A meticulously researched volume on an underexamined field of music history. Musician and historian Sudhalter (Bix: Man and Legend, 1974) begins his study with a look at early jazz’s twin cities, New Orleans and Chicago, and then he follows the major figures from these cities as they migrate to the coasts and elsewhere. Among the more prominent careers he covers along the way are those of Louis Prima, Bix Beiderbecke (a constant presence in the book), and Ben Pollack. The last three sections of the book look individually at major figures such as Pee Wee Russell, Artie Shaw, and Benny Goodman (with whom Sudhalter conducted a revealing Q&A). Of course, since these figures are quite well known, few of the titular “chords” Sudhalter covers have ever been “lost” in the first place. A more serious problem is the lack of structured organization in the narrative. Sudhalter himself is a trumpeter, and much of the book is concerned with analysis of the artists’ recordings; for the nonmusician, this material is far too technical and even Sudhalter claims that these sections may be skipped without missing the important historical material; but he never makes clear where the analytical sections begin and end. Still, Sudhalter makes a very strong point on the important contributions of white musicians to the formation of jazz. His cultural analysis of the racial melting pot of New Orleans informs much of his theory of jazz’s creation, and he is able to see the underlying class issues that perhaps more directly affected the course of jazz history. This will be an indispensable volume for musicians and music historians, as well as an important addition to white cultural studies (30 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-19-505585-3
Page Count: 1072
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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