Goodbyes and Other Messages: A Journal of Jazz,
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Bong>allong>iett, Whitney, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, USA, Whitney Bong>allong>iett's new book contains many ong>ofong> the shorter pieces he has done for The New Yorker during the past ten years. (The pieces on the pianist Bill Evans and on the classic CBS television show, "The Sound ong>ofong> Jazz," have not been published before.) Bong>allong>iett gives brilliant final summings-up ong>ofong> many ong>ofong> the irreplaceable musicians who died in the eighties, among them Count Basie, Earl Hines, Thelonious Monk, Buddy Rich, Sarah Vaughan, and Cootie Williams. But he also ong>ofong>fers penetrating assessements ong>ofong> young turks like Michael Petrucciani, Warren Vache, Howard Alden, and Wynton Marsalis. Jazz is passing through a recollective period, and Bong>allong>iett takes long looks at the great Blue Note, Keynote, and Commodore reissue programs, the new jazz repertory groups, and the ambitious and wayward Grove Dictionary ong>ofong> Jazz. He puts his elegant glass on a Caribbean jazz cruise, on several different festivals, on the sad dissolution ong>ofong> the marvelous Gene Bertoncini-Michael Moore duo, and on the strange career ong>ofong> Miles Davis. And he gives us definitive ong>essaysong> on Bunny Berigan, Duke Ellington, John Hammond, Benny Goodman, Ben Webster, and the early lyrical jazz writer Otis Ferguson. Jazz fans and jazz musicians read Bong>allong>iett because ong>ofong> his unrivong>allong>ed ability to convey in words the very sound ong>ofong> their music. But people who don't ong>knowong> beans about jazz read him simply to relish his elegant and beautiful prose.