thiele). i think john hammond had one too. the truth as they want the reader to see it.

the last book i kind of read (just started skimming through it after a while) was

'Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club' by photographer Kathy Sloane.
nice photos from the club, but a photographer should not be writing a book. probably should have had a co-writer.

any jazz bio written by a person who is obviously a rock music listener at heart, rather than a jazz listener.

i think 'Bright Moments: The Life and Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk' by John Kruth would fall into this category.

[B. Clugston]

It wasn't a bad book necessarily, but Paul Tingen made some really weird statements in "Miles Electric", which I read 10 or 11 years ago, the first one was that people who couldn't appreciate "Bitches Brew" were because they had inferior stereo systems (WTF?) and he discussed Miles' alleged crossdressing (who cares?).

He also knocks some of Miles' more interesting recordings and goes all Shunryu Suzuki for a bit. But overall, a good book, thanks to his extensive interviews of musicians who played with Miles.

[Big Beat Steve]

i would stay away from any autobiographies by record executives (i.e. bob thiele). i think john hammond had one too. the truth as they want the reader to see it.

Well, I would very much like to read the memoirs of "jazz hustler" Teddy Reig (however short they may be) but the copies I have seen were really priced out of this world.

[JSngry]

Speaking of Miles, one of the very worst books ever was written by one of his ex-roadies and was called "Miles: The Lost Years" or something like that. Totally not about that at all, and not really about Miles, either. That book pissed me off.

[clifford_thornton]

What is the Miles book to read? The autobiog is nutty and interesting, but probably fairly far from accurate in certain places. Carr's book seems informative but I'm told a lot of it has holes as well..

[sgcim]

I hated Guthrie P. Ramsey's "The Amazing Bud Powell".

One of those black-centric books on a genius that had nothing to say about his music.

Edited February 18, 2015 by sgcim

[JSngry]

What is the Miles book to read? The autobiog is nutty and interesting, but probably fairly far from accurate in certain places. Carr's book seems informative but I'm told a lot of it has holes as well..

IMO there's not any one book, just a combination. Between those two, Tingen's and the two different "Miles Davis Reader" things (much more valuable than I had anticipated at purchase), you can get what seems to me an effective composite. You can also add the two Jack Chambers books if you don't mind liberal applications of the proverbial grains of salt along the way.

[clifford_thornton]

Interesting, thanks.

[Larry Kart]

Haven't read it myself (need to remedy that), but I would guess that John Szwed's Miles bio would be the one to get:

http://www.amazon.com/So-What-Life-Miles-Davis/dp/0684859823/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424295251&sr=1-1&keywords=john+szwed

[JSngry]

Forgot about Swed's, yes, that one too, maybe could supplant Carr's. But I don't think that "the" Miles biography has been written yet, nor am I sure that it will be a good thing if/when it is...so many movements in that body of work, anybody who can deal with it all equally/objectively, at least not any time soon.

I mean, how do you effectively frame Red Garland and Adam Holzman in a way that is fair and equal to both at the same time? I can do it, a lot of us can do it, but it takes some...shifting of perspective to do so, ya' know? Unless you're gonna go all Jack Webb about it, in which case, who needs a book? Just use the internet. Just do that until all the bodies are dead and cold and buried and actually dead.

[l p]

i would stay away from any autobiographies by record executives (i.e. bob thiele). i think john hammond had one too. the truth as they want the reader to see it.

Well, I would very much like to read the memoirs of "jazz hustler" Teddy Reig (however short they may be) but the copies I have seen were really priced out of this world.

you could ask your library to order it on interlibrary book loan from another library in the country. can do that in the u.s., maybe in germany too.

[BeBop]

ithe last book i kind of read (just started skimming through it after a while) was

'Keystone Korner: Portrait of a Jazz Club' by photographer Kathy Sloane.

nice photos from the club, but a photographer should not be writing a book. probably should have had a co-writer.

I grew up at the Keystone Korner and was, therefore, really looking forward to this one. I was deeply disappointed. It touched on something like the "culture" of the club as a place to work, but really nothing on the culture of the place in the jazz community, nothing meaningful on the music or people who played there. Even my buddy the soundboard man got short shrift.

Andre Hodeir"s "Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence" and his "Toward Jazz,"

The man was about a step-and-a-half behind the times, it seems to me. I enjoy reading his stuff, but I've got to be in the right frame of mind - like when I can "let it go".

[B. Clugston]

Forgot about Swed's, yes, that one too, maybe could supplant Carr's. But I don't think that "the" Miles biography has been written yet, nor am I sure that it will be a good thing if/when it is...so many movements in that body of work, anybody who can deal with it all equally/objectively, at least not any time soon.

I mean, how do you effectively frame Red Garland and Adam Holzman in a way that is fair and equal to both at the same time? I can do it, a lot of us can do it, but it takes some...shifting of perspective to do so, ya' know? Unless you're gonna go all Jack Webb about it, in which case, who needs a book? Just use the internet. Just do that until all the bodies are dead and cold and buried and actually dead.

All of the Miles bios are full of holes--it seems every author has a period they dislike, skip over, etc. Maybe getting a different author for each decade is the answer. Edited February 19, 2015 by B. Clugston

[johnblitweiler]

Has anyone here read "From Nuts to Soup to Nuts to Soup: The Most Far-out Romance Ever Published" by Bob Weinstock? Or even seen a copy? (I got an ad in the mail for it 40 or so years ago - I believe the plot was about a jazz record producer who fell in love with a woman he'd always dreamed of, "a country singer with long blond hair down to her ass."

[marcello]

Has anyone here read "From Nuts to Soup to Nuts to Soup: The Most Far-out Romance Ever Published" by Bob Weinstock? Or even seen a copy? (I got an ad in the mail for it 40 or so years ago - I believe the plot was about a jazz record producer who fell in love with a woman he'd always dreamed of, "a country singer with long blond hair down to her ass."

There was a used copy on Amazon, so I order it.

[Steve Reynolds]

Haven't read it myself (need to remedy that), but I would guess that John Szwed's Miles bio would be the one to get:

http://www.amazon.com/So-What-Life-Miles-Davis/dp/0684859823/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424295251&sr=1-1&keywords=john+szwed

I agree. I thought the John Szwed book was excellent. Plus I read it fairly recently while I read a bunch of others well over 10 years ago.

[MomsMobley]

unmentioned (here) essential (if not necessarily flawless)

notes and tones art taylor

raise up off me hampton hawes

jazz masters of the 1930s rex stewart

jazz masters of the 1950s joe goldberg

the swing era gunther schuller

the big bands george t. simon

thelonious monk robin d.g. kelley

forces in motion graham lock

who speaks for the negro robert penn warren

http://whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu

***

the glut of u press jazz (& some blues, country) dogshit is mostly (mostly) well-intentioned (prices usually not insane, ubu, compared to texts in other fields) but between largely unknowing department chairs handing out paper & largely non-interventionist u press "editors" (but not line editors as you'd hope)... LOTS of mistakes in conception & writing happen.

avoid: ALL Whitney Balliett (you'll learn nothing true except how to fake it at slick magazine)-- hard to believe ANYONE would credit Balliett anything compared to, say, Edmund Wilson "To The Finland Station" or "Patriotic Gore" (doesn't matter if different subects, compare ideation) or George Steiner (read "My Unwrtten Books" first if unfamiliar) etc etc. Needless to say, jazz fans who've read Balliett and not the novels of Charles Chesnutt or at least five books by W.E.B. DuBois are missing forest for JAMF brand plastic trees.

Edited February 19, 2015 by MomsMobley

[king ubu]

(maybe some moderator could amend the thread title, since this has by now turned into a recommendations discussion equally?)

[BillF]

As this has now turned into a recommended books thread, I'll put forward this fairly recent item, although the subtitle should perhaps have been "The Man Who Used Jazz to Make Money" :-)

[A Lark Ascending]

I think this was the best jazz book I've read. Humph takes a track to represent what he sees as a significant performer or development, sets it in context and then explains why he thinks it's striking (without getting bogged down in the technicalities that might lose the non-musically trained listener).

Although he makes judgements and develops interpretations you never get that thing that drives me nuts in writing about music - where the writer dreams up an interpretation and then proceeds to project it on the music, insisting that this is how it is.

That makes clear what I try and avoid in books.

The Humph book really opened up pre-Bebop jazz for me.

[Big Beat Steve]

... you never get that thing that drives me nuts in writing about music - where the writer dreams up an interpretation and then proceeds to project it on the music, insisting that this is how it is.

This must be more or less the equivalent what I don't like about a certain type of books about music usually written by the sociologically inclined ... They've got an agenda and stipulate their "findings" (in accordance with their personal agenda) FIRST and THEN present the facts and evidence in a way that reeks very much like they go out of their way to make that evidence fit their intended "findings". Not very convincing and certainly awkward to read in many cases ...

[king ubu]

The new BN coffee-table book has so much awful writing it's insane, but the photos and album art are so well presented I can't dismiss it completely.

Don't have the BN one, but had the Verve one given to me for x-mas and while it's certainly not a thrilling read or anything, I find it quite interesting, regarding the entire story of JATP, Clef, Norgran etc.

The Granz book might be a better read, who knows, but the photos and stuff in the Verve book is pretty amazing, too - and different from BN, there were so many Verve covers around (so much stuff got re-packaged and re-compiled) that I really feel like I don't even know half of 'em.

As this has now turned into a recommended books thread, I'll put forward this fairly recent item, although the subtitle should perhaps have been "The Man Who Used Jazz to Make Money" :-)

"I want to fight against racism, to give listeners a good product, and to earn money from good music."

Fair enough, I'd think.