It is the summer of 1976 and Salvo Ursari, a man of retirement age, is walking on a taut wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center, almost fourteen hundred feet above the city. Far below him in the gaping crowd stands his wife, Anna, to whom he has made a solemn promise: This wire walk will end his career. In this daring moment, Steven Galloway opens his riveting novel about Salvo Ursari, whose life begins in 1919 amid a Transylvanian boyhood inhabited by gypsy folklore and inspired by the bravery of his persecuted people. Salvo's story moves irresistibly from a...
It is the summer of 1976 and Salvo Ursari, a man of retirement age, is walking on a taut wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade...
From 1975 to 1981 the jazz giant Miles Davis temporarily retired from music. Almost completely reclusive, nobody outside of a very close circle knew what was happening to him. Only one jazz writer was able to get close to him during this time: Eric Nisenson. From 1978 to 1981 Nisenson conducted dozens of interviews with Miles Davis and his associates. The result was 'Round About Midnight, an engaging firsthand account of Miles's fascinating and difficult career. From his recordings with Charlie Parker and the birth of the cool nonet, through the Coltrane quintet, the Gil Evans-arranged...
From 1975 to 1981 the jazz giant Miles Davis temporarily retired from music. Almost completely reclusive, nobody outside of a very close circle knew w...
Once a thriving body of innovative and fluid music, jazz is now the victim of destructive professional and artistic forces, says Eric Nisenson. Corruption by marketers, appropriation by the mainstream, superficial media portrayal, and sheer lack of skill have all contributed to the demise of this venerable art form. Nisenson persuasively describes how the entire jazz "industry" is controlled by a select cadre with a choke hold on the most vital components of the music. As the listening culture has changed, have spontaneity and improvisation been sacrificed? You can agree or disagree with...
Once a thriving body of innovative and fluid music, jazz is now the victim of destructive professional and artistic forces, says Eric Nisenson. Corrup...
Sonny Rollins is one of jazz's great innovators, arguably the most influential tenor saxophonist, along with John Coltrane, in the history of modern jazz. He began his musical career at the age of eleven, and within five short years he was playing with the legendary Thelonious Monk. In the late forties, before his twenty-first birthday, Rollins was in full swing, recording with jazz luminaries such as Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Art Blakey, and Miles Davis, and he was hailed as the best jazz tenor man alive in the mid-fifties. Still active today, Rollins and his compelling sound...
Sonny Rollins is one of jazz's great innovators, arguably the most influential tenor saxophonist, along with John Coltrane, in the history of modern j...
From the moment it was recorded, more than forty years ago, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue was hailed as a jazz classic. To this day, it remains the bestselling jazz album of all time, embraced by fans of all music genres. The album represented a true watershed moment in jazz history, and helped to usher in the first great jazz revolution since bebop.
The Making of Kind of Blue is an exhaustively researched examination of how this masterpiece was born. Recorded with pianist Bill Evans; tenor saxophonist John Coltrane; composer/theorist George Russell; and Miles himself, the...
From the moment it was recorded, more than forty years ago, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue was hailed as a jazz classic. To this day, it remains...
