An anecdotal biography from the author of "Jazz Anecdotes". Easy to read and fascinating.

I bought this book for my son, whoÕs a musician, but I heard him laughing so much as he was reading it that I asked to borrow it. Even if youÕre not a musician, or even very knowledgeable about jazz, this is a really entertaining book. Almost every chapter has at least a couple of laugh-out-loud lines. It also gives you a good feel for what the lives of jazz musicians were like Ð the camaraderie and competition, the inventiveness, the struggles over money, the often terrible working (and especially recording) conditions. There are also poignantly funny stories about problems with drugs and alcohol, and even about the racial prejudice that musicians had to put up with. My favorite story in the book was about Bessie Smith storming out to confront a group of Klansmen gathering outside the tent where she was working. Peppering them with curses, she ordered them to "pick up them sheets and run." They did. Great woman. There are lots of great women (and men Ð mostly men) in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a little bit about them.

Anyone who became interested in exploring jazz by recent high-profile expositions of it will surely enjoy this lighthearted collection of anecdotes. Bill Crowe did an amazing job interviewing and collecting these reminisces. Probably some are tall tales, but that won't stop anyone from enjoying them. They are divided into sections such as "Cutting Contests", "On the Road", "Pranks", etc., with some chapters being given over to especially memorable characters like Bix, Duke, Bird, and Dizzy. Crowe seems to have made the mid-Sixties a cut-off point, which accounts for only a couple of mentions of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and the complete absence of a certifiable space ranger like Jaco Pastorius. But how inna namea pete did he manage to avoid any good stories about Sun Ra?

These stories make for enjoyable, even compulsive reading, and the urge to quote will be irresistable. Bix Beiderbecke returns from a road trip wearing strange clothes. "Did you have a good time?" ask his friends. "I don't know," he replies. Slim Gaillard, who loved to append scat monikers like "-vouty" and "-roony" to people's names, is introduced to Mickey Rooney, and asks what Mickey's last name is. One bibulous musician was persuaded to cut back on his evening's drink by his hostess, who release her pet rabbit dressed in hat and jacket into the room, after secretly instructing other guests to ignore the rodent. A fun book that reminds us that jazz was originally a fun music.

If you were intrigued by the musicians portrayed in Ken Burns' "Jazz" series, this book will deepen your appreciation of the musicians' humor, problems, and triumphs. Though limited to short anecdotes, jokes, and short but histories, the book, much like Gene Lees' great "Meet Me at Jim and Andy's, offers a whole pie of jazz life its intimate slices.

Crow provides a lot of jazz history to introduce the topically arranged anecdotes (e.g., Good Lines," "On the Road," "Beginnings," "Hirings and Firings," "Prejudice"). The lines and stories are very good, and give insights into personalities and jazz, in general. There are one-liners: "Shelley Manne gave an interviewer his definition of jazz musicians: 'We never play anything the same way once,'" and longer stories such as the legendary fight between Juan Tizol and Charles Mingus on Ellington's bandstand (We get Tizol's and Mingus' versions of what happened, including Mingus' revealing recitation of what Duke told him afterwards about the fight "I congratulate you on your performance, but why didn't you and Juan inform me about the adagio you planned so that we could score it?."

There are short sections focusing on one or two famous jazz musicians, such as Mingus, Armstrong, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Bessie Smith, "Fats" Waller, Dizzy, Bird, Eddie Condon and others, as well as funny stories about lesser known players: "[Joe] Puma dropped in at a small New York Club where Jim Rainey was working. The club wasn't doing much business...there was a fire department sign on the wall... 'OCCUPANCY OF THESE PREMISES BY OVER 116 PEOPLE IS UNLAWFUL.' Jimmy penciled neatly underneath: 'AND UNLIKELY.'"

Sources include autobiographies, interviews, biographies, oral histories, and Crow's own experiences. Under "Acknowledgements," the book includes a great bibliography of jazz-related writings. No pictures, but an index, and, as mentioned earlier, lots of information mixed in with the humor. Very highly recommended.