A curious combination of fiction and criticism celebrating primarily the great jazz musicians of the '50s. Dyer, a British novelist and critic, calls his method ``imaginative criticism,'' in that he creates dialogue and situations loosely based on oral histories. Inspired by a series of famous photographs (which, oddly, are not reproduced here), this is a rogue's gallery of jazzmen, from the last, alcohol-drenched days of famed tenor saxophonist Lester Young through the delusion-filled life of pianist Bud Powell and the elephantine anger and musical passions of bassist/composer Charles Mingus, to name a few. Dyer has a neat turn of phrase and can aptly sum up a musician's style in prose (Thelonious Monk's piano playing is described as ``dripping [notes] like booze from a spilled glass, the tune falling to the floor in puddles''). However, because the reader has no idea where fact ends and fiction begins, these essays are more frustrating than illuminating. And because much of the material Dyer draws on is easily available in the jazz literature, one would be better served by referring to the original material rather than relying on his high flights of fancy. As a means of linking the vignettes, Dyer has created a story of Duke Ellington and his devoted driver as they travel from one gig to another; these little snippets don't add up to much. To appease those critics who will be repelled by his fact/fictional stories, he has added a short essay on jazz, very much soaked in the latest jargon. Here, he gets to pound home the points he made more subtly in the fictional sections, even as he argues that jazz is the one art form that transcends criticism. A false note in the history of jazz criticism.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-865-47490-7
Page Count: 205
Publisher: North Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1995
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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