Well, to be fair, that wasn't an actual quote but my paraphrase of how the thing reads although the hyperbole of my paraphrase wasn't that far from the real thing. What I did read of the book did have, as you said, that "Wow, Look What He Did..." character to it.
There are two things that really burn my cookies about it. 1) the advertising for this book made it sound like it was the holy grail of musical biographies--total access and cooperation of Ron Carter and they've been working on it for literally years. It is the new gold standard in musical biographies! And 2) it cost $25 for a paperback book.
Caveat Emptor.
If the thing cost $8 (which is what it should have cost), I'd still think it was a turkey but at $8 who cares. If it had been a nice quality hardback, I'd still think it was awful but it would at least be a quality piece of furniture. But $25 bucks for a self-published, clearly unedited, paperback full of barely arranged press releases and hyperbolic, amateurish writing is a vile rip off and I take great pleasure at trashing it to an audience of bassists who might, as I did, think it was worthy of a nanosecond of your time and $25 out of your pocket. It isn't. Save your money.
I just checked and it is out of print at Artistshare which means the only way to get it is through the used market. It is going for something like a $100 on Amazon. Maybe it will just go away and someday someone with a soupcon more talent will write a proper biography of Ron who deserves way more than what he got here.
mark
