Informative and well-intentioned but sometimes pedestrian and lacking the elegant effervescence of Vaughan’s singing.
A biography of the great jazz singer whose commercial success seldom equaled her enormous gifts.
Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) was generally acknowledged to possess the most magnificent voice in jazz, and her instrument-playing colleagues paid her the ultimate tribute of considering her a fellow musician, not just another “girl singer.” Her one-of-the-boys attitude earned her the nickname Sassy, and she was a lone female in the macho world of bebop, present at the creation as a teenager with Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker in Earl Hines’ band in 1943. Going solo in 1945, Vaughan made more mainstream records with Musicraft and by 1947 had broken through to an audience beyond the jazz cognoscenti in Chicago, thanks partly to the enthusiastic championing of local DJ Dave Garroway, who dubbed her “the Divine One.” Hayes’ labored explanation of how Garroway “broke the rules” by describing Vaughan’s voice in terms usually reserved for white women is regrettably typical of her tendency to shoehorn academic analysis of race and gender issues into a text supposedly aimed at general readers. Her points are perfectly valid, but the way she makes them is dreary. However, Hayes does a capable job of outlining Vaughan’s career, hampered both artistically and financially by her unfortunate predilection for letting the men in her life manage her. If Vaughan had received the kind of sustained support that Ella Fitzgerald got from Norman Granz, Hayes convincingly argues, her legacy on disc would not be so spotty. Instead, she did her best work in performance, and the magic of her concerts is nicely captured in well-chosen quotes from her sidemen. They also capture the prickly personality of a musical perfectionist who could be a harsh taskmaster but also a warm mother figure to her band members. Vaughan continued singing after her diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, giving her final performance less than six months before her death.
Informative and well-intentioned but sometimes pedestrian and lacking the elegant effervescence of Vaughan’s singing.Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-236468-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
