There's plenty of good information and some nice anecdotes in this history, but it's presented non-chronologically as a loose string of biographies grouped under almost arbitrary chapter headings. The biographies leap into each other abruptly, and after a while it becomes impossible to distinguish individuals among the parade of similar faces. There are some nice analyses of some major albums, though, and it seems like a good starting point for someone trying to determine which recordings might paint the best picture of the hard bop era. Still...there's no long line to follow, and the last quarter feels like a grind.

"Hard Bop" is bop with an edge, bop with an aggressive, blues-based attack. Its archetype practitioner was trumpeter Lee Morgan, killed outside a nightclub in January 1972 by his lover. Influenced by boppers such as Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie, Morgan and other hard boppers developed a style emphasizing minor keys, a "dark" mood, slurs, and half-valve effects. Morgan's most popular number in the idiom was the huge 1964 hard bebop/R&B hit "The Sidewinder."

Hard bop is introduced here through the prism of Lee Morgan: Morgan helped develop the style as an alternative to bop's successor, cool jazz, as developed, in part, by Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis, and hard bop began to fade with his murder. But the book tackles more than Morgan, and, in fact, more than hard bop: It's a fascinating account of the various musical streams colliding--sometimes melding-- in the 10 years between 1955 and 1965.

Rosenthal traces the evolution of hard bebop as bop declined ("bebop . . . had turned into something of a straitjacket . . . Many of its best practitioners were dead, and others . . . were in decline"). Musicians looked to R & B to revive bop, and a new "more emotionally expressive and more formally flexible style began to emerge." Rosenthal looks at the expressions of hard bop in such diverse artists as Sonny Rollins, the soulful Horace Silver ("The Preacher"), Cannonball Adderley, organist Jimmy Smith ("Midnight Special"), Jackie MacClean, and, to a lesser degree, Art Farmer, Andrew Hill, Mingus, and some of the pre-1965 John Coltrane (e.g., with Miles on "Cookin'"). Rosenthal perceptively notes that hard bebop was a "complicated set . . . of interlocking tendencies," rather than a static, easily defined style.

I enjoy this book because it explores a somewhat brief phenomenon, and shows how it developed, flourished, and then gave way to new elements. The writing is crisp, intelligent, energetic, and full of illustrative anecdotes that illuminate and entertain (not the dry pedantic treatise one might expect on this rather narrow topic). Rosenthal shows the connections between various elements of jazz, and presents it as a living, evolving, powerful force. Eleven chapters following the introduction, no pictures. Very highly recommended to jazz fans of any stripe.

My feelings about Paul Pickerings fable,"Charlie Peace".To make it short and to the point,Paul Pickering makes this a somewhat depressing but exhellirating story of a modern day mistaken identy of a man thought to be Jesus A. Christ.And if the son of God were to return how we as,less than prefect humans would more than likely crucify his ass a second time.A great thought jerker!

Joan Perucho, the unique author from the Catalan area of Spain writes in a moving yet dynamic manner. After reading this novel you can almost believe that a vampire could exist as well as probably feeling comfortable with one. It is very sad that none of his other prose or poetry have been published by Knopf (the publisher of "Natural History") or any other publisher. This articulate, insiteful author deserves to be published in English many more times.

The trials of an Episcopal priest who returns to NYC from Nebraska, to help out his sister-in-law (his brother has disappeared) to help run the family business. Which as the title implies is a strip joint (no "gentleman's club" this).

I found this on the street for buck, and thought it would be a nice intro into Mano's work (Take Five has been on queue for a while - but it has moved up drastically).

Mystery, intrigue, religion and naked girls! Actually it's a wonderful study of both topless dancers and priests (Episcopalian not RC) full of humour and pathos. And Mano writes really well. It's seems effortless, but as Fr. Mike says in one of his journal entries, "Good writng is hard work". He's not overbearingly hard (a nice break after Cortazar's Hopscotch, but he is very intelligent (nice period). But what surprised me most about this was that it comes with a sterling recommendation from William F. Buckley (so liberals and conservatives can see eye to eye on a few things, after all).

Keep an eye out for this next time you're browsing your favourite used-bookstore. You know. Outside. In a building.

I have'nt read the book but what I have read in the summary I know I will not read it because it is not the truth. First of all the mans name they claimed to be the head of the white hats was not Al Ross IT IS ALLEN MOSS... He was not Mayor of Cairo at that time and was not a NEO-NAZI Yes he was a white hat they were a group of people who were only trying to protect our white neighbors. Yours truly. The one who lived through it.

I don't remember how I heard about this book, but I remember reading it--several years ago soon after the paperback edition was published. It is a model of how to write about changes and crises in a particular place. I am a book author and editor, journalism professor, newsletter editor, and former newspaper editor and publisher, who usually does not read books like this one. The best and only connection I have to this book is that I am interested in historic preservation of "main streets." Yet I read this book carefully and thoroughly, enjoying nearly all of it. The section on Cairo, Illinois was better than the section on Connecticut, but that's no real complaint. Highly recommended.