Product Description: This is Whitney Balliett's long-awaited "big book." In it are all the jazz profiles he has written for The New Yorker during the past 24 years. These include his famous early portraits of Pee Wee Russell, Red Allen, Earl Hines, and Mary Lou Williams, done when these giants were in full flower; his recent reconstructions of the lives of such legends as Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Jack Teagarden, Zoot Sims, and Dave Tough; His quick but indelible glimpses into the daily (or nocturnal) lives of Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus; and his vivid pictures of such on-the-scene masters as Red Norvo, Ornette Coleman, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Art Farmer, Michael Moore, and Tommy Flanagan. Also included are such lesser known but invaluable players as Art Hodes, Jabbo Smith, Joe Wilder, Warne Marsh, Gene Bertoncini, Joe Bushkin, and Marie Marcus.
All these profiles make the reader feel, as one observer has pointed out, that he is "sitting with Balliett and his subject and listening in." The book can be taken as a kind of history of jazz, as well as a biographical encylopedia of many of its most important performers. It can also be regarded as a model of American prose. Robert Dawidoff said of Whitney Balliett"s most recent book, Jelly Roll, Jabbo and Fats, that "few people write as well about anything as Balliett writes about jazz." And the late Philip Larkin wrote in 1982 of the "transcendence of Balliett's prose."
Amazon.com Review: An earlier version of American Musicians appeared in 1986. Now the author has added 17 essays to the collection, and the result is a highly personal encyclopedia of jazz history, written with Whitney Balliett's trademark lyricism. Few critics can describe a piece of music with this kind of delicacy and precision. And the comments that Balliett elicits from his subjects are themselves worth the price of admission. Here, for example, pianist John Lewis goes right to the heart of jazz improvisation, and gives us a hint of what lays behind it: "When I take a solo, I try not to look at my fingers. It distracts me from music-making . . . I think about other things, even other music. If you break through those mere rules, destroy them, that's good, and it can become quite a marvelous experience. It's not just sadness or joy, it's something beyond that, perhaps exhilaration, but that's rare."
He Always Writes in Perfect Tune I have been a musician and writer for over 50 years, and glory of glories, in Whitney Balliett's book, American Musicians II, he achieves perfect pitch in his prose when capturing the heart and soul of what music is, and the men and women who make it happen. His stories pulse with an energy that is seemingly boundless. Here is a man who has somehow gotten inside these legendary figures, some of whom I knew and many of whom I've heard in person. Balliett lets you listen through his own ears, giving you a guided tour not only of the notes on the page, and then as they take flight in the air, but also of the fascinating daily lives of these gifted individuals. I can't play like Art Tatum, but Balliett lets me sit beside him as he lays down his "perfect storm" of notes, at the end of which is this huge rainbow whose image we carry in our mind forever. If you love good music and good writing, you've come to the perfect book. Balliet is no longer with us, but he has left us a legacy that should be treasured for 32 bars unto infinity. Ron Levin, revronl@aol.com
Whitney Balliett's elegant solos. If Whitnet Balliett were a musician, he'd probably be someone like Teddy Wilson, whose sometimes spare but dancing lines were always distinct, no matter the context. Balliett's musings on the more important jazz musicians, published originally in The New Yorker, are models of criticism that never betray his love and admiration for the music. It is unlikely that anyone will ever write as well as he has about America's most important contribution to the arts.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
