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JAZZMAN

Name: JAZZMAN
Author: Robert Hilbert
ISBN: 0-19-507403-3

THE JAZZ LIFE OF PEE WEE RUSSELL

by Robert Hilbert ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1993

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From the president of the International Society of Jazz Record Collectors: a life of great jazz clarinetist Pee Wee Russell (1909- 69), who cut the figure of a legendary drinker and inspired player but who during his life was at once reviled for incompetence and respected for genius. The recorded works say genius. Born in St. Louis, Charles Ellsworth Russell (who grew into quite a big, lanky man) was cosseted by his parents and given every musical instrument he longed for—violin, piano, drums, sax, and, finally, a top-of-the-line clarinet. At age 12, he began both drinking and playing in bands. Beset by his lack of discipline, his family sent him away to military school, but the school dropped him after one year. Russell's final musical training was a brief course from a clarinetist in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; at age 16, he began a nearly 50-year solo. He was befriended and loved by greats, including bosom buddy Bix Beiderbecke, whose cornet style Russell adapted for a staccato clarinet attack but then gave up for a seemingly groping, hawking, rasping, often dirty personal style. Beiderbecke and Russell dug Stravinsky, Ravel, and the moderns and sought a new style of improvising along chordal rather than melodic lines. Russell kept up-to-date, not wanting to be locked into the past, and even wound up in one Newport concert with Thelonious Monk, where he acquitted himself knowledgeably. Meanwhile, he lived in an alcoholic hell. His long body moved fluidly as he played, but his long-nosed, big-eared basset-hound face bore agony through eyes staring querulously from a mass of hound-deep wrinkles and prison bars of alcohol. He died from brain edema and cirrhosis of the liver. Once underway, tremendously entertaining.

Pub Date: April 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-19-507403-3

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993

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.