<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A fond homage and intelligent memoir
Review: As author Ralph Berton points out at the beginning of this nicely written memoir, the name Bix Beiderbecke has, over the years, drawn irritating and overblown rhetoric. Truth is, I expected no different from this volume on the great jazz cornetist of the 1920s, so I was pleasantly surprised.Berton's older brother played drums with Beiderbecke, giving the author a fascinating inside glimpse on the self-taught, self-destructive musical genius. Beiderbecke is a household name is his birthplace of Davenport, Iowa, and has a cult following among jazz enthusiasts around the world, but his life story is still worth pulling out of the shadows of legend. Beiderbecke's talent was evident early on and disturbed his strict German parents enough that they sent him away to school in Chicago--a big mistake. There he met songwriter Hoagy Carmichael ("Georgia on My Mind") and began to initiate himself in the Chicago jazz scene. Over the years, he fronted his own Dixieland band, played with sax player Frankie Trumbauer and sat in with Paul Whiteman's orchestra, one of the most popular ensembles of his day. He composed brilliant, Debussy-inspired piano pieces ("In a Mist") and standard Dixieland fare ("Davenport Blues"). He improvised breathtaking solos that are copied note for note even today ("Singin' the Blues")--all without reading a note of music. He also slowly drank himself to death, falling victim to his own bad habits in a New York hotel room well before he was even 30. And while it's certainly true that Berton succumbs to his share of sentimentality (a Jesus and Van Gogh comparison kicks off the second paragraph of the preface), it's also true that his memories are colored by the passions of childhood. Berton is convincingly honest, often funny and regularly insightful, however, in his portrait of Beiderbecke and of his own more free-wheeling upbringing, musical and otherwise. "Remembering Bix" is a memoir that, remarkably, satisfies a lot of different appetites: literary, musical, historical. It's also an often quick and fun read. In an age when memoirs are churned out as quickly as their marketing proposals, it's refreshing to find a 25-year-old gem like this--a book written out of admiration rather than self-absorption.
Rating: 
Summary: Steal This Book.
Review: Bad pictures. Not enough about his death. Nat Hentoff continues to prove that he can't write. Boring. Greatly exaggerates Bix's influence on the world of jazz. Don't pay for this, pull an Abbie Hoffman.
Rating: 
Summary: Out to Lunch
Review: Eric Dolphy said it best. This book really misses the point. It exaggerates Bix's influence on modern jazz and doesn't provide enough dirty details to create an interesting human portrait. Comparing him to Van Gogh? Please! He couldn't read music. Bad pictures, too. Don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: one of my top 5....
Review: i haven't read this in a while. i came across it in a little bookstore in san francisco, bought it and didn't put it down for a week. it is such an unbelievably rich experience. it does bear mentioning that the book doesn't wholly focus on bix. you end up not really caring. the portions dealing with bix are very profound and highly memorable.
ralph berton is a very sensitive writer. his ability to draw in the reader is formidable.
i loaned my copy to my mom, so i came to amazon to buy another copy.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I read this book a long time ago, and consider it one of the best I've ever read. Maybe it's not absolutely historically accurate (it's not supposed to be), but it evokes for me an era long before I existed, and the spirit of what those times must have been like. There are at least two other books out there that are historically researched and accurate, but leave the emotion out. You need to read them together to get the true picture. Does anyone know anything more about Ralph Berton, who, without intending it, is really the most interesting character in the book?
Rating:
Summary: A disappointed jazz fan
Review: I'm so tired of hearing so much praise about this guy. Let's be honest...there are far better players out there. Hentoff attempts to create a legend around this man, mainly to justify his wrong-minded worship. Skip this one.
Rating:
Summary: It's WONDERFUL......plain & simple!
Review: I, too, read it a long time ago. I would have been crazy about this book even if I'd never heard of Bix. Every paragraph is a gem. Berton bubbles over with cleverness. I use expressions & phrases that I picked up from the book, every day! And like another reviewer, I would love to know what happened to Ralph Berton.
Rating:
Summary: It's WONDERFUL......plain & simple!
Review: I, too, read it a long time ago. I would have been crazy about this book even if I'd never heard of Bix. Every paragraph is a gem. Berton bubbles over with cleverness. I use expressions & phrases that I picked up from the book, every day! And like another reviewer, I would love to know what happened to Ralph Berton.
Rating: 
Summary: Take with a grain of salt (and a slug of gin)
Review: This book is essentially everything you wanted to know about the career, family and sex life of Ralph Berton -- oh, and then there's that guy Beiderbecke who keeps hanging around him. Actually, it's not a bad evocation of a frantic era and how it ended. Berton paints some great word pictures of what it must have been like to travel with the Wolverines and party with a still young-and-healthy Bix. The skeptical or more serious reader, however, may speculate on exactly where the facts end and the fiction begins. For a more even-handed bio, a better bet is Sudhalter/Evans' BIX: MAN AND LEGEND, which treats its subject with respect without turning into a dry listing of facts and dates. Still, REMEMBERING BIX is a fun read for anyone in love with Bix, his music, and his times.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book!!
Review: What a great portrait of a great age in AMerica. Ralph Berton was a fabulous aurthur. I read this book in four days, couldn't put it down, I dreamt about Bix's music for weeks on end.
<< 1 >>
| 
