Day 10 (Jazz Day 32 / DDRD 1,610) March 29, 2022
Day 10 because I started reading this on a per diem basis at the same time that I was slogging my way through The Worlds of Jazz. Which means that my DDR days won't seem to add up properly, but I doubt very much that anyone but me would notice that, right? Anyway, Days 1 through 9 for To Be or Not...to Bop are HERE.
And awaaaaaay we go.
It's funny. I got up this morning after a bad night--woke up a bunch of times because my cat kept pounding on the door--and was kind of staggering around the house, turning the lights on, and I happened to glance over at my copy of To Be or Not...to Bop, and immediately thought, "No more Hodeir! I get to read Dizzy today!" And I actually felt as if a weight had been taken from my shoulders. I guess I hadn't realized how much Hodeir was wearing me down until I was finished with it.
ANYway....
Read to page 330, and really wanted to read more, but (1) I'm just so tired and (2) my daughter is keeping me running today. Might have a chance for some more later, though. In today's reading, my favorite moment was when Dizzy was onstage playing with his band and suddenly jumped off the stage, ran out of the theater, and didn't come back for fifteen minutes. When a band member asked him about it later, Dizzy told him that the band was swinging so hard that he couldn't stand it!
I'm really getting to love Dizzy, man.
P.S. Couldn't resist reading a little more, so I hit another twenty pages and read to 350. And just to show that You Can't Escape The Matrix, check this out:
Day 11 (Jazz Day 33 / DDRD 1,611) March 30, 2022
Read to page 390. Didn't really mean to, but I was babysitting and baby went down for a nap, and the pages just kind of flew by. This is a pretty awesome book, actually. I'd have to say that it's one of the best biographies I've ever read. if this keeps up...and I'm not saying that it will, mind you...I'm going to be finished this book in a few more days. Let's see...139 pages at 30 pages a day would mean less than five days. And I've actually been averaging a little over 37 pages per day...and most of that was while I was reading 20 pages a day in the 3rd Hodier book, so...might be less than five days before I finish this one.
Day 12 (Jazz Day 34 / DDRD 1,612) March 31, 2022
Read to page 430, even though it was a pretty hectic day. This story really pulls you along. In fact, I would like to read a bit more tonight if I can catch a free minute. I also looked at the post-text material...SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY, FILMOGRAPHY, HONORS AND AWARDS, AND INDEX...enough to satisfy my need to say I "read" them, at least, though it really wasn't the kind of material you could read read. One interesting thing I found was that in the DISCOGRAPHY there were two entries for Dee Gee records, which indicated a total of ten songs which had been recorded. Yet online I found a 2 LP set entitled Dizzy Gillespie Dee Gee Days: The Savoy Sessions which had 24 titles...and a note that one of the songs included in the DISCOGRAPHY wasn't included because Dizzy didn't actually play on it. So I'm wondering why the very detailed 21 page DISCOGRAPHY failed to included 15 songs which Dizzy recorded for his own label (hence Dee Gee)...and why it included a song that Dizzy didn't actually play on. Strange.
And yes, as a matter of fact I am thinking about buying that 2 LP set. It's on eBay for $6.99 + $5.00 shipping, and is described as being in excellent shape. And I do like vinyl.
So we'll see about that.
I may have another look at that post-text material, but for the record, the text actually ends on page 502, which means that I have a mere 72 pages left to read. Hell, that's probably only two more days. I think that just goes to show how good this book is, because that would mean I would have read it in 14 days, when according to my usual goal it "should" have taken me 28.5 days. Plus keeping in mind that the first 9 days of my reading this book were concurrent with reading The Worlds of Jazz.
I also watched about half of Bird (1988), Clint Eastwood's box office bomb attempt to tell the story of Charlie Parker, and Dizzy has quite a presence in the story. At one point, Charlie Parker (played ineptly by Forest Whitaker) even says, "I owe Dizzy everything." I'm going to try to finish watching this thing, but it really is pretty bad.
Day 13 (Jazz Day 35 / DDRD 1,613) April 1, 2022
Read to page 482. Again, didn't really mean to. And, again, it just pulled me along. One of the stories that Dizzy told made me laugh out loud...even though it's definitely not politically correct. He tells about how Louis Armstrong was allowed to stay in hotels that other Black people weren't, and how this upset some White guys. So they got a raccoon and snuck it into Louis's room while he was out. When Louis got back he saw the raccoon and went down to the front desk, telling them that there was a coon in his room. The clerk responded by saying, "Don't worry, sir. Just one minute, Mr. Armstrong, we'll get that nigger out of there." (446)
There was also a story about Dizzy going back to his hometown and going to visit an old white man for whom his mother had once worked. When the man saw Dizzy, he said, "Boy, we're mighty proud of you. You've made it, you've conducted yourself like a gentleman, and you've made us so happy and so proud...." Dizzy responded by saying, "Thank you, Mr. Power, I appreciate that." And then proceeded to joke around with the old guy.
Keep in mind that Dizzy was a world renowned musician at this point --and had met with several presidents as well as other heads of state all over the world.
Yowza.
So now I've only got 20 pages of text left in this book, and I have to admit that I am not ready to be done with it. That's about the best review you can give to a book, though, isn't it?
Day 14 (Jazz Day 36 / DDRD 1,614) April 2, 2022
Read to page 502, which means The End for me. The last parts of the book were slightly less engaging that the rest of it for two reasons: (1) there wasn't as much of the inserted interviews with other people material and (2) when Dizzy was speaking it was mostly in a philosophical way about what he thought--especially about his religion--rather than about things that had happened...and it got more than a little bit preachy. So the book didn't end on a very strong note. But despite that, I'd still say that this was probably the best autobiography / biography I've read so far. And I'd definitely recommend it to anybody interested in Jazz, music in general, or in Black / White relationships. Too bad it took me 43 years to get around to it, but hey, we do what we can, right?
BTW, I ended up buying Dee Gee Days: The Savoy Sessions. I'd been thinking about it for some time, but when I saw that it was listed on Amazon for $95.55 (used) and on eBay for $6.99 + $5 shipping, that was all she wrote. Also, poking around on the internet it proved to be difficult to find these recordings, so I figured I'd make an honest man of myself.
Next up: Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn.
DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages
No comments:
Post a Comment