A Kind of Blue

Rating:
Summary: The Under Thirty Jazz Crowd
Review: A Kind Of Blue is a story that could be considered one of the millions of important but unheard voices in the Naked City. It captures the lifestyle of that most intriguing, but almost invisible character: the young jazz musician. This short novel (almost too short) tells the story of a young, sexy jazz trumpetist living in pre-9/11 New York City. Jetty, the main character, is trying to make ends meet while establishing his career. It's not easy being a musician, and his decision to focus on jazz only makes his starving artist routine all the more torturous. To add insult to injury, he's got a girlfriend who wants to see a big fat diamond ring before her thirtieth birthday (she's twenty-nine). As you can probably guess these two areas of his life do not mix very well. It gets more complicated when he becomes involved in an interracial relationship with another girl.
This all may sound soap opera-ish but it's written in a much more eloquent manner than I am portraying here. The writer has a gift for dialogue and the conversations that happen between characters sound like conversations you probably have with your best friends or former lovers. You begin to feel a comraderie with Jetty, and despite his misgivings (he can come across as a little immature and selfish at times)you find yourself rooting for him in the end.
The book takes a little bit of a spin when the writer decides to include the 9/11 disaster. There is some foreshadowing of it, although if you are not reading closely it could get by you. His inclusion of it comes across as almost awkward, but his style of writing and the way in which he captures the emotions of the characters makes it believable.
What I like most about this book is how it is put together. Each chapter is titled with a well-known jazz standard, and is accompanied by either the lyrics of the song or a poem that represents the mood of the song and the forthcoming chapter. I found this to be quite original.

This book is a little short. There could be more character development, and more talk about the plight of young jazz musicians in the city. I don't know that it delivers all that it promises to. But it is an easy, interesting read and if you are somebody that is into jazz, you'll enjoy it as I did.