Charles Mingus was one of the most innovative jazz musicians of the 20th Century, and ranks with Ives and Ellington as one of America's greatest composers. By temperament, he was a high-strung and sensitive romantic, a towering figure whose tempestuous personal life found powerfully coherent expression in the ever-shifting textures of his music. Now, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro strips away the myths shrouding "Jazz's Angry Man," revealing Mingus as more complex than even his lovers and close friends knew. A pioneering bassist and composer, Mingus redefined jazz's terrain. He penned over 300 works spanning gutbucket gospel, Colombian cumbias, orchestral tone poems, multimedia performance, and chamber jazz. By the time he was 35, his growing body of music won increasing attention as it unfolded into one pioneering musical venture after another, from classical-meets-jazz extended pieces to spoken-word and dramatic performances and television and movie soundtracks. Though critics and musicians debated his musical merits and his personality, by the late 1950s he was widely recognized as a major jazz star, a bellwether whose combined grasp of tradition and feel for change poured his inventive creativity into new musical outlets. But Mingus got headlines less for his art than for his volatile and often provocative behavior, which drew fans who wanted to watch his temper suddenly flare onstage. Impromptu outbursts and speeches formed an integral part of his long-running jazz workshop, modeled partly on dramatic models like Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. Keeping up with the organized chaos of Mingus's art demanded gymnastic improvisational skills and openness from his musicians-which is why some of them called it "the Sweatshop." He hired and fired musicians on the bandstand, attacked a few musicians physically and many more verbally, twice threw Lionel Hampton's drummer off the stage, and routinely harangued chattering audiences, once chasing a table of inattentive patrons out of the FIVE SPOT with a meat cleaver. But the musical and mental challenges this volcanic man set his bands also nurtured deep loyalties. Key sidemen stayed with him for years and even decades. In this biography, Santoro probes the sore spots in Mingus's easily wounded nature that helped make him so explosive: his bullying father, his interracial background, his vulnerability to women and distrust of men, his views of political and social issues, his overwhelming need for love and acceptance. Of black, white, and Asian descent, Mingus made race a central issue in his life as well as a crucial aspect of his music, becoming an outspoken (and often misunderstood) critic of racial injustice. Santoro gives us a vivid portrait of Mingus's development, from the racially mixed Watts where he mingled with artists and writers as well as mobsters, union toughs, and pimps to the artistic ferment of postwar Greenwich Village, where he absorbed and extended the radical improvisation flowing through the work of Allen Ginsberg, Jackson Pollock, and Charlie Parker. Indeed, unlike Most jazz biographers, Santoro examines Mingus's extra-musical influences--from Orson Welles to Langston Hughes, Farwell Taylor, and Timothy Leary--and illuminates his achievement in the broader cultural context it demands. Written in a lively, novelistic style, Myself When I Am Real draws on dozens of new interviews and previously untapped letters and archival materials to explore the intricate connections between this extraordinary man and the extraordinary music he made.
The political value of African American literature has long been a topic of great debate among American writers, both black and white, from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama. In his compelling new book, Representing the Race, Gene Andrew Jarrett traces the genealogy of this topic in order to develop an innovative political history of African American literature. Jarrett examines texts of every sort—pamphlets, autobiographies, cultural criticism, poems, short stories, and novels—to parse the myths of authenticity, popular culture, nationalism, and militancy that have come to define African American political activism in recent decades. He argues that unless we show the diverse and complex ways that African American literature has transformed society, political myths will continue to limit our understanding of this intellectual tradition. Cultural forums ranging from the printing press, schools, and conventions, to parlors, railroad cars, and courtrooms provide the backdrop to this African American literary history, while the foreground is replete with compelling stories, from the debate over racial genius in early American history and the intellectual culture of racial politics after slavery, to the tension between copyright law and free speech in contemporary African American culture, to the political audacity of Barack Obama’s creative writing. Erudite yet accessible, Representing the Race is a bold explanation of what’s at stake in continuing to politicize African American literature in the new millennium.
Blondie, Boston Blackie, Ellery Queen, The Lone Wolf, Gasoline Alley, Jungle Jim... There were 27 film series produced and released by Columbia Pictures from 1926 through 1955. This reference book covers the origins of the popular fictional characters featured, as well as their appearances in other media (comics, novels, radio and television). Also provided are thumbnail biographies of the actors who brought these characters to life. The films themselves are examined in detail, with release dates, cast and production credits, synopses, reviews, the author's summation, the publicity "tag lines," and the songs heard. Additionally, most of the outdoor locations used in filming such Columbia western series as Wild Bill Saunders and The Durango Kid are identified.
An unprecedented examination of how news stories, editorials and photographs in the American press—and the journalists responsible for them—profoundly changed the nation’s thinking about civil rights in the South during the 1950s and ‘60s. Roberts and Klibanoff draw on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen—black and white—revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings that compelled its citizens to act. Meticulously researched and vividly rendered, The Race Beat is an extraordinary account of one of the most calamitous periods in our nation’s history, as told by those who covered it.
An engaging biography of a living musical legend, Oscar Peterson. A man Duke Ellington once called the " maharajah of the piano." Gene Lees carefully builds up the portrait of Peterson, his childhood and what it meant to be be black and talented in Montreal in the 1940s, hist three marriages and six children, his musical partners (Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Ed Thigpen), his musical friends and colleagues (Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum and Lester Young, amongst others) and the critical controversy and mythology that have long surrounded Peterson. This updated version has a new chapter that covers Peterson's appointment as Chancellor of York University; his receipt of ten honorary doctorates and the Order of Canada; his stroke and partial recovery; the origins and fallout of his cancelled North American tour and much more.
... The pieces in Dancing In Your Head examine the historical roots of today's popular music while offering insight into performers and trends that dominate the current scene."--Back cover
Virtually every month for fourteen years, Gene Burnett wrote a history piece under the title "Florida's Past" for Florida Trend, Florida's respected magazine of business and finance. The first volume of collected essays from that series proved so popular among book readers that two more volumes have been published. Pineapple Press is now proud to make them available in paperback. Burnett's easygoing style and his sometimes surprising choice of topics make history good reading. Each volume divides Florida's people and events into Achievers and Pioneers, Villains and Characters, Heroes and Heroines, War and Peace, and Calamities and Social Turbulence. Read a chapter and you'll find you've gone on to read more. Read this volume and you'll find yourself looking for the next two. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series
This book is about an ordinary man who lived in extraordinary times during the period of slavery in southern history. Abraham was born into an institution which viewed him as three-fifths of a white person by the United States Constitution. He was sold into the slave state of Georgia from South Carolina in 1856, one year before the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. This decision proclaimed in March of 1857 declared that African Americans were not citizens of the United States and could not sue in federal courts. A United States citizen had a constitutional right to take his slave property into any state or territory based on the property clause of the Fifth Amendment. This book is not about the life of an invisible historical figure in a remote period of time in Southern and United Sates history. Its about a real person and his family who survived the brutality and savagery of slavery. This book is about a people who experienced disenfranchisement, the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, the loss of property through trickery, and deceit. Its about a man who left his wife and four small children to join the union army. He wanted to be free. He arrived in Savannah on a cold rainy wind- swept day; dressed in raggedy clothes with worn out shoes with holes in each one. His body exposed to the near freezing cold and rainy weather of February 1865. On March 7, 1865 he enlisted in the union army with Company C, Thirty-Third Regiment United States Colored Troops. Abraham knew that his fate and the destiny of thousands of other slaves and free African Americans rested upon the outcome of union victory.
The artist/educators in this book invite you to come with them on a journey of discovery into the meaning of teaching for aesthetic experience. With learning as their art, they create educational encounters with passion and feeling, and leave their students with vivid impressions, growth, and change. Each author engages in aesthetic experience from an individual perspective - as poet, dancer, visual artist, or musician - and each of them engages as an educator who brings art into his or her classroom, no matter what the subject. Inspired by the words of philosopher Maxine Greene, the contributors transform the theoretical into the practical, urging students to look to the arts and nature for simple beauty, and awaken their minds to new possibilities of creative learning.
Having experienced God’s amazing provisions for more than 50 years, Gene sat down and wrote this book in less than five days. You will be both encouraged and challenged to trust God as you face your own needs for His provision, power, protection, and peace as you read how God has provided for Gene.
* Critically acclaimed biographies of history's most notable African-Americans * Straightforward and objective writing * Lavishly illustrated with photographs and memorabilia * Essential for multicultural studies
Reflecting upon what at times appeared to be the hundred-yard dash of life, I realize I have stood on the shoulders of great visionaries. Many of them were aware of the promise of my potential and the pitfalls that lay before me. They had a sincere appreciation of my desire to persevere and my passion for medicine. These courageous individuals were transformational leaders by nature. They bestowed upon me wisdom and encouragement and shared the precious gift of time, which helped generate a surge when my quest toward the finish line occasionally faltered.
The definitive biography of a pivotal figure in American literary history A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emancipation. In this definitive biography, the first full-scale life of Dunbar in half a century, Gene Andrew Jarrett offers a revelatory account of a writer whose Gilded Age celebrity as the “poet laureate of his race” hid the private struggles of a man who, in the words of his famous poem, felt like a “caged bird” that sings. Jarrett tells the fascinating story of how Dunbar, born during Reconstruction to formerly enslaved parents, excelled against all odds to become an accomplished and versatile artist. A prolific and successful poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and Broadway librettist, he was also a friend of such luminaries as Frederick Douglass and Orville and Wilbur Wright. But while audiences across the United States and Europe flocked to enjoy his literary readings, Dunbar privately bemoaned shouldering the burden of race and catering to minstrel stereotypes to earn fame and money. Inspired by his parents’ survival of slavery, but also agitated by a turbulent public marriage, beholden to influential benefactors, and helpless against his widely reported bouts of tuberculosis and alcoholism, he came to regard his racial notoriety as a curse as well as a blessing before dying at the age of only thirty-three. Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and generously illustrated, this biography presents the richest, most detailed, and most nuanced portrait yet of Dunbar and his work, transforming how we understand the astonishing life and times of a central figure in American literary history.
Respected for getting the most from his hard-working players, Gene Keady possesses a fiercely competitive drive which he learned from his father, Lloyd, while growing up in Larned, Kan. For the past 25 seasons, Keady's Purdue Boilermakers were among the Big Ten Conference's most difficult opponents, winning 512 of 772 games, including six Big Ten championships and a pair of trips to the NCAA tournament's Elite Eight. While many know Keady for his fiery sideline demeanor and classic fist pump in a moment of athletic passion, this former national coach of the year has a softer side, which includes an honest respect for the media and a terrific sense of humor. Within the pages of The Truth and Nothing But the Truth, the recently retired Purdue coach talks about everything from his relationship with Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, who was Keady's rival for 20 seasons at Indiana, to how the Boilermakers were able to successfully recruit 1994 National Player of the Year Glenn Robinson out of Gary Roosevelt High School in Lake County, Ind.Keady, 68, explains details how his father?a boxer turned wholesale florist?instilled a deep-seeded love for athletics, which Keady parlayed into a successful playing career at Larned High School, Garden City (Kan.) Junior College and then Kansas State University. Keady was signed by the National Football League's Pittsburgh Steelers in the summer of 1958, but a knee injury cut his pro football career short. He returned to Kansas, accepting a teaching/coaching position at Beloit High School, where basketball?not football?was the only coaching post available. The rest is history. In April, 1980, Keady accepted then-Purdue athletic director George King's offer to replace Lee Rose, who left West Lafayette for a South Florida job. Keady rolled up his sleeves and put Purdue on the college basketball map in a state where Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers were the high-profile targets. It took Keady only four seasons to win his first Big Ten title. From there, he became one of college basketball's icons, while never losing the common touch he learned from his hardworking father in western Kansas.
Virtually every month for fourteen years, Gene Burnett wrote a history piece under the title "Florida's Past" for Florida Trend, Florida's respected magazine of business and finance. The first volume of collected essays from that series proved so popular among book readers that two more volumes have been published. Pineapple Press is now proud to make them available in paperback. Burnett's easygoing style and his sometimes surprising choice of topics make history good reading. Each volume divides Florida's people and events into Achievers and Pioneers, Villains and Characters, Heroes and Heroines, War and Peace, and Calamities and Social Turbulence. Read a chapter and you'll find you've gone on to read more. Read this volume and you'll find yourself looking for the next two. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series
Virtually every month for fourteen years, Gene Burnett wrote a history piece under the title "Florida's Past" for Florida Trend, Florida's respected magazine of business and finance. This first volume of collected essays from that series proved so popular among book readers that two more volumes have been published. Pineapple Press is now proud to make them available in paperback. Burnett's easygoing style and his sometimes surprising choice of topics make history good reading. Each volume divides Florida's people and events into Achievers and Pioneers, Villains and Characters, Heroes and Heroines, War and Peace, and Calamities and Social Turbulence. Read a chapter and you'll find you've gone on to read more. Read this volume and you'll find yourself looking for the next two.
What do Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, Cassandra Wilson, and Ani DiFranco have in common? In Highway 61 Revisited, acclaimed music critic Gene Santoro says the answer is jazz--not just the musical style, but jazz's distinctive ambiance and attitudes. As legendary bebop rebel Charlie Parker once put it, "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn." Unwinding that Zen-like statement, Santoro traces how jazz's existential art has infused outstanding musicians in nearly every wing of American popular music--blues, folk, gospel, psychedelic rock, country, bluegrass, soul, funk, hiphop--with its parallel process of self-discovery and artistic creation through musical improvisation. Taking less-traveled paths through the last century of American pop, Highway 61 Revisited maps unexpected musical and cultural links between such apparently disparate figures as Louis Armstrong, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and Herbie Hancock; Miles Davis, Lenny Bruce, The Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, and many others. Focusing on jazz's power to connect, Santoro shows how the jazz milieu created a fertile space "where whites and blacks could meet in America on something like equal grounds," and indeed where art and entertainment, politics and poetry, mainstream culture and its subversive offshoots were drawn together in a heady mix whose influence has proved both far-reaching and seemingly inexhaustible. Combining interviews and original research, and marked throughout by Santoro's wide ranging grasp of cultural history, Highway 61 Revisited offers readers a new look at--and a new way of listening to--the many ways jazz has colored the entire range of American popular music in all its dazzling profusion.
For a work to be considered African American literature, does it need to focus on black characters or political themes? Must it represent these within a specific stylistic range? Or is it enough for the author to be identified as African American? In Deans and Truants, Gene Andrew Jarrett traces the shifting definitions of African American literature and the authors who wrote beyond those boundaries at the cost of critical dismissal and, at times, obscurity. From the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth, de facto deans—critics and authors as different as William Howells, Alain Locke, Richard Wright, and Amiri Baraka—prescribed the shifting parameters of realism and racial subject matter appropriate to authentic African American literature, while truant authors such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, George S. Schuyler, Frank Yerby, and Toni Morrison—perhaps the most celebrated African American author of the twentieth century—wrote literature anomalous to those standards. Jarrett explores the issues at stake when Howells, the "Dean of American Letters," argues in 1896 that only Dunbar's "entirely black verse," written in dialect, "would succeed." Three decades later, Locke, the cultural arbiter of the Harlem Renaissance, stands in contrast to Schuyler, a journalist and novelist who questions the existence of a peculiarly black or "New Negro" art. Next, Wright's 1937 blueprint for African American writing sets the terms of the Chicago Renaissance, but Yerby's version of historical romance approaches race and realism in alternative literary ways. Finally, Deans and Truants measures the gravitational pull of the late 1960s Black Aesthetic in Baraka's editorial silence on Toni Morrison's first and only short story, "Recitatif." Drawing from a wealth of biographical, historical, and literary sources, Deans and Truants describes the changing notions of race, politics, and gender that framed and were framed by the authors and critics of African American culture for more than a century.
Since the earliest days of colonial America, the relationship between cotton and the African-American experience has been central to the history of the republic. America's most serious social tragedy, slavery and its legacy, spread only where cotton could be grown. Both before and after the Civil War, blacks were assigned to the cotton fields while a pervasive racial animosity and fear of a black migratory invasion caused white Northerners to contain blacks in the South. Gene Dattel's pioneering study explores the historical roots of these most central social issues. In telling detail Mr. Dattel shows why the vastly underappreciated story of cotton is a key to understanding America's rise to economic power. When cotton production exploded to satiate the nineteenth-century textile industry's enormous appetite, it became the first truly complex global business and thereby a major driving force in U.S. territorial expansion and sectional economic integration. It propelled New York City to commercial preeminence and fostered independent trade between Europe and the United States, providing export capital for the new nation to gain its financial "sea legs" in the world economy. Without slave-produced cotton, the South could never have initiated the Civil War, America's bloodiest conflict at home. Mr. Dattel's skillful historical analysis identifies the commercial forces that cotton unleashed and the pervasive nature of racial antipathy it produced. This is a story that has never been told in quite the same way before, related here with the authority of a historian with a profound knowledge of the history of international finance. With 23 black-and-white illustrations.
This remarkable book is an alphabetical listing of nearly the entire adult male (and some of the female) population of Monmouth County during the American Revolution--some 6,000 Monmouth Countians between 1776 and 1783. For roughly half of the persons listed, we find one or two identifying pieces of information, and in an equal number of cases we are presented with enough information to trace the allegiance or comings and goings of a Monmouth County resident over a number of years.
Bridging theory with practice, Organizational Change: An Action-Oriented Toolkit’s newest edition uses models, examples, and exercises to help students engage others in the change process. It provides tools for implementing, measuring, and monitoring sustainable change initiatives and helping organizations achieve their objectives.
Charles Barnard, a Connecticut entrepreneur, settled in the Brazos Valley in 1849, running an Indian Trading Post. He built a gristmill in 1860 near the confluence of the Brazos and Paluxy Rivers, around which the town of Glen Rose sprang up. Captured here in over 200 vintage photographs and postcards is the history of this quintessential little Texas town, from its origins as a mill town, to the bedroom community of Fort Worth that it has become today. In its earliest days, settlers flocked to the region from the war-torn South during the Civil War. By the 1900s, both Somervell County and Glen Rose established fame as a tourist resort, offering springs and artesian waters to heal the body and spirit. Naturopathic and magnetic healers built sanitariums, while locals built tourist parks to entertain the crowds that came for rest and relaxation. Showcased here are images of the Hill postcard collection, which relay the intriguing story of Glen Rose as a recreation mecca, the Moonshine Capital of Texas during Prohibition, the discovery of the infamous dinosaur tracks, and its development as it enters the 21st century.
An ideal text for aspiring teachers, the new Fourth Edition of Introduction to Teaching thoroughly prepares students to make a difference as teachers, presenting first-hand stories and evidence-based practices while offering a student-centered approach to learning.
Spreadin' Rhythm Around: Black Popular Songwriters, 1880-1930 is a classic work on a little-studied subject in American music history: the contribution of African-American songwriters to the world of popular song. Hailed by Publishers Weekly as "thoroughly researched and entertainingly written," this work documents the careers of songwriters like James A. Bland ("Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny"), Bert Williams ("Nobody"), W. C. Handy ("St. Louis Blues"), Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake ("I'm Just Wild About Harry"), and many more. Richly illustrated with rare photographs from sheet music, newspapers, and other unique sources, the book documents an entire era of performance when black singers, dancers, and actors were active on the New York stage. In sheer depth of research, new information, and full coverage, Spreadin' Rhythm Around offers a comprehensive picture of the contributions of black musicians to American popular song. For anyone interested in the history of jazz, pop song, or Broadway, this book will be a revelation.
Wild Bill Elliott was a major western star. His screen persona met evil head-on and emerged victorious, bringing cheers from Saturday audiences. This book covers Elliott's entire career. It begins with a biographical sketch and then discusses each of his 78 starring roles as well as his more than 130 supporting roles. The film entries include studio, release date, alternate titles, cast and credit listings, songs, location filming, color, running time, source, story synopsis, notes and commentary, quotations from published reviews and a critical summation of the film. Appendices include Elliott's short films, TV and radio appearances and comic books.
An excellent liberal arts education holds purpose-giving and society-shaping power. But how do we tap into that power and make the most of liberal learning for the glory of God? Professor Gene Fant teaches how to maximize a liberal arts education by outlining its history, criticisms, purposes, and benefits. Ultimately, he shows that liberal learning equips us to become spiritually and intellectually empathetic people who are passionate about serving God, the church, and the world.
In the early twentieth century, two wealthy white sisters, cousins to a North Carolina governor, wrote identical wills that left their substantial homeplace to a black man and his daughter. Maggie Ross, whose sister Sallie died in 1909, was the richest woman in Union County, North Carolina. Upon Maggie's death in 1920, her will bequeathed her estate to Bob Ross--who had grown up in the sisters' household--and his daughter Mittie Bell Houston. Mittie had also grown up with the well-to-do women, who had shown their affection for her by building a house for her and her husband. This house, along with eight hundred acres, hundreds of dollars in cash, and two of the white family's three gold watches went to Bob Ross and Houston. As soon as the contents of the will became known, more than one hundred of Maggie Ross's scandalized cousins sued to break the will, claiming that its bequest to black people proved that Maggie Ross was mentally incompetent. Revealing the details of this case and of the lives of the people involved in it, Gene Stowe presents a story that sheds light on and complicates our understanding of the Jim Crow South. Stowe's account of this famous court battle shows how specific individuals, both white and black, labored against the status quo of white superiority and ultimately won. An evocative portrait of an entire generation's sins, Inherit the Land: Jim Crow Meets Miss Maggie's Will hints at the possibility for color-blind justice in small-town North Carolina.
Robert Mitchum was--and still is--one of Hollywood's defining stars of Western film. For more than 30 years, the actor played the weary and cynical cowboy, and his rough-and-tough presence on-screen was no different than his one off-screen. With a personality fit for western-noir, Robert Mitchum dominated the genre during the mid-20th century, and returned as the anti-hero again during the 1990s before his death. This book lays down the life of Mitchum and the films that established him as one of Hollywood's strongest and smartest horsemen. Going through early classics like Pursued (1947) and Blood on the Moon (1948) to more recent cult favorites like Tombstone (1993) and Dead Man (1995), Freese shows how Mitchum's nuanced portrayals of the iconic anti-hero of the West earned him his spot in the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
From two bestselling authors and activists in the vegan community, a readable guide to the WHY of going vegan (rather than the how). Here are 72 fact-based, easy-to-read short essays for the vegan-curious address the reasons to go vegan, including some that may surprise you: reduce inflamation in your body, affect where your tax money goes (a vast amount of government money goes to meat subsidies), even improve your sex life (a vegan diet benefits blood flow!).
Now more than ever, you can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling through London. From the sacred stones of Westminster Abbey to the top of the London Eye, the city is yours to discover! Inside Rick Steves London you'll find: Fully updated, comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring London Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from Trafalgar Square and the Tower of London to where to find the best tikka masala or fish and chips How to connect with local culture: Catch a show in Soho, take afternoon tea, or have a pint of English ale with Londoners in a pub Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a Pimm's Cup Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and world-class museums like the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Day trips to Windsor, Cambridge, and Stonehenge Detailed neighborhood maps and a fold-out city map for exploring on the go Covid-related travel info and resources for a smooth trip Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves London. Spending just a few days in the city? Try Rick Steves Pocket London.
It's a cliché that the world is shrinking. As Gene Santoro sees it in his second collection of essays, music is one arena where that cliché takes on a real, but paradoxical, life: while music crisscrosses the globe with ever greater speed, musicians seize what's useful, and expand their idioms more rapidly. More and more since the 1960s, musicians, both in America and abroad, have shown an uncanny but consistent ability to draw inspiration from quite unexpected sources. We think of Paul Simon in Graceland, blending Afropop rhythms and Everly Brothers harmonies into a remarkable new sound that captured imaginations worldwide. Or Jimi Hendrix, trying to wring from guitar the howling, Doppler-shifting winds he experienced as a paratrooper. Or Thelonius Monk, mingling Harlem stride piano, bebop, the impressionist harmonies of DeBussey, and a delight in "harmonic space" that eerily paralleled modern physics. From the startling experiments of such jazz giants as Charles Mingus, to the political bite of Bob Marley and Bruce Springsteen, we see musicians again and again taking musical tradition and making it new. The result is a profusion of new forms, media that are constantly being reinvented--in short, an art form capable of seemingly endless, and endlessly fascinating, permutations. Gene Santoro's Stir It Up is an ideal guide to this ever changing soundscape. Santoro is the rare music critic equally at home writing about jazz (John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Tom Harrell), rock (Sting, Elvis Costello, P.J. Harvey), and the international scene (Jamaican, Brazilian, and African pop music). In Stir It Up, readers will find thoughtful but unpretentious discussions of such different musicians as David Byrne and Aretha Franklin, Gilberto Gil and Manu Dibango, Abbey Lincoln and Joe Lovano. And Santoro shows us not only the distinctive features of the diverse people who create so many dazzling sounds, but also the subtle and often surprising connections between them. With effortless authority and a rich sense of music history, he reveals, for instance, how Ornette Coleman was influenced by a mystical group in Morocco--the Major Musicians of Joujouka--whom he discovered via Rolling Stone Brian Jones; how John Coltrane's unpredictable, extended sax solos influenced The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, and most significantly, Jimi Hendrix; and how Bob Marley's reggae combined Rastafarian chants with American pop, African call-and-response, and Black Nationalist politics into a potent mix that still shapes musicians from America to Africa, Europe to Asia. A former musician himself, Santoro is equally illuminating about both the technical aspects of the music and the personal development of the artists themselves. He offers us telling glimpses into their often turbulent lives: Ornette Coleman being kicked out of his high school band for improvising, Charles Mingus checking himself into Bellevue because he'd heard it was a good place to rest, the teenaged Jimi Hendrix practicing air-guitar with a broom at the foot of his bed, Aretha Franklin's Oedipal struggle with her larger-than-life preacher-father. Throughout the volume, Santoro's love and knowledge shine through, as he maps the rewarding terrain of pop music's varied traditions, its eclectic, cross-cultural borrowings, and its astonishing innovations. What results is a fascinating tour through twentieth-century popular music: lively, thought-provoking, leavened with humor and unexpected twists. Stir It Up is sure to challenge readers even as it entertains them.
Black Bottom Stomp tells the compelling stories of the lives and times of nine seminal figures in American music history, including Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton.
Auburn Jackson was alone, ignorant, and pregnant, but not unBibled. She had sinned and was punished with a brain-damaged child to raise in the impoverished wilds of West Virginia. But she had spunk and the guile of the street-smart, and she believed in the innate goodness in all. So armed, Auburn guts out a nursing degree while caring for her child, only to see him die like his father in a mine. Thinking to redeem herself from God's wrath, Auburn takes a nursing job for handicapped youth on Hatteras Island and finds happiness and fulfillment for a time. She revels in loving an Indian child from her own birthplace on Knapps Creek. No good deed goes unpunished, the sage says and Auburn is not immune. Marriage, an in-wedlock child, and a happy home are not in God's plan for her redemption in this love story.
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