Jazz Masters Of The Fifties (The Roots of jazz) ebook

One of the more revealing jazz tomes I've read, with a good balance of critical acumen and affection for the music with the personal lives and relationships that informed the artists' creativity. The author, the late Joe Goldberg, was a true original who approached his subjects with awareness, awe, and a easy demeanor that led to great insights in his profiles of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Ray Charles and others. If you've never read Goldberg before, you're likely to learn a few things here.

fascinating

Jazz critic and author Joe Golberg explains his purpose in writing Jazz Masters of the Fifties as follows: "This book is concerned with players who may be considered as artists. They have all come to prominence since the rise of Charlie Parker; in a sense, this book is a consideration of different uses to which Parker's discoveries have been put. To put it differently, bop, or modern jazz, is the common language of the twelve musicians discussed here, and each man speaks a different dialect. There is, of course, a tradition involved. Too often, what seems a radical departure is that only within a jazz context; other musics have employed the startling new methods for years."

While most of the musicians covered are familiar names to most jazz fans, a few choices might give some readers pause to question Goldberg's selection process. The twelve musicians or musical groups chosen by Goldberg are: Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Charles Mingus, Paul Desmond, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman.

Golberg mixes interviews, research, and personal memories to produce generally well-written chapters on each major figure, but the overall effect is a series of uneven portraits. His chapter on Miles Davis, for example, benefits from several poignant stories about meeting and speaking with Miles in a Manhattan club. On the other hand, Goldberg is never able to have a full-length conversation with the elusive Charles Mingus and this detracts from the book.

Goldberg writes with admiration and some knowledge as a close listener about giants such as Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. Two of his best chapters focus on jazz masters of the 1950s avant-garde: pianist/compopser Cecil Taylor and saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman.

Goldberg, it seems to me, is less-than-convincing in his argument for treating Ray Charles as a major jazz singer.

The chapters on Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond, and Art Blakey are among the finest in the book and provide both keen insights into their music and very interesting anecdotes about these musicians' lives.

Another feature of Golberg's book that is most useful are the frequent and well-grounded references to both individual songs and whole albums that the author highly recommends.

I greatly enjoyed reading this book and found it a very worthy companion to Ira Gitler's Jazz Masters of the Forties, an excellent survey of many key musicians from that era.

Highly recommended for anyone seeking solid information on some of the greatest jazz musicians of the 1950s period.

I have come across his personal writings from an aquatence that bought his house...have a personal letter from Lester Bangs and postcard from Sonny Rollins.as well numerous records and typed manuscripts