Fun Question Of The Month--November

MikeK · 10:03AM

This month's question will require some thought from the forum and I'm excited to see how folks respond:

What's your favorite jazz-themed book? Please limit your answer to 2. They don't have to be about Django or even gypsy jazz (I'm assuming most, if not all, of us are fans of other styles of jazz as well). I'll get it started:

Nica's Dream by David Kastin. An excellent biography of a fascinating & important patron of jazz artists in the early days. She was Pannonica de Koenisswarter but they called her Nica. Horace Silver wrote the song Nica's Dream for her and several of the other greats composed tributes to her as well. She was a wealthy baroness, having married into the Rothschild family. And she went through great strides to support & even protect many of the giants of early bebop (particularly Monk & Charlie Parker) at a time when they really needed it. In fact, Monk lived with her for quite some time & Bird famously died in her apartment.

The Making of Kind Of Blue by Eric Nisenson. A well-written analysis of what's regarded as one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. And one of my favorites. Miles, Cannonball, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Coltrane, PC and Jimmy Cobb all coming together to make music? I want to know all about that!

voutoreenie · 1:12PM

I can't limit it to 2 but everyone should read Miles Davis's autobiography, if only for the entertainment factor.

Another one I'll throw out is Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell - not a "happy" read, at all...but very informative, intimate and quite atypical for a jazz biography due to the author's relationship with Bud Powell.

And since I'm a no good rule breaker, I will at least do it more inline with the forum and say that anyone on here who hasn't read the Dregni book about Django by now needs to do so ASAP or else self-ban themselves. I have no idea how accurate it is but lord knows it's a really great read and an essential one at that for GJ players.

djazzy · 3:59PM

Django Generations by Siv Lie. It may be a bit on the academic side but it got me to rethink a lot about what I thought about this niche genre -- how its been understood & integrated (or not) as a cultural/ethnic legacy rooted in the whole "Django" thing. I don't think there is any other book like it -- and couldn't recommend it more to anyone interested in the style.

My second favorite on jazz is probably the essays written by Theodore Adorno. Dense, cantankerous, and absolutely reviled by Jazzers & decent folk. Kind of an odd admission on my part. I haven't looked at them in a while. But I chuckle along. And they still haven't prevented me from genuinely enjoying the music they repudiate.

There's a great documentary on Monk (forgot the name) with some interview footage of Nica late in life in her Hoboken apartment surrounded by a zillion cats -- a remarkable woman who was also part of the 1940s French Resistance.