|
Showing 1 - 7 of
7 matches in All Departments
From Albert Murray, our great literary practitioner of the blues
idiom, comes a glorious new novel that evokes all the elegance and
high spirits of a touring jazz band at the height of the Swing era.
Murray gives readers the redefined essence of his lifetime meditation on the blues as this musical style informs American life. Here are incisive essays on writing, music, and art that go beyond the social-science fiction of Negrohood to describe in no uncertain terms what it means to be American.
From the Hardcover edition.
A deeply affecting, stylishly elegant novel of remembrance about a
young African-American man's advent into the world of academia, an
imaginary Alabama college, in the 1930s. "A classic . . . one of
the great works of African-American writing . . . Murray plays more
notes than Faulkner ever dreamed of or in".--Raleigh News &
Observer.
The year 2016 will mark the centennial of the birth of Albert
Murray (1916–2013), who in thirteen books was by turns a lyrical
novelist, a keen and iconoclastic social critic, and a formidable
interpreter of jazz and blues. Not only did his prizewinning study
Stomping the Blues (1976) influence musicians far and wide, it was
also a foundational text for Jazz at Lincoln Center, which he
cofounded with Wynton Marsalis and others in 1987. Murray Talks
Music brings together, for the first time, many of Murray’s
finest interviews and essays on music—most never before
published—as well as rare liner notes and prefaces. For those new
to Murray, this book will be a perfect introduction, and those
familiar with his work—even scholars—will be surprised,
dazzled, and delighted. Highlights include Dizzy Gillespie’s
richly substantive 1985 conversation; an in-depth 1994 dialogue on
jazz and culture between Murray and Wynton Marsalis; and a long
1989 discussion on Duke Ellington between Murray, Stanley Crouch,
and Loren Schoenberg. Also interviewed by Murray are producer and
impresario John Hammond and singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine.
All of thse conversations were previously lost to history. A
celebrated educator and raconteur, Murray engages with a variety of
scholars and journalists while making insightful connections among
music, literature, and other art forms—all with ample humor and
from unforeseen angles. Leading Murray scholar Paul Devlin
contextualizes the essays and interviews in an extensive
introduction, which doubles as a major commentary on Murray’s
life and work. The volume also presents sixteen never-before-seen
photographs of jazz greats taken by Murray. No jazz collection will
be complete without Murray Talks Music, which includes a foreword
by Gary Giddins and an afterword by Greg Thomas.
This absorbing collection of letters spans a decade in the lifelong friendship of two remarkable writers who engaged the subjects of literature, race, and identity with deep clarity and passion.
The correspondence begins in 1950 when Ellison is living in New York City, hard at work on his enduring masterpiece, Invisible Man, and Murray is a professor at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Mirroring a jam session in which two jazz musicians "trade twelves"—each improvising twelve bars of music around the same musical idea-their lively dialog centers upon their respective writing, the jazz they both love so well, on travel, family, the work literary contemporaries (including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway) and the challenge of racial inclusiveness that they wish to pose to America through their craft. Infused with warmth, humor, and great erudition, Trading Twelves offers a glimpse into literary history in the making—and into a powerful and enduring friendship.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|