Tiger Rag

by Nicholas Christopher

The acclaimed author of Veronica and A Trip to the Stars returns with a dazzling new novel based on one of the great legends of musical history.
 
New Orleans, 1900. The virtuoso cornet player Charles “Buddy” Bolden invents jazz, but after a life consumed by tragedy, the groundbreaking sound of his horn vanishes with him. Rumors persist, though, that Bolden recorded a phonograph cylinder, and over the course of a century it evolves into the elusive holy grail of jazz.
 
Florida, the present day. Dr. Ruby Cardillo’s life is falling apart. Her husband, a prominent cardiologist, has left her for a twenty-six-year-old. Her daughter, Devon, a once promising jazz pianist, has recently finished an enforced stint picking up trash along the interstate after a drug conviction. Ruby’s estranged mother has just died, but not before conjuring up ghosts that Ruby thought she had put behind her long ago. After a long career as a well-respected anesthesiologist, Ruby suddenly jumps the tracks, forgetting to eat and sleep, indulging her every whim, wearing only purple, consuming only bottles of 1988 Château Latour.
 
Then Ruby enlists Devon to accompany her on an impulsive road trip to New York, and both mother and daughter get more than they bargained for, discovering that their own shrouded family history is connected to the tantalizing search for Buddy Bolden’s long-lost cylinder.
 
Ranging from turn-of-the-century Louisiana to Roaring Twenties Chicago to contemporary Manhattan, Tiger Rag is at once a moving story of loss and redemption and an intricate historical mystery from one of our most brilliant storytellers.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Music, Jazz, Mystery, Historical, Family

276 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Nicholas Christopher was born and raised in New York City. He was educated at Harvard College, where he studied with Robert Lowell and Anthony Hecht. Afterward, he traveled and lived in Europe. He became a regular contributor to the New Yorker in his early twenties, and began publishing his work in other leading magazines, both in the United States and abroad, including Esquire, the New Republic, the New York Review of Books, the Nation, and the Paris Review. He has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the Norton Anthology of Poetry, the Paris Review 50th Anniversary Anthology, the Best American Poetry, Poet's Choice, the Everyman's Library Poems of New York and Conversation Pieces, the Norton Anthology of Love, the Faber Book of Movie Verse, and the Grand Street Reader. He has edited two major anthologies himself, Under 35: The New Generation of American Poets (Anchor, 1989) and Walk on the Wild Side: Urban American Poetry Since 1975 (Scribner, 1994) and has translated Martial and Catullus and several modern Greek poets, including George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. His books have been translated and published many other countries, and he is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from various institutions, including the Guggenheim Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, the Poetry Society of America, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has taught at Yale, Barnard College, and New York University, and is now a Professor on the permanent faculty of the Writing Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. He lives in New York City with his wife, Constance Christopher, and continues to travel widely, most frequently to Venice, the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and the Grenadines.

Reviews

[Oriana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Nicholas Christopher's Veronica several years ago, and I remember it being dizzying and dazzling—and ultimately a bit unfulfilling. And so with this one. It was engaging, with two interwoven plotlines moving toward each other, and it did have interesting characters, dialogue, etc., but ultimately it was kind of unsatisfying.

Here's a quick synopsis that isn't spoilery: The first plot is in the past—it's the sort of untold history of the man who influenced all modern jazz, I guess. I have no idea if that guy is real or not; certainly there are a lot of real people discussed in his story, but I was too lazy to Wikipedia it. The second story is modern: a woman whose husband just left her for his secretary, and whose mother just passed away, goes on a semi-manic road trip with her daughter to deliver a talk at an anesthesiologist conference.

I had two main problems with the book. First, it's incredibly difficult to write convincingly or satisfyingly about music. No matter how eloquently you describe a song I've never heard, chances aren't good I'll be able to hear it in my head, or even have a clue what it vaguely sounds like. And second, the jazz plot dra-a-a-a-a-agged. I'm not a dutiful student of history, and it's clear that Christopher really nerds out on this stuff, but the barrage of names and places and very short descriptions of each just never sunk into my brain, so that when this or that person or club recurred, many chapters later, I was lost as to its significance. I think he just tried to cram in more than the book could bear—or at least more than I could bear. If you're more of a lover of music history than I, perhaps you'd think differently.

Anyway, at the very end the book really redeemed itself for me, tying everything up quite well, in an unpredictably and not at all corny way. So that was great.

I wish it came with a CD (or MP3 download key or something) of the music, though.

[Keith Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid effort and an enjoyable read. The Macguffin is a lost Edison wax cylinder recorded by Charles "Buddy" Bowden at the turn of the century New Orleans, marking the birth of jazz. The novel follows the cylinder's journey through the dusty closets of history and focuses on the people who contact it. The list of characters is a full-fledged roster of early jazz greats. I would have appreciated more depth in the characters of Ruby and Devon; as written, they don't carry much weight relative to the history they touch.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been far too long since I've read a Nicholas Christopher novel. His stories are so intricately plotted and so satisfying when you see them come together. Tiger Rag mixes fiction with jazz history in this delightful dual narrative. Alternating between when legendary jazz cornettist Buddy Bolden recorded a fabled but lost Edison cylinder of music in the early 20th century and as Ruby Cardillo takes stock of her life after a bitter divorce and tries to reconnect with her daughter, Devon, during the Christmas holiday of 2010. Tiger Rag moves between these stories seamlessly. Christopher's ability to write a complex plot yet make the story utterly compelling amazes me.

[Renny · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unexpected pleasure...

A solid and intriguing tale based on a historical figure and the story of his legacy. The book started off rather predictably but progressed, as the past and the present began to knit together, into an utterly intricate web that draws one into contemplation of the web strands of one’s own life.

[Summer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very boring. I didn't understand what story was actually supposed to be told here. The alternating between the two timelines every single chapter was very tedious. There were too many details being talked about that were not important to anything happening. And the author seemed to be opposed to using the word "and" when making a list of things. It really bothered me.

I would've liked to know more about what actually plagued Ruby and see more of her relationship with Devon. And also what the deal was with her obsession with the color purple.

This story just did nothing for me. 2 stars.

P.S. This is coming from someone who loves jazz and therefore really wanted to love the book.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love all the stories about the beginnings of Jazz and Storyville in Louisiana, so it should be no surprise that I found much to love in this book. Two stories are taking place, one in the past and one in the present. The authors strength and passion surely went into his prose and story telling abilities when recounting the past, the late 1800's. I felt like I was back in this time, coronets, recordings, constant smoking and drinking, women and bars and everything else that made Storyville notorious. All the big names in Jazz, and a mystery, a secret recording of a fantastic coronet player whose life ends up being so much less then his talent predicted. Buddy Bolden,the missing cylinder, and a patent lawsuit are basis and the beginning of this book. The future story , while not as interesting, or at least it did not have the same fascination that the past story did, all come together nicely in the end with a twist that I did not see coming. I liked this novel, actually looked everything up in the great and powerful Wiki and the novel has it right. So much of this did happen and Jazz lovers will appreciate this book.

[Sherry Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love old, early jazz. The names of the musicians mentioned in this book made it come alive for me. Dixieland music lead the parade in New Orleans early in the 1900s.
Bix Biederbeck and Sidney Bechet and Fats Waller recordings are some of my favorites. The story was not hard to follow, it just perplexed me as to how and why the 2 life spans could be connected. Author tied it up nicely in the end.

[Edith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the plot twist in the final part of the book!

[Hal Issen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddy Bolden fused ragtime, blues, spirituals, and African and Caribbean rhythms to create jazz before the word itself was invented. A lost recording by his band is the obscure bit of American lore that forms the core of this time-warping narrative of loss, insanity, family and integrity. There is no doubt that the author is talented, skillful, and creative. He research is equally impressive with his ability to weave fact and fiction.
The consensus on this book is that people wanted to like it because they love jazz, and that it was well-written, but there seems to be some intrinsic problem; either the parallel plots, the huge cast, a weakness in the structure or narrative. I suggest the problem is that written words are inadequate to evoke the power of music. I dearly wanted a soundtrack to illustrate the differences between Bunk Johnson and Buddy Bolden, or Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong, or Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, and the written media is simply not up to the task. I am intrigued by the possibility of using mixed media to relate this story, a soundtrack from the different eras being described, illustrated by images (daguerreotypes and hand-held digital videos) a la Ken Burns.
This is a very good book, but admittedly not a great one. I urge you to give it a try.

[Randal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the pacing a little uneven, as it seems to be trying to build suspense around a meeting in New York between the Buddy Bolden recording and the mother-daughter pair, but it's inevitable that they two storylines will converge at that point, so there's a bit of a disconnect.

The two stories run nicely in parallel, which helps as the modern story arc is ... minimal. They drive, they check into a hotel, they eat, then they drive some more. In other words, pretty much a standard road trip, aside from Ruby gets more eccentric as the trip continues and the accessories (spending sprees, big-name hotels, uneaten room service steaks, vintage wines) is how the very rich travel. The daughter doesn't really emerge from the shadows until late into the book.

The jazz storyline suffers a bit from a case of name-drop-itis, although the author does a nice job of providing snippets of social history as Blacks moved from New Orleans / the Mississippi Delta, taking their culture (notably in this book, their music) with them into cities around the country. It also suffers because -- as has been noted many times -- writing about music doesn't begin to capture the essence of the original.

A delightfully disguised curveball elevates the ending. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

[Trudy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story!

My favorite books are those that make me want to do a little research to pursue the subject further. I have a lot of interest in both music and medicine, so I 'm really in for a couple of hours of fun!

Having said that, the reason I could only rate it a four is that the author was frequently unclear about who was doing the talking, and/or which character was being discussed. I almost gave up reading after the first few chapters, because of the confusion, but I 'm glad I didn't!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first contact with Nicholas Christopher whose reputation seems quite substantial, but then there are hundreds if not thousands of excellent authors slaving away turning out quality fiction that people never hear about. Tiger Rag tells the story of the mythical founder of jazz improvisation told through a family seeking sanity in a difficult world. Smartly conceived and executed.

[M. Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This engrossing book tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the greatest cornetist of his time and a man who is credited by many as the inventor of Jazz. A good part of the plot entails a missing cylinder with the only copy of his recording, Tiger Rag. The search goes on through the early 21st century and includes a very surprising ending.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic "search for a rumored historical artifact" story. Fleshes out the actual history by adding many names, places, and dates; sometimes too many to keep track of. I just let that all wash over me and enjoyed the unfolding of the plot. I will say reading this makes me want to better appreciate jazz. Better than his Veronica.

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this book as a historical fiction slut but I thought there were way too many names in the older day vignette which made it hard to keep track of. The older vignette made me feel like I had ADHD.

I liked how the ending clearly tied together the older and then modern day vignette.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title caught my eye because my high school pep band played this song and our mascot was a tiger. I didn’t know much about jazz history so this was interesting as well as intriguing. The interwoven story lines could be a bit confusing but the author brings them together in the end.

[Ann Doremus · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the beautiful details I love from the author's other novels. Short but captivating story following the impact of great music.

[Jim French · Rating 2 out of 5]

Might be the least readable of all the NC books...so much backstory that's not interesting and even the contemporary story isn't absorbing. It feels padded but it's so short.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tiger Rag

The book was amazing. I enjoy historic novels with interesting characters. Devon and Ruby were flawed and fascinating people in this mystery novel.

[Marika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stories woven together. I glazed over with the detailed jazz history. Just not my thing

[Glenna Pool · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love Jazz

Loved the history, characters real and fiction. Story kept my interest while adding musician from New Orlean’s history. Worth the read !

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting Story that basically shows the birth of jazz in New Orleans.

[Booknblues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiger Rag
By Nicholas Christopher
4 stars
pp. 266

I wanted to like Tiger Rag by Nicholas Christopher much more than I did. One for the shallow reason, that has one of the more striking covers and was calling for me to read it and secondly the story of Charles "Buddy" Bolden the band leader musician who is often credited with creating jazz music and is still so widely respected despite being institutionalized for schizophrenia at around 30 years of age. Like Robert Johnson the great bluesman who came after him, Bolden is a myth and a legend and it seems his story is waiting to be fleshed out. Writers as well known as Michael Ondaatje and I hoped that Christopher would succeed.

It starts out well with the reader sitting in on a recording session of Bolden and his band. It seemed as if we would be given real insight into Bolden with him first beginning to slip into psychosis:

"He filled a tin cup with red whiskey and wandered into the bedroom sipping it, the fumes filling his head. When he met his wife Nora, she told him he moved like an alley cat. slow then fast then slow. Always in rythm. But lately he had been freezing at odd moments, startled by movements--darting shadows, flickers of light--that he caught out of the corner of his eye. He soon realzied that no one else saw them. And that each time it required more willpower to regain his bearings. Most nights he was afraid to be alone. He imagined he was like a ship spinning, unsteerable, as it neared a whirlpool."

With Bolden spinning toward the whirlpool the recording session is finished with three cylinders recorded. From this promising start, we moved to anesthesiologist Dr. Ruby Cardillo who is traveling with her daughter, Devon, a jazz pianist to New York City. Cardillo's life is falling apart with a recent divorce and she is falling apart with it. The novel slip slides from Cardillo to the tale of Bolden and the three recorded cylinders.

I quite love a book which shifts from a modern story to one of a historical mystery, but that admit it is not easily done. There were bits and pieces of this novel that fired my imagination and tied to my heart, but there were others which had no impact. The relationship story of Cardillo and her daughter left me less than thrilled, perhaps it felt a little too touchy-feelie, I'm not sure.

I really loved the story of Bolden's trombonist Willie Cornish, who kept one of the cylinders for him. He was a man of great sensitivity and loyalty.

I think this is an interesting novel and for those that like a shifting story this may be appealing.

[Chaitra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like the book much. It's more a 2.5 starrer than a 3. I dislike Jazz, but I don't think that's the cause for my meh reaction. I wish the novel knew what it wanted to be. It starts off as a quasi-historical take on the origin of Jazz, and veers off into conspiracy theory and mystery with a slight paranormal bent. This is not satisfying even though all the loose ends are neatly tied up at the end.

There are two threads to the novel. One follows Jazz originator Buddy Bolden and his fictional recording of Tiger Rag, the greatest cornet display ever. There are three cylinders of this Rag, and two are lost at the outset. The other one passes from one responsible hand to another, until it too is supposedly lost. The other thread deals with a mother and daughter pair, working out their differences. Ruby Cardillo has just had a divorce, and lost her mother who she hated. She's falling to pieces and wants her troubled daughter Devon to accompany her to her mother's funeral and then to a conference in New York City. Obviously, they are linked to Buddy Bolden's Tiger Rag.

The period, turn of the century New Orleans, is very effectively evoked. It was a colorful time and place, and Christopher does justice to it. So much, in fact, that whenever the action cuts to Ruby and Devon in a car somewhere along the East Coast, the pallor is palpable. It does not help that Ruby is on the verge of a weird purple tinged meltdown and we never actually deal with the fallout. We also know that Devon is a shoplifter, and drug addict, who is recently sober; but we don't really look at that closely either. We have some background, but doesn't dig deeper. I couldn't help but feel that all their back story was just to lay a foundation for their connection to Bolden's Tiger Rag. Another aspect that I flat out hated was the paranormal. It comes out of nowhere, and I doubt very much if it contributed anything to the story. It's also a factor in a tidy redemption scene, but I felt that what the characters were so blithely dismissing was actually horrifying.

It's an ok read, as long as depth is not expected and some portions are overlooked. 3 stars.

I received a copy of the book via NetGalley.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

#bookbingonw2018 #amysteryorthriller

[Burgoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the intriguing things about the early twentieth century is how the history of that time is just tantalizingly out of reach. Often we have only oral histories to inform us, with sound or video documentation coming years later. For fans of American music, these tidbits can be quite tantalizing. How did the early bluesmen sound when they were playing a gig? What were their repertoires really like?

Tiger Rag spends a great deal of time fleshing out one of those mysteries. Buddy Bolden, by all accounts a seminal figure in the early development of jazz, died without ever recording. In the alternate world of Tiger Rag, Buddy did record – but the resulting cylinders were long lost.

Christopher uses two narratives to tell his story. One is set in the past, starting with Bolden’s recording session, & then following the cylinders through time. The other is set in the present day, as a dysfunctional mother and daughter take an impromptu road trip from Miami to New York. Unbeknownst to them, their own family history ties into the fate of the missing Bolden recording.

The strong point of Tiger Rag is Christopher’s ability to make the history of jazz become alive. Recording sessions, gigs, it feels real in a funky visceral sense. There are some bigger names that become tangentially involved in the story, but primarily we are dealing with those on the tangents – sidemen, siblings and spouses.

I was much less interested in the contemporary storyline. While both Devon and Ruby (her mother) were well developed characters, in such stark contrast to the highly entertaining figures in the past, they felt thin. While turn of the century New Orleans felt bold and alive, present day New York seemed pale and skeletal.

That being said, if you have an interest in traditional jazz, or New Orleans in the early twentieth century, you’ll enjoy Tiger Rag.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent novel about jazz innovator Buddy Bolden and the mystery of whether he recorded any of his music. The novel starts on July 5, 1904 in a recording session where three wax cylinders were produced with the composition,"Number Two", rechristened "Tiger Rag". What happened to Bolden and the wax cylinders is alternated with a contemporary story about a divorced woman anesthesiologist, Ruby, her daughter Devon and their trip to New York. Slowly we learn the connection between the earlier story and Ruby's. The mystery element kept me reading; I learned a lot about the beginnings of jazz and the sometimes rabid collectors who are seeking that one elusive piece for their collection. The fictional collector Emmett Browne is a composite of a certain type of music collector - as a record collector, I've met many of these intense people.

This is the latest in a series of books that I've read that alternates an earlier historic period with the present time (Sarah's Key, The Winter Sea, People Of the Book) and in all of them, as well as this novel, I found the earlier story to be the more compelling. The character of Ruby in Tiger Rag did not always ring true to me - some of her actions seemed over the top. But I would recommend this to anyone interested in early New Orleans jazz history - a well written novel with a nice looking dust jacket in black and gold. I definitely will seek out some of Christopher's other works.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruby Cardillo is in meltdown mode. Her ex husband has remarried a 26 year old, her estranged mother has passed and her daughter, Devon, is dealing with her brush with the law.

While rummage thru the few personal belongings Ruby's estranged mother left, Devon discovers a mysterious note and decides to call the number listed which ensues a mystery of unknown family history into the Jazz world.

Mr. Christoper did a wonderful job blending the past with the present. I enjoyed the historical fiction with reference to the jazz world. The plot was detailed and intriguing. The characters were in alignment with the storyline. The references and history in regards to the beginnings of jazz was appreciated. Names and players such as Buddy Bolden, Willie Cornish, Bunk Johnson were cited in the storyline which painted a clear picture of times past. I am a jazz enthusiast and enjoyed this aspect of the book very much. The Buddy Bolden vanished musical cylinder recording was a great tie to connect the past with the present.

This is a wonderful historical fiction book with reference to the jazz world - a different tune but well played.

I received a copy of Tiger Rag from Random House Publishing.

[J R · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

The plot's a bit thin, even threadbare in a few places, but Nicholas Christopher's convolutions always delight me. This novel alternates between two seemingly unrelated story lines that eventually converge. One takes place in the jazz music scene of the early 20th century. The other involves a road trip taken by a mother and daughter in 2010. The two paths are intertwined right from the start, but you have to read all the way to the end to discover how.

If you start to read this and you're not feeling the love, try to stay with it. I had to get about 80 pages in before I connected with it, and then I blew through 100 pages all in one sitting. I agonized over a rating, and just couldn't bring myself to round up to 4 stars. But damn, the man can write. Give it a go if you're interested in jazz "musicianers" and New Orleans.

There are no recordings of Buddy "King" Bolden, who is credited with inventing jazz. Satchmo was said to be the only one who even came close to playing the way Bolden played. Here's Satchmo cooking up the Tiger Rag, for which this novel is named. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TGSYm...

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a musician, I truly wanted to love this book. I thought it was ambitious and obviously meticulously researched. It was also written by someone with a true love of jazz music. My 2-star rating is in no way a reflection of this author's talents. The whole book just seemed to me like it was trying to be too much, or do too much. I began to lose track of all the amazing characters because there were so many of them--and each of them, both real and fictional, could have been the topic of an entire book themselves. So in many ways, it felt too crowded, and it was too difficult for me to determine whose story this book really was--it couldn't have been Bolden's story with the way he was buried among all the ins and outs of chasing the elusive wax cylinder. The mystery around the single object, traced over 100 years, was a nice touch, but the ending felt thrown together and a little inauthentic after all the build-up. Again--a wonderful premise with some truly amazing characters--but I wish it had been either more, with a deeper dive, or less, with a little bit stripped away to focus on the core of the story.