The Sunday Telegraph had a glowing review of the new biography of Dave Brubeck "A life in time" by Philip Clark. The publicity also cites very favourable comments by the likes of Joe Lovano and Mike Westbrook. Brubeck is someone I would admit to overlooking having been put off his music by negative comments from the people who got me in to jazz in the first place. I have always felt that Brubeck's music became more interesting as he got older although it has always been noticeable that fellow musicians as diverse as Cecil Taylor, John Zorn and Andrew Hill held his music in really high esteem. It is certainly the case that he was more appreciated by his fellow jazz musicians than jazz fans who mistrusted the popular appeal of his music by a wider, non-jazz audience. In this respect, this book seems particularly timely.
The book would appear to be aimed at sceptics like myself as it dissects the music analytically and, putting the music in to it's political and social context with the result the truth worth of his music becomes apparent. The Telegraph was extremely complimentary about this book which offers in depth assessment of his playing as well as the influence of his teacher, Darius Milhaud. Just reading the review has made me very curious and my interest is very much piqued by what I have read on line. There is the suggestion that book is raising the bar for critical appraisal of jazz musicians which had hitherto be limited to major players like Duke or Miles or the more thorough overviews of Gunther Schuller. The other comments I have read also suggest that the book is not only informative and insightful but a very good read too. I generally read a lot of history and archaeology books and tend to find that the kind of analysis they favour makes you susceptible to a similar forensic approach to other things I appreciate such as music and football. This book looks just the ticket! It is something that I will be looking out for and given the recent comments on this board regarding jazz being appraised with care and attention, I would have thought that this books would appeal to several people posting here.
The book would appear to be aimed at sceptics like myself as it dissects the music analytically and, putting the music in to it's political and social context with the result the truth worth of his music becomes apparent. The Telegraph was extremely complimentary about this book which offers in depth assessment of his playing as well as the influence of his teacher, Darius Milhaud. Just reading the review has made me very curious and my interest is very much piqued by what I have read on line. There is the suggestion that book is raising the bar for critical appraisal of jazz musicians which had hitherto be limited to major players like Duke or Miles or the more thorough overviews of Gunther Schuller. The other comments I have read also suggest that the book is not only informative and insightful but a very good read too. I generally read a lot of history and archaeology books and tend to find that the kind of analysis they favour makes you susceptible to a similar forensic approach to other things I appreciate such as music and football. This book looks just the ticket! It is something that I will be looking out for and given the recent comments on this board regarding jazz being appraised with care and attention, I would have thought that this books would appeal to several people posting here.
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