Riding on a Blue Note: Jazz and American Pop

By Gary Giddins

Book Overview

Gary Giddins, winner of the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award, has a following that includes not only jazz enthusiasts but also pop music fans of every stripe. Writing here in a lyrical and celebratory style all his own, Giddins dazzlingly shows us among many other things how performers originally perceived as radical (Bing Crosby, Count Basie, Elvis Presley) became conservative institutions . . . how Charlie Parker created a masterpiece from the strain of an inane ditty . . . how the Dominoes helped combine church ritual with pop music . . . and how Irving Berlin translated a chiaroscuro of Lower East Side minorities into imperishable songs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306809249
• ISBN13: 9780306809248
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Da Capo
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Nice to see this classic back in print.

When I was first getting seriously into jazz, this book (along with Martin Williams's The Jazz Tradition) was the principal critical aid. Since then I've reread it for pleasure countless times, for it's not only critically perspicacious but also has considerable literary merit. Da Capo is righting a longstanding wrong by putting this book back into print, as the original Oxford University Press edition has been unavailable for some time. Not only new converts, but old sweats who happened to miss it the first time around should read this book, or just anyone who likes well-written prose. One of the nice things about reprints is the chance for an author to put in a contemporary word, and it's very nice to see that this book has a new preface by Giddins, written almost 20 years after the introduction to the first edition. He comments with bemusement on the younger writer represented in these pages, and gives valuble information on the publishing history of Riding On A Blue Note, as well as updating the Red Rodney piece somewhat.Though this is a book primarily about jazz, it lives up to it's subtitle (Jazz and American Pop) by including chapters on Bing Crosby, Otis Blackwell, Bobby Blue Bland, the Dominoes, and Frank Sinatra, though Giddins gives fair warning in the old intro that they are studied from the viewpoint of a jazz critic. In fact, the chapter entitled "Just How Much Did Elvis Learn from Otis Blackwell?" is one of the most fascinating in the book as it attempts to uncover some of the tangled, subterranean back-and-forth influences between black and white music. The chapter on Red Rodney ("Adventures of the Red Arrow") is funny as hell and functions as an entertaining short story even if it is someday proved to be a Rodney-perpetrated hoax. I'm tempted to say that Giddins is particularly sound on Ellington, Count Basie, and Dexter Gordon, but then I would have to add that he also does well by trombonist Jack Teagarden, Irving Berlin, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker... Though I hate to sound like a jacket blurb, the fact is that this truly is one of those rare collections in which every essay is a gem, both informative on first reading and a delight to reread. The only drawback is that Da Capo charges top dollar for their paperback reprints, but it's worth it. Giddins has written several other fine books over the years but there's something special about this one.