Selections from the gutter: Jazz portraits from "The Jazz record"

by Art Hodes

From the Jacket "Art Hodes/Music so reads the business card handed out by the tall pianist. And 'music man' he has been ever since he learned to play 'two-fisted' piano as a kid on Chicago's South Side. One of the great band pianists, Art Hodes has known and played with all the top names in jazz. In the mid 'forties, after a successful stint on a radio (WNYC, New York's municipal radio station), he began a magazine called 'The Jazz Record.' Hodes persuaded many of his friends to come to his office and dictate autobiographical articles. The result is an important body of oral history, the best of which, gathered in the present volume, forms an impressive composite portrait of the mid-century jazz musician...."

233 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Jeff Crompton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't wholeheartedly recommend this collection of articles from Art Hodes' Jazz Record magazine, which was published for a few years in the mid 1940s. The articles are, for the most part, a product of their time, with a gee-whiz, superficial quality and lots of jokes about how much the musicians drank.

But there are a few pieces here I wouldn't want to be without, such as Fred Robbins' interview with Louis Armstrong, drummer Fred Moore's "King Oliver's Last Tour," and George Lewis's reminiscences. There is probably more forgettable stuff than valuable articles here, but I'll just ignore the former and turn to the latter when I pull this one off the shelves.