The reluctant art

The sheer verbosity of this book will keep a lot of folks away. Folks who begin reading, and are put off within a few pages. If you push through the dense, difficult prose you will be rewarded. This turns out to be a great volume. This is an older book, very much written in a style abandoned with good reason. Read it anyway if you have any serious interest in music, especially if you are a working musician interested in jazz. Background: I am a longtime professional musician. Still, I was ready to abandon this book after about five minutes. The author takes twenty words to do the job of five. And then rephrases and repeats the thought. It is tedious. BUT there is a lot of insight here. The author is also a musician, and he knows what is going on in the music. This is essential. Nowhere more so than in the jazz of these times, and in the work of these musicians, it is the case that understanding what was happening requires real hands-on depth. This is music by great musicians, comprehensible only to those willing to work for it. With each subject, the author digs deep, finds some fresh things to point out, picks an argument with existing - or "the usual" - interpretation, and then s