
Friends Along the Way
A Journey Through Jazz
Gene Lees(Author)
Yale University Press
Will be published approx. on 24. October 2003
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-300-09967-6 (ISBN)
Description
A celebrated jazz writer offers fascinating portraits of friends he's known during a lifetime in jazz
For more than half a century, jazz writer and lyricist Gene Lees has been the friend of many in the world of jazz music. In this delightful book he offers minibiographies of fifteen of these friends-some of them jazz greats, some lesser-known figures, and some up-and-comers. Combining conversations and memoirs with critical commentary, Lees's insightful and intimate profiles will captivate jazz fans, performers, and historians alike. The subjects of the book range from the versatile orchestrator and arranger Claus Ogerman to legendary jazz broadcaster Willis Conover, from the gifted young Chinese violinist Yue Deng to undersung pianist Junior Mance. Lees writes about these figures both as musicians and as human beings, and he writes out of a conviction that jazz as an art form represents the highest values of American culture. Inviting us into the lives of these unique individuals, Lees offers an affectionate view of the jazz community that only an insider could provide.
For more than half a century, jazz writer and lyricist Gene Lees has been the friend of many in the world of jazz music. In this delightful book he offers minibiographies of fifteen of these friends-some of them jazz greats, some lesser-known figures, and some up-and-comers. Combining conversations and memoirs with critical commentary, Lees's insightful and intimate profiles will captivate jazz fans, performers, and historians alike. The subjects of the book range from the versatile orchestrator and arranger Claus Ogerman to legendary jazz broadcaster Willis Conover, from the gifted young Chinese violinist Yue Deng to undersung pianist Junior Mance. Lees writes about these figures both as musicians and as human beings, and he writes out of a conviction that jazz as an art form represents the highest values of American culture. Inviting us into the lives of these unique individuals, Lees offers an affectionate view of the jazz community that only an insider could provide.
Reviews / Votes
"These pieces represent the voice of a generation. Gene Lees's writings are a kind of last stand for the cultural values that marked a better time." John McDonough, Down Beat, Wall Street Journal "I think of Gene Lees as the Proust of jazz. His accounts of jazz musicians and their world give a sense of intimacy with the jazz scene that no other writer has been able to evoke." Eric Nisenson, author of Ascension: John Coltrane and His QuestMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
20 b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 215 mm
Width: 149 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
553 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-09967-6 (9780300099676)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Gene Lees is publisher and editor of the Jazzletter. He is also a song lyricist and the author of more than a dozen volumes of jazz history and criticism, among them Singers and the Song, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White, Meet Me at Jim and Andy's: Jazz Musicians and Their World, and a forthcoming biography of Johnny Mercer.