Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz

Sidney Bechet was truly a giant of jazz, who ranks with Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke as one of the supreme jazz soloists and improvisors of the 1920s. Duke Ellington called him "the very epitome of jazz," and the great Swiss conductor Ernst Ansermet described him as "an extraordinary carinet virtuoso," an "artist of genius." He also lived an extremely colorful life, and now the acclaimed jazz critic John Chilton offers the first full-length biography of this remarkable figure. Always a man about town, the debonair Bechet could be a honey-voiced, soft-spoken charmer, but he also had a fiery temper and a suspicious streak that bordered on paranoia. And he usually carried a gun. Chilton vividly recounts Bechet's tempestuous life and the vibrant music he created. He describes his childhood in New Orleans, and his first jobs in Chicago and New York...his trip to London with the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, where he played at the Philharmonic Hall and Buckingham Palace, and was later deported for brawling with two prostitutes...his early great recordings, including the remarkable sessions with Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams...his return to France and his friendship with the colorful pilot Eugene Bullard, called "the Black Sparrow of Death" for his exploits in World War I...his gunfight with Mike McKendrick on a Paris street, for which he was imprisoned and again deported...his classic recordings for Blue Note Records...his brief affair and friendship with Tallulah Bankhead...and his triumphant return to Paris in the late 1940s, where he was lionized by the French public. Chilton's meticulously researched narrative captures this dramatic life in fascinating detail, correcting many inaccuracies about Bechet, including those contained in Bechet's own Treat It Gentle, a highly poetic but often exaggerated life story. But equally important, Chilton offers a thoughtful appraisal of this great musician's work, examining all his surviving records. "His interpretation of the blues is timeless," Chilton concludes, "and all of his work contains a passion that should never be absent from jazz."

Biographies & Memoirs

CHILTON, John

Arts & Literature

Oxford University Press

A reference work devoted to the biographies of British jazz musicians. In over 850 career summaries, the author details the works from musicians from every era of British jazz, ranging from those who played professionally before 1920 at the dawn of jazz in Britain through to today's young jazz stars. It includes information on the early careers of those who became famous and the chronological listing of events in each subject's life sheds new light on the development of jazz worldwide. It also covers musicians born in the commonwealth.

Who's Who of British Jazz

Arts & Photography

Music

UNKNO

Cassell

A biography of jazz trumpeter and singer Henry "Red" Allen exploring his place as Armstrong's chief rival. Both men were born in New Orleans and shared an African-American heritage, but their backgrounds were very different. Chilton brings to light Allen's personality and analyzes his recordings.

Ride, Red, Ride: The Life of Henry "Red" Allen

Who's Who Of Jazz

Da Capo Press

John Chilton's Who's Who of Jazz has established itself as a major jazz reference book on the lives of over a thousand musicians born before 1920. The informative biographies give the essential details of each musician's life and career, and jazz greats jostle with unknowns for the readers attention. This completely revised edition adds much new information to the musical histories of the players, and the biographies of some of the major figures have been rewritten to incorporate recent research.

Who's Who Of Jazz (Storyville to Swing Street)

Da Capo

As trumpet player and singer, Louis Armstrong is the single most important figure in jazz history, and one of the most influential musicians--in any category--in this century. He was also, as this book relates, a wonderful character: actor, clown, raconteur, a tough kid when he came to Chicago from New Orleans who mellowed into one of the music's true statesmen. This biography includes not only a gripping narrative written by two of the most reliable jazz historians, but also a chronology, film list, and selection of photos. He was the most beloved of jazz musicians, a hero to everyone from Eddie Condon and Bobby Hackett to Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman. His basically happy life is here memorably told, with a new preface by Dan Morgenstern who describes Armstrong's central place in world music.

Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971 (Da Capo Paperback)

Jones, Max

Humor & Entertainment

Anyone who has ever heard a Billie Holiday record knows the sound of her voice--sad, sexy, always relaxed but securely aware of the beat. Conveying a poignancy that cut to the heart of a song, she redeemed even trivial material with her impeccable sense of dramatic phrasing and time. The well-known tale of her lifelong battle with drugs has obscured the artistry that has made her one of the most revered singers of the twentieth century. Everyone from Frank Sinatra (who in the 1950s called her "unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years") to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan has recognized the singularity of her interpretations. The racism that Billie found at every turn, whether in Artie Shaw's band or in the heart of the south, immortalized in the chilling song "Strange Fruit," cannot be overlooked in her biography. Jazz historian John Chilton has told the story of her short, tragic, influential career with restraint, correcting many of the more sensational tales she wrote about herself in Lady Sings the Blues. Buck Clayton, who knew Billie in the Basie band during the 1930s, has written a warm and personal foreword to this fascinating biography of a great American artist.

Billie's Blues: The Billie Holiday Story, 1933-1959

"The definitive work on Bechet. This is one of those rare books that once started you have difficulty putting down."--Jazz Journal Fifty years after hearing Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) in 1923, Duke Ellington recalled, "I have never forgotten the power and imagination with which he played." The first great jazz soloist, Bechet was a genius of the clarinet and the notoriously difficult soprano saxophone. In a career that spanned five decades and two continents he worked with Bunk Johnson, King Oliver, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. He was a giant in early New Orleans jazz and a pioneer of improvisation whose contribution to the music, from the traditional to the avant-garde, has been a vital and lasting one. This biography reveals with insight and precision the man and his music, and illuminates the many events obscured by Bechet's own highly readable but factually suspect autobiography, Treat It Gentle.

Who's Who of Jazz

Macmillan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CHILTON, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by CHILTON, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by CHILTON, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz

Who's Who of British Jazz

Who's Who of British Jazz

Ride, Red, Ride: The Life of Henry "Red" Allen

Who's Who Of Jazz

Who's Who Of Jazz (Storyville to Swing Street)

Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971 (Da Capo Paperback)

Billie's Blues: The Billie Holiday Story, 1933-1959

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz

Who's Who of Jazz