Jazz Anecdotes: Second Time Around

by Bill Crow

When jazz musicians get together, they often delight one another with stories about the great, or merely remarkable, players and singers they've worked with. One good story leads to another until someone says, "Somebody ought to wrie these down!" With Jazz Anecdotes , somebody finally has. Drawing on a rich verbal tradition, bassist and jazz writer Bill Crow has culled stories from a wide variety of sources, including interviews, biographies and a remarkable oral history collection, which resides at the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, to paint fascinating and very human portraits of jazz musicians. Organized around general topics--teaching and learning, life on the road, prejudice and discrimination, and the importance of a good nickname-- Jazz Anecdotes shows the jazz world as it really is. In this fully updated edition, which contains over 150 new anecdotes and new topics like Hiring and Firing, Crow regales us with new stories of such jazz greats as Benny
Goodman, Chet Baker, Ravi Coltrane, Buddy Rich and Paul Desmond. He offers extended sections on old favorites--Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, and the fabulous Eddie Condon, who seems to have lived his entire life with the anecdotist in mind. With its unique blend of sparkling dialogue and historical and social insight, Jazz Anecdotes will delight anyone who loves a good story. It offers a fresh perspective on the joys and hardships of a musician's life as well as a rare glimpse of the personalities who created America's most distinctive music.

Genres: Music, Jazz, History

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 1990

Reviews

[Paul Secor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jazz Anecdotes: Second Time Around is a delightful collection of stories - some humorous, some not - that captivated me. I'm a music and, especially, a jazz lover, but I think that many of the anecdotes will appeal and interest general listeners, not just music fans.
There are hundreds of short tales included - too many to mention - but a couple that stuck in my mind were how the pianist Meade "Lux" Lewis and the violinist Billy Bang, though separated by generations, received their nicknames from a similar source; and the touching story of Louis Armstrong's first Christmas tree, when he was about 40 years of age.
The book also includes a story that I'd read before, but I was pleased to encounter again. It's a remark by Andre Previn which speaks to the mystery and magic of Duke Ellington's music:

"You know," he said, "Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture, and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, 'Oh yes, that's done like this.' But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound, and I don't know what it is."

Two problems I did have with the book were the chapters on Fats Waller and Pee Wee Russell. An unsuspecting reader would read those chapters and come to the conclusions that Fats Waller was a glutton (which he evidently was) and that Pee Wee Russell was a terrible alcoholic (which he evidently was). The problem with that is that those chapters give no (or very, very little) sense that Fats Waller was a wonderful pianist and a very fine composer, and that Pee Wee Russell was a clarinetist with a unique sound and a wonderful imagination. Artists' personal failings can provide interesting stories, but can also fail to give the complete picture.

I'll end with a musicians' joke that I had never heard before and gave me a laugh. I hope that it does the same for you:

"A big band drummer was having time problems. He kept pulling the tempos down, playing slower and slower. The rest of the band urged the leader to get rid of him. The leader talked it over with the drummer, who made frantic efforts to keep the tempos up where they belonged, but he couldn't seem to stop dragging. Even his fills and accents were late. Finally, the whole band threatened to quit, and the leader reluctantly fired the guy. The poor guy was so depressed that he went down to the railroad tracks and threw himself behind a train."

[Vince C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pure pleasure to read! I gave my copy to a family friend who spent his life around the piano. He told me he enjoyed it so much... that he shared it with his sister, who teaches music. She was grateful. That made me very happy. I eventually picked up another copy, and added it to my personal Library. If you don't enjoy the (well selected) first story tremendously... this book ain't for you, sorry.

[David Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great to read in bits and pieces between other books as it truly is a bunch of random anecdotes. The stories are interesting and often funny. It's impossible not to wonder which are really true while reading it, as many come across like a fisherman telling you he caught a fish this big, but in a way that works well and feels like you're hearing jazz lore as it was passed down.

[Robert Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anecdotes gave a behind the scenes glimpse into the lives of jazz musicians, mostly from back in the day. Kind of fleshed out the personality behind the famous names. Very enjoyable, but probably only to jazz fans already familiar with the musicians.

[- - · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic collection, full of the flavour of small details.

[Vernyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you want to laugh, and indeed imprint on the "truth is stranger than fiction" axiom, capture this wild boar!

[Harold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Crow is a wonderful bassist and the possessor of a humorous mind. this book is a collection of anecdotes about musicians. It is one of the funniest books I have ever read.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time faves!