Reviews for Jazz masters of the fifties

The average rating for Jazz masters of the fifties based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-05-18 00:00:00 Anthony Thomson This isn't exactly the most up-to-date survey of jazz (published in 1965) and it's fairly brief, but it does a good job covering what I think was the most substantial and influential period in jazz. There's a number of colorful anecdotes, and Goldberg doesn't glorify these artists, as if everything they released was pure genius throughout their lifetimes. Listening recommendations are selective and not overwhelming -- and although I'm already familiar with almost all of them, there's a few albums he spotlights that I'll give a re-listen. I especially liked the sections on Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey. You're not gonna learn about some of the more obscure jazzmen of the era, but it's not a bad introduction. This book is available to read for free on archive.org, for one hour at a time instead of two weeks, per their new lending policy -- because 🤪

Review # 2 was written on 2013-10-12 00:00:00 David Brown "We stopped off there and went into a bar where you could get sandwiches and cigarettes and candy and things like that, and they had a good piano in there. That's the part I will never forget, because I made the mistake of sitting down at that piano, and that's when I got my introduction to a keyboard monster by the name of Art Tatum. That's how I met him. I remember that part only too well. I don't know why I sat down at that piano. We were all in there to get a little taste and little snack, and the piano was there. But it was just sitting there. It wasn't bothering anybody. I just don't know what made me do what I went and did. I went over there and started bothering that piano. I just started fooling around with it, and then I started playing and messing around. And what did I do that for? That was just asking for trouble, and that's just exactly what I got. Because somebody went and found Art." This memoir is chock-full of anecdotes like that, about the Greats of Jazz, as well as innumerable sidemen and characters. The anecdotes are all told with humor, humility, and an abiding love of his fellow musicians, and unfortunately they all start acquiring a patina of sameness, as years on the road start becoming interchangeable with other years on the road, over the course of many decades and over 380 pages. Here's another brief passage: "I've got to the place now that I want to be relaxing and playing. If somebody's cutting me now, they're going to be cutting me relaxing. Those Sultans [Savoy Sultans, the house band at New York's Savoy Ballroom] will out-swing anybody right now. Right now. Somebody told me they got a few old cats in there, and they're playing like they did years ago, playing their cans off." In a lot of ways, the Count reminds me of Nestor, in the Iliad (and Uncle Fred, in P.G. Wodehouse's stories); he's always going on, at length, over legendary cohorts in the distant past: "One town we stopped in on the way was Muskogee, and that is where Pigmeat Markham left the company. One night after the show he and Harry Smith and I were out somewhere to find some juice and have ourselves a little fun, and while we sitting in some joint drinking and talking, Pigmeat pulled out a telegram from one of his old road-show buddies inviting him to come out and join a big carnival that was playing in Binghamton, New York. He kept talking about it because he was having a lot of trouble trying to make up his mind about leaving Gonzelle short. So Harry Smith and I decided for him. 'Hell, man, go on', we told him. 'This might be your big chance.'" And so Pigmeat Markham left Gonzelle White's touring company, and became a legendary vaudeville comedian; and no, I had never heard of him, either.