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VOICES

Name: VOICES
Author: Nick Coleman
ISBN: 978-1-64009-115-3

HOW A GREAT SINGER CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

by Nick Coleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2018

Pleasure in music, writes Coleman, “is arguably the most complicated pleasure there is.” This book proves the truth of that...

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A music journalist surveys more than a half-century of popular music.

Coleman (The Train in the Night: A Story of Music and Loss, 2013) has endured severe hearing loss since 2007, but that hasn’t dampened his appreciation of popular music. Here, he takes readers on his personal journey through the songs that have influenced him, most of them from his formative years in the 1960s and ’70s. As with any work of nonfiction based on opinion, many of the author’s statements are bound to raise eyebrows. Jazz lovers will share his appreciation of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” but many may bristle at his claim that every jazz recording since then “only counts really as an afterthought or further meditation,” which is a little like saying that no director has made a great film since Citizen Kane. Of Aretha Franklin, Coleman writes, “no voice in any musical style has ever cleaved as closely to the spirit of ecstasy and its close associate, rapture.” Franklin’s genius is beyond dispute, but opera and jazz fans might counter with Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, Billie Holiday, and other equally rapturous performers. The author begins one chapter by stating that it would have been a shame if the Cuban missile crisis had destroyed the world because that would have meant “[n]o Beatles, no Stones, no Animals or Yardbirds or Kinks or Small Faces or Led Zeppelin”—and, ultimately, no Taylor Swift. Well, yes, but one could be forgiven for thinking that other losses might have been more catastrophic. Even readers who disagree with Coleman’s opinions, however, will appreciate his passion, and he makes many astute observations, as when he writes that the Rolling Stones’ output “was never a music of intimate connection but an animated description of life as it is lived on the edge of its own times.”

Pleasure in music, writes Coleman, “is arguably the most complicated pleasure there is.” This book proves the truth of that statement.

Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-64009-115-3

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Counterpoint

Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.