The Life and Writings of Ralph J. Gleason

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The Life and Writings of Ralph J. Gleason is a thoughtful celebration and an engagingly detailed reading of the work of one of the great American music journalists. Above all Don Armstrong captures the astonishing energy with which Gleason sought to make sense of the music (and the country) that he loved. * Simon Frith, Emeritus Professor of Music, University of Edinburgh, UK * Ralph Gleason was among the most astute and impactful interpreters and mediators of mid-20th century American music, hip to everything from Bunk Johnson and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and the Grateful Dead. In this superb book, Don Armstrong gives Gleason what he deserves, and what we desperately need: a richly detailed chronicle of this singular writer/producer/social activist's career, and a timely argument about the indispensable role such people play in shaping and sustaining our culture and our democracy. * John Gennari, Professor of English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, University of Vermont, USA, and author of Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (2006) * [A] thorough, unstuffy study of a figure who, like the early journalistic figures he encountered in his father's horse-racing papers, took on the role of secular priest, dishing out revelations and real talk in equal measure, all the while believing "in the magic that can set you free". * The Times Literary Supplement *