 But
Beautiful : A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer
In eight poetically
charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skillfully evokes the music and
the men who shaped modern jazz. Drawing on photos, anecdotes,
and, most important, the way he hears the music, Dyer imaginatively
reconstructs scenes from the embattled lives of some of the giants
of jazz: Lester Young fading away in an hotel room; Charles Mingus
storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle;
Thelonious Monk creating his own private language on the piano.
However, music is really the driving force of But Beautiful, and
Dyer brings it to life in a luminescent and wildly metaphoric
prose style that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance
of each musician's style.
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