A dense and closely argued piece of work. Since van de Leur often proceeds by feel—many original scores are lost—his...
Jazz musician and historian van de Leur subjects Billy Strayhorn’s musical arrangements to deep scrutiny and credibly finds them original, undervalued, frequently misattributed, and tasting of the sublime.
There isn’t much music in van de Leur's prose, but there is a real intellectual hunger in this exploration to identify the unique glory and lasting contribution Strayhorn (1915–67) made to the art of jazz and to give credit to Strayhorn where credit is due. Readers unaccustomed to the patter of musical composition—“characterized by an ascending B[sharp] Aeolian minor scale that surprisingly leads to the major seventh, underscrored by a third inversion B[sharp]mi6”—will find themselves briskly and repeatedly treading water, but van de Leur is equally capable of conveying Strayhorn’s magic in less idiosyncratic language. The main concern here is to situate Strayhorn as he relates to Duke Ellington, with whom he worked for most of his professional life and by whom van de Leur feels Strayhorn is overshadowed. While the author wouldn’t deny the enormous influence Ellington had on the younger Strayhorn, nor their shared “fascination for orchestral sonority, harmonic richness, and formal balance,” he can find evidence of original Strayhorn fingerprints all over the work Ellington and his band played. They’re in his “temporary modulations,” his specific dissonance, choral choices, rhythmic figures. It might well be that Strayhorn and Ellington worked so well together because they were complementary: Strayhorn the tight-knit, Ellington the streetwise and striding. Along the way, van de Leur sticks it to a whole company of critics he feels have given Strayhorn a bum rap, perhaps because of homophobia, perhaps because they simply never appreciated the breadth of jazz that Strayhorn pioneered, such as subdued bebop.
A dense and closely argued piece of work. Since van de Leur often proceeds by feel—many original scores are lost—his attributions will doubtless be richly provocative to jazz fans. (Inventory of scores, compositions, and works on record)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-19-512448-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2001
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
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