But Beautiful: A Book about Jazz

I have purchased this book at least six times. I reread it each year to savor the language like listening to my favorite jazz recordings. It is jazz in writing; melodic, improvisational, happy and sad. The writing is wonderfully descriptive. As I read I think of friends who would love this book and when I finish I send it off. Each copy I send never comes back. I hope they are passing it on to other jazz lovers when they finish. Thanks to your used book service I will continue to purchase this wonderful book,reread it and then send it off to a friend. May I never run out of books or friends, or come to think of it, money to buy more books.

One of the best books on jazz - on a level of the the all time bestseller by Mez Mezzrow Really the Blues. Dmitri Savitski, jazz journalist RL/RFE

Very pleased with my order!

This book was written more than twenty years ago; I discovered it by chance many years ago and have read it at least three times. It takes a quite unique approach and is what it says it is "a book about jazz". It is written in two sections; the first part a series of essays; short pieces of fiction based on fact in the style of a prose narrative. The second part an extended essay on the state of jazz "today" (1991). For the first part we have a series of scenes: firstly detailing the close relationship between Duke Ellington and Harry Carney. Then there are chapters on aspects in the lives of some great musicians e.g. Chet Baker, Lester Young, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Art Pepper. I have read tens of books on jazz and this approach is absolutely unique. O.K. Some of the "factual" events may be imagined but Geoff Dyer captures absolutely the misery of Lester Young's ordeal during his conscription into the Army, and other ordeals encountered by the other musicians named above. The writing is beautiful but the subject matter isn't. It shows in full detail the squalid, lonely, unhappy lives of so many of our heroes. The second section is an observation of the outcome of the rapid evolution of jazz in less than 100 years. An interesting conclusion that I am in sympathy with. Thoroughly recommended and of such quality that it improves on second and subsequent readings. Certainly a MUST for any follower of the music and an insight into the lives of musicians, especially jazz musicians who find themselves improvising in public new music every night; no other art form makes such demands.no wonder so many had such short lives and resulted to the abuse of stimulants.

Un gustazo, no importa qué parte de lo narrado es real y cuanta parte hay de evocación, los ambientes que crea, tristes pero hermosos, son un regalo literario. Vale la pena acercarse al original, aunque la traducción existente tampoco desmerece.