Giants of Jazz [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

This book is well written (meaning: quite readable), but too simple for any serious jazz buff; it can be a nice intro for a younger reader who likes music and wants to find out about the canon of classical jazz.

The tales of King Oliver, Armstrong, Ellington, Gillespie, Goodman, Woody Herman, Holiday, Coltrane and others will probably entertain those who don't know much about the lives and music of the protagonists, the rest should skip this book.

Recently I have been on a tear reviewing the works of the recently departed Studs Terkel. As is the case, usually, when I get "hot" on an author I grab everything I can get my hands on and read it in no particular order. That is the case here. Terkel, widely known and deservedly so, as the author of oral histories concerning the pressing social issues of class, race and gender of working people (in the main)in America was also in his earlier career a popular Chicago disc jockey concentrating on jazz (and a little blues and folk as they intersected jazz). I had not previously known of that part of Studs' life and only became aware of it through reading his last work, a memoir of sorts but really a series of connected vignettes, "Touch and Go" (well worth reading by the way as background to his interest in the jazz figures highlighted here). Previously my knowledge of jazz was formed by the likes of Nat Hentoff and John Hammond. Apparently I have to revise this list to include Studs.

Why? As a member of the Generation of '68 my tastes were formed by blues, folk and early rock and roll and only incidentally by jazz. However, once one delves into the roots of all of these forms one can only understand the attractions when one sees the influences all those forms had on each other. Without going into a dissertation on the subject (useless in any case) jazz is a core beat that expressed one form of music that had its roots in the South, among blacks and was a reflection of the rural life that was being left behind as America became more industrialized. Jazz is the music of the city, as blues is (before World War II at least) the music of the southern countryside. But enough. Read Studs and you can see how the music developed (and was retarded as well by the rules of racial separation as whites looking for real music, other than the standard fare of likes of the Paul Whitman Orchestra or Tin Pan Alley, fell in love jazz after World War I).

Many of the names of the performers highlighted here have are the classic expressions of the jazz idiom. King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, The Empress Bessie Smith. The Duke (Ellington), The Count (Basie), Lady Day (Billie Holiday). Yes this is the royalty of jazz. For those who follow this space you already know of my devotion to Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. Less well know is my devotion to the "king of Swing" Benny Goodman of the Peggy Lee days in the 1940's, Dizzy Gillespie of be-bop in the early 1950's and Duke Ellington of the early 1940's. Well, if you want to know more about them read on. By the way. This little book's format is an early example of Studs Terkel's easy style that he would work into an art form when he went full bore at his oral history interviews later. The only fault I would find here is that Studs is a little light on female singers. No Peggy Lee of the Benny Goodman days, no Margaret Whiting, no Helen Morgan, No Ivy Robertson. Oh well, I have always been a "sucker" for a `torch singer'. Maybe, Studs, except for Billie, wasn't.