Paul Roger's concept for the book began with distraction. Watching the ballet "Swan Lake", his mind wandered to jazz - his favorite music. He challenged himself to proceed through the alphabet, matching each letter to the first, last or nickname for jazz greats ( A for Louis Armstrong to Z for Dizzy Gillespie) and then create a graphic portrait that "give a sense of his or her sound and also reflects a particular period in time". His collaborator, Wynton Marsalis, using the illustrations for inspiration, composed 26 poems, brilliantly using different poetic forms for each musical entry. Consider the letter T - a haiku tribute to Theolonious Monk - "Tonight...there's Theolonious ticklin' or the delightfully alliterative sonnet for Sarah Vaughan which begins with "a vital, vast, vivacious vernal voice with violet, velvet virtues sings to me..."
Jazz A-B-Z concludes with concise biographical sketches for each musician and a section explaining the various poetic forms used for each portrait.
Adults - don't let the designation "Children's" following the call number 781.65092M35j stop you from checking this out. For readers from 10 to 100 who are mad for music, passionate about poetry or ardent about art - it's a perfect book.
RR@RR
No comments:
Post a Comment
What can I post on your wall?
Commenting & Posting Guidelines
Welcome to your library on social media!
Pima County Public Library (PCPL) offers blogs and other social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for educational, cultural, civic, customer service, and recreational purposes. They provide a limited (or designated) public forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions, and information about library-related subjects and issues.
By choosing to comment or post on our social media accounts, you agree with the following:
Comments and posts are moderated by library staff, and the library reserves the right to remove any that are unlawful or off topic. Posts containing the following may be deleted:
Copyright violations
Off-topic comments
Commercial material/spam/solicitation
Sexual content, or links to sexual content
Threatening or harassing postings
Libelous or other kinds of personal attacks
Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity
Content that reveals private, personal information without permission
Vulgar language or content
Comments in support of or in opposition to political campaigns or ballot measures
Content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or other classification
P.S. Protect your privacy. Don't post personally identifying information in these public spaces, including details like your library card number, phone number, or medical information, etc.
Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as your school, age, phone number, and address.