Minor (Humanities/Monterey Peninsula College) combines an unusual set of skills to great advantage in his first booka knowledge of Russian literature, a background in visual art, and a career as a jazz critic and musician. They've been playing jazz in Russia almost as long as they have in the US, a fact that has been amply documented by jazz historian Frederick Starr, a subsidiary character in Minor's book. But what that jazz sounded like with the advent of glasnost was a question that Minor began pondering after hearing some recordings of new Soviet artists. The result, catalogued quite amusingly in this book, was ``a nine-thousand-kilometer, six-republic, nine- city, two-major-festivals jazz journey through the former Soviet Union.'' Minor and his wife, Betty, a woman of apparently infinite patience, struck out on their own, away from the package tours and tourists, attending festivals in Moscow and Riga, and interviewing musicians and critics all over the place. The portrait of Soviet jazz that emerges is both heartening and depressing. On the positive side, there are some major talents waiting to be exposed to a wider (i.e., Western) audience. On the negative side, there are shortages of so many basic necessities for making musicreeds for sax players, mouthpieces for brass playersand so many other more basic problems (like huge distances separating musicians from one another) that the promise may go unfulfilled in spite of the hard-won freedoms of the new era. As record producer Leo Feigin tells Minor, ``You need all this freedom after dinner, not before.'' Minor tells his story with gentle humor and a great deal of charm, making the book a pleasant journey for the reader as well. (25 illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56639-324-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Temple Univ. Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
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
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
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