• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass DB forum "what books are you reading" thread

#81
nickbass said:
Some great reading suggestions here, thanks everyone! Following John Goldsby, I must also shamelessly promote my own novel Idristan, which begins and ends in the jazz faculty of a Royal Music College in England, is dark, funny, poetic and philosophical, and available on Amazon!
nick weldon
Click to expand...

Hey Nick, that's fantastic -- congratulations on the new book. I just ordered it from amazon.co.uk (I could have ordered it from amazon.de, but .co.uk was in stock.)

Looking forward to reading it—it sounds very intriguing.

BTW, started the Frank Conroy book.
 
#86
Recently read: Sleuthing the Alamo, James Crisp - Did Davy get killed in battle or executed? Also discussing racism in relation to the myths of the Alamo. Bird - Legend of Charlie Parker, Reisner - rather rare book I found in Kansas City, Bird's hometown. Good stories from people who knew him and b/w prints I haven't seen before. Larry, the Stooge in the Middle, entertaining book about by Larry's brother, Morris Feinberg. Good history of the group and showbiz in that period. As Thousands Cheer, Irving Berlin bio; Truman, McCollough.

Currently: Gone With the Wind. I've lived with this story, movie version, for my whole life, curiosity got the best of me and really enjoying the writing and learning about old Southern traditions, and realizing how they've evolved into modern times. Saw Ms Mitchell's house in Atlanta - she wrote the book, her only work, back-to-front! Traveling: Godfather's Revenge, takes pages to get through a single scene, but story mirrors the Kennedy-mafia connection. Hmm, I wonder how that turns out?

On-Going: Shelby Foote's narrative on the Civil War. May take me the rest of my life to read it, but will be worth it. Wonder how that one ends? Have the whole 4-hardback collection of Esquire Jazz yearbooks 1944-47. Starting '47 soon. Puts you back 60 years in a potpourri of hot jazz, swing, and bebop. Written by critics, so consider the source, but is an interesting view of the period and is a learning experience about the players and how people thought of them at that time.

To-Read Stack: Ben Hur, Lew Wallace, who was a Civil War general. City of Fallen Angels, Berendt(Midnight in the Garden), about Venice. Shiloh, Daniel, have an ancestor who was there(TN gov Isham G Harris). Jazz Anecdotes II, Bill Crow, got an autographed copy as a gift. Portrait of Bill Chase, Szantor/Martin. Was given this by friend and Chase manager Tommy Martin. Mayflower, Philbrick.

So there's a glimpse of what I'm into. Writing a bass book of my own, whenever I can get my nose back into it.

Ike
 
#87
For fiction, I'm reading Raptor by Gary Jennings. It is set in southern Europe right at the end of the Western Roman Empire when Theodoric the Great unites the Goths. Lots of S & V plus very detailed factoids about life in the "good ol' days."

For gardening - The New Square-Foot Gardener" It's about a method of container gardening so that a 4' x 4' plot produces as much as a 8' x 12' regular row garden.

For cars - Haynes auto repair guide for my Taurus.

For money - The New Rules for Retirement.

For traveling to rehearsals and gigs I'm listening to 6th audio book in the Harry Potter series. The actor reading it does a different accent for each character (200 plus characters!). He's really good, it brings the story to life! Jim Dale is his name. He's even won awards for it. It makes the traveling much more bearable.
 
#88
bejoyous said:
For fiction, I'm reading Raptor by Gary Jennings. It is set in southern Europe right at the end of the Western Roman Empire when Theodoric the Great unites the Goths. Lots of S & V plus very detailed factoids about life in the "good ol' days."
Click to expand...

Hey, I love Gary Jennings. Raptor was great, but did you read "Aztec"? Wow! His novels are nothing short of EPIC. Aztec, for me, was like being there....based on pure historical fact (like all his works) but with his own characters and stories. "Journeyer" was based on the life and travels of Marco Polo, and "Spangle', another great one, was based on life in a circus troupe. (Gary actually lived with the troupe while writing the book.)
Gary passed in 1999....what a drag.
Aztec is the only book I've ever read that when I finished it the first time, I just turned it over and read it again.
Fabulous reads!
Thanks for the reminder.....I'm gonna read it again.
 
#89
nickbass said:
Some great reading suggestions here, thanks everyone! Following John Goldsby, I must also shamelessly promote my own novel Idristan, which begins and ends in the jazz faculty of a Royal Music College in England, is dark, funny, poetic and philosophical, and available on Amazon!
nick weldon
Click to expand...

Shouldn't that be : "The" Royal College of Music ....? And do they have a Jazz faculty - I know that the Guildhall had one and Trinity College does and is part of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich...?

Sorry for being picky - I have heard of "Poetic Licence"!! :p

Might I "recognise" any of the characters...:eyebrow:

;)
 
#92
nickbass said:
Hi Bruce, my apologies, I meant to say 'an imaginary Royal Music College', as the book is of course entirely fictional!
However, if anyone asks about Spiff Abrahams, the loathsome egotist who heads up the Jazz Faculty, all right, I confess. It's me.
Click to expand...


Only kidding - I was expecting the egomaniacal Sax player, totally mad drummer, intellectual Pianist and that the nice unassuming guy who quietly kept it all together, would be the Bass Player!! ;)
 
#93
Definitely an egomaniac of a sax player, but rhythm section slightly different from your expectations, Bruce! Here's a quote from the novel:

....Mickey was cleaning the toilets as a favour for Steve,
who had nipped off early to see his beloved Arsenal
at the Emirates. Len was upstairs on the front desk, happy
enough to watch the willowy string players waft out on to the
London streets at the end of the day.
Even in the old days of the trio, first as residents at Ron-
nie Scott’s, and then as inaugural Professors respectively of
Jazz Piano, Double Bass and Percussion at the Royal Eng-
lish Conservatory, the dynamic had always been the same.
Len got all the glory on piano, Steve went wherever he liked
whenever he wanted on bass, and Mickey the drummer was
somehow always up to his knees and elbows in ****.
It was a bit of a climb-down, from Professor of Percussion,
in line for an OBE, at the very least, to toilet attendant, but
in the face of Spiff Abraham’s new broom, Mickey, like the
others, had been grateful for a job. And the academic and
rhythmic skills still came in useful.
“Oh yes”, said Mickey to the empty toilets, “I’ve got you
lot sussed!”......
 
#94
chop_1992 said:
My wife tells me that I first have to read Body & Soul by Frank Conroy. It is a novel about a piano player. She says that is the best book about music that she has ever read.
Click to expand...

I checked out Body & Soul -- thanks for the recommendation, it was indeed a good read. Conroy makes his knowledge of music the standout star of the book.

Out of all the bits Conroy put in there that ring true for a musician, here's one I found intriguing. Once Conroy gets his hero Claude Rawlings well into adult-hood and into a beautiful career as a performing pianist and composer, Conroy puts doubt into Rawlings. Not the typical doubt about "am I good enough", etc., but a doubt about the value of playing music as a career. Is it really a worthwhile way to spend a life? Shouldn't we be practising medicine or something? It's interesting too that Rawlings' doubt seems to last about 10 seconds and never comes back again...
 
#100
Anyone wishing to get lost in a beautiful, magical book might want to read "The Hakawati" by Rabih Alameddine. Stories within stories within stories. Ancient tales up-dated and modern stories turned into myth. I love it for the same reasons I love "Bitches Brew"-era Miles, Bill Evans, and the Grateful Dead.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back