A very much less than definitive biography of one of our greatest jazz performers. Clarke (editor, The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music) relies heavily on interviews conducted in 197073 by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who apparently hoped to write a biography of Holiday (she died before she could complete her work). Holiday's (191559) life story is well known, and Clarke does an adequate job of tracing her rise and fall, from her illegitimate birth in Baltimore and her reform-school years through her stormy reunion with her natural mother, who may also have served as her part-time pimp. Holiday showed a natural talent for singing and was soon working the after- hours clubs. By the mid-'30s, she was recording with legendary pianist Teddy Wilson and touring with Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Her greatest years were few, however, due to her proclivity for abusive relationships (with a series of male managers who also served as lovers, drug dealers, and ``financial managers'') and her growing dependence on heroin. Clarke traces her decline through the '50s, sparing no details of her increasingly erratic behavior. While he obviously idolizes Holiday, Clarke is fairly evenhanded in his descriptions of the musicians and lovers who were part of her life, although his dislike for famed producer John Hammond (whom he contemptuously calls ``one of the great white gods'' of the music industry) is evident. Clarke's analysis of Holiday's recordings are filled with clichÇs (``The music in Heaven is like this'') and such ham-fisted assertions as his suggestion that Holiday achieved the status of a Christian icon, ``an image of something sacred...because she was granted Grace.'' Surely, the greatest voice in jazz deserves an equally compelling biography; for now, her own Lady Sings the Blues, although deeply flawed in its factual account, remains the best introduction to her life and work. (24 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-670-83771-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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