Amazon.com
Imagine how strange and frightening it would be to see a picture of yourself, not quite a year old, with your mother and two men, one of whom is a confessed serial killer. This is what happened to Sebastian Junger, and only a small part of what he recounts in A Death in Belmont.
The quiet suburb of Belmont, Massacuusetts, is in the grip of fear. The Boston Strangler murders have taken place nearby, and now there is another shocking sex crime, right in Belmont. The victim is Bessie Goldberg, a middle-aged woman who had hired a cleaning man to help out around the house on that fall day in 1963. He is a black man named Roy Smith. He did the appointed chores, collected his money and left a receipt on the kitchen table. Neighbors will say that he looked furtive when he walked down the street, that he was in a hurry, that he stopped to buy cigarettes, that he looked over his shoulder. They didn't see a black man in Belmont very often, so, of course, they noticed him. So the story went, and on these slender threads, and his own checkered history, Roy Smith is convicted of the Belmont murder and sent to prison.
On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo, an Italian-American handyman, is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter in the Junger home, where the picture is taken. Two years after his work for the Jungers, he confesses in vivid detail to the crimes of which the Boston Strangler is accused, and sent to prison, where he is stabbed to death by an inmate. But he never confesses to the Bessie Goldberg murder. Could he have left the Junger home, committed the murder a few blocks away and calmly returned to finish his day's work? Could Roy Smith really have been the guilty party, even though his sentence was commuted after De Salvo confessed?
In the grand tradition of his bestselling The Perfect Storm, Junger tells a terrific story, lining up all the elements, asking all the pertinent questions, digging into the backgrounds of both men, retelling his mother's very strange encounter with Albert when she is home alone with Sebastian. He then asks the larger questions: Was Roy Smith convicted summarily because he was black? Was Albert De Salvo really the Boston Strangler?
Junger cannot answer all the questions, as no one can. Without DNA, there is no way to be certain of which of the two men might have committed the rape and murder of Bessie Goldberg, or if neither of them is guilty. While it is frustrating not to know for sure, the story is fascinating, reads like a tautly plotted mystery thriller, and Junger's close connection is downright creepy. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking murder that fits the pattern of the infamous Boston Strangler, still at large. Hoping for a break in the case, the police arrest Roy Smith, a black ex-con whom the victim hired to clean her house. Smith is hastily convicted of the murder, but the Strangler's terror continues. And through it all, one man escapes the scrutiny of the police: a carpenter working at the time at the Belmont home of young Sebastian Junger and his parents—a man named Albert
From the acclaimed author of A Perfect Storm comes a powerful chronicle of three lives that collide in the vortex of one of America's most controversial serial murder cases.
Customer Reviews:
Why bother.......2007-09-24
I found the book mildly interesting while I was reading it, but the end was a little disappointing and left me thinking why did I bother reading it.
Murder in the Neighborhood.......2007-08-10
No, it's not the story of the filly Ruffian's breakdown at Belmont Park. Rather, investigative reporter Sebastian Junger takes on a piece of his family's accepted history--that when he was less than a year old, neighbor woman Bessie Goldberg, living in the upscale Belmont section of suburban Boston, was killed by Albert DeSalvo, the infamous Boston Strangler, who at time of the murder was working on a remodeling job in the Junger home. At the time, an African-American man, Roy Smith, who had been cleaning inside the victim's house on the same day, was accused, tried and convicted of the murder.
Junger brings the eye of a seasoned investigator to the task, scrupulously mapping a timeline for the man convicted of the crime, and compiling a trove of details about DeSalvo and the other "Strangler" cases. Still, his prose is quite readable, resembling a novel moreso than an investigative piece, although the almost clinical approach belies the passion you might expect from such a violent story hitting so close to home.
I'll leave it to you to find out both your and Junger's conclusions. The descriptions of various murders are pretty grisly, so I'd restrict this one to adult readers.
Don't answer the door..........2007-08-08
A DEATH IN BELMONT relives a frightening time in the Boston area during the 60's when the Strangler was on the loose and the most dangerous place a woman could be caught was in the safety of her own home. Junger delves into the murder of an elderly woman, the first murder in the town of Belmont, a comfortable suburb. Obviously, Roy Smith, the cleaning temp who leaves shortly before the woman's body is found by her husband, is the prime suspect. Not just because of his dark skin (though race is a factor) but rather his dark, criminal past.
Junger takes the reader through the investigation and unearths the dirt on Smith. He conducts interviews and pieces together the life of a man that was pretty much broken from the start. Did Smith do it? Is he innocent? Was it really the confessed Strangler, DeSalvo, who was working a mile or so away at the Junger home? If you're looking for definitive answers, you won't find it in this book. It is an investigation into the crime, an "investigation" which implies an inquiry. Nothing more. The reader is left to determine for himself or herself what must've happened.
I recommend this book to readers who like to think. I also recommend the PS paperback version as it has an interview with the author and provides more insights.
It's not a Perfect Storm.......2007-08-08
I'm glad I didn't buy this book. Expecting an exciting work I discovered a very slow read. Seems the basic facts of the case are repeated and squeezed for details all of which ends up being filler. The best parts are anectdotal snippets which have little to do with the case itself. Some of the descriptions of how the law has changed over the past 40 years are curious and informative. But if you are looking for a summer read ---move on. I did ....skimmed the last half of the book and returned it.
A Personal Obsession.......2007-08-06
Sebastian Junger possesses a chilling photo. It is of himself, barely a toddler, sitting on his young and happy mother's lap. Behind them stand two men, one, an unexceptional looking workman has a hammer jutting out of his pocket. The other, the central figure of the photo, stands with one enormous hand across his mid-riff. The second figure is Albert DeSalvo, convicted Boston Strangler. It is impossible to look at this photo and not feel the horror of not only what happened when 13 Boston area women were murdered, but what could have happened that would have changed the author's life forever. Albert DeSalvo worked as a carpenter in the Junger home. Spent hours in their home alone with Sebastian and his mother. Seeing this photo, it is easy to see how the Boston Strangler case became an obsession with the author. Before the Strangler is apprehended an older woman is murdered in their neighborhood and a black drifter (Roy Smith) is tried and convicted of the crime. So as an adult Junger explores this murder in his neighborhood, researches the man that was convicted and sent to jail for it, as well as the other crimes committed by DeSalvo. His conclusions? Inconclusive. It is possible that Roy Smith was sent to jail for a crime committed by DeSalvo. But Smith's life is so pointless it is hard to feel much empathy for him. He drops out of school in the 8th grade, and begins living a petty life of drinking, occaisonal jobs, and crime. He lived his life in a way that almost begged to be of interest to police. Junger examines DeSalvo's life too, but not in enough new detail to make it interesting either. So by the time Junger publishes this book, DeSalvo is dead, Roy Smith is dead, most people associated with the Strangler case are dead. Some historic crimes and mis-application of laws are interesting. This is only mildly so and didn't warrant a new book on the matter. There seem to be many reviewers on this site who are very familiar with the Strangler's case. I am not one of those people. I am only someone interested in a compelling read, a cogent argument, a fresh insight, a thought provoking issue. I'm afraid none of these are to be found in this book. Open the fly-leaf, look at the photo, feel the horror it evokes, and move on.
Amazon.com
The female blues singers of the 1920s, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and Bessie Smith, not only invented a musical genre, but they also became models of how African American women could become economically independent in a culture that had not previously allowed it. Both Smith and Rainey composed, arranged, and managed their own road bands. Angela Y. Davis's study emphasizes the impact that these singers, and later Billie Holiday, had on the poor and working-class communities from which they came. The artists addressed radical subjects such as physical and economic abuse, race relations, and female sexual power, including lesbianism. Ma Rainey was well known as a lover of women as well as men, and her song "Prove It on Me" describes a butch woman who dresses like a man and dates women. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism places the fluid sexuality of these women within a larger context of African American artists' attempts to subvert and recreate America.
Customer Reviews:
You would think our own would know the score. .......2006-01-31
No one with a true understanding of Billie Holiday would consider her a Blues Singer. As such to truly study Blues Legacies, it would be better if a Blues singer like Memphis Minnie, one of the greatest female instrumental blues singers, were included. Surely, Dinah Washington, justifiably named the Queen of the Blues, or Ruth Brown, (Miss or maybe now Ms Rhythm) would be more appropriate to a study of Black blues women.
This hints that the generalizations in this book may be the result of pushing around reality rather than studying it. This is an all too frequent problem in the writing of academics who seem more concerned about creating their own little niche of analysis, than situating their work in the realities of life, culture, and art where the blues or Jazz, and Billie's real life live.
Billie did not like to be called a Blues Singer. If we are concerned with the voices of Black women, then someone involved in this book should have at least had the respect to listen to Billie Holiday's voice on the matter. She considered herself a Jazz singer and later a cabaret singer.
She recorded very few blues. The two blues she recorded again and again "Billie's Blues" and "Fine and Mellow" were only recorded because in two different recording sessions there was time to record additional songs, but no preparation or charts existed for any song, so an easy to play blues was selected. Billie recorded them and performed these two tunes often because she had the author's credit and publishing on them which made it easier and more profitable. This is despite the fact that the exact word sets had been sung and recorded by real blues singers before Billie had the brains to record AND copyright them. Listen to Helen Humes sing an exact version of Fine and Mellow with another name during the first Spirituals to Swing concert that took place BEFORE Billie recorded her version.
A good contrast with Billie, though male, was her friend and often colleague Jimmie Rushing who served with her in the Basie Band. Despite his penchant for claiming he was a ballad singer as well--Rushing actually thought that when Billie left Basie that rather than hiring another singer, he alone could fill the gap--Rushing's recordings with Walter Page's Blue Devils in the 1920s, with Moten in the early 1930s, and with Basie in the 1930s and 1940s are masterpieces of the blues. Many of his renditions like Good Morning Blues have become standards for blusicians of all stripes. Lesser known but deserving more attention are his great blues recorded with KC musicians for John Hammond on Vanguard in the 1960s.
Otherwise she recorded few blues, particularly in her most artistically developed period between 1934 and 1945. Indeed, Billie's lack of a blues repertoire and disinclination to perform blues cost her her position as female vocalist with the Count Basie Orchestra, a match made in heaven. While there were no doubt other factors involved, many Basieites especially Buck Clayton who was quite close to Billy have said Billie was replaced because she didn't perform enough blues to suit John Hammond who acted as de facto manager and AR man with the Basie band. Hammond replaced Billie Holiday with Helen Humes who had been recording blues for ten years before she joined Basie. Humes, of course, continued to record Blues with Basie, and then as an independent singer from then until her death keeping her magnificent jump blues alive for several generations of listeners. Clayton's complaint is a standard one leveled at white Jazz producers like Hammond and Norman Grantz that they wanted blues, not more harmonically developed music that Black Jazz musicians really wanted to play.
The blues is a specific genre of African American musical, poetic, and cultural expression with its own distinct history, evolution, and practices. Simply collapsing every Black performer into the Blues makes the blues meaningless and demeans the work of the millions of women and men who have created the blues in the last 110-120 years.
Another insult to Billie, is the tendency to see her as a "blues figure" because of her "tragic" life. This is the tendency to evaluate Billie as the public life disaster that she tended to milk in desperation in the last years of her life symbolized by the fake autobiography _Lady Sings the Blues_. This contrasts than the artistic consideration she deserved and received from other musicians and singers. She was a competent and practicing jazz artist, raised in the music business (her father complained he played guitar for every jazz artist in NYC in the 1930s and early 1940s but Billie. Her mother boarded musicians and catered musical parties). From a young age, Billie was considered as knowledgeable as the top instrumentalists of the music by those top instrumentalists.
Those who rely on the "tragedy" to induct Billie into the Blues express a greater ignorance given that as her own drug addiction advanced, her music had less and less of a connection with the blues, climaxing in "The Lady in Satin" which is a vain attempt to take The Lady into non-Jazz pop. All of her original blues were recorded in her pre-heroin youth in the 1930s, not in the 1950s when Billie's self-made "tragedy" had begun to destroy her voice and musicial viability and then her life.
It is quite bizarre for anyone to claim Billie's performance of Meeropol's song "Strange Fruit," has any relationship to blues music given her very straight reading of the tune, the unblueslike straight minor it is given, and the unjazzlike accompaniment. If one wants to see what a Blues Singer can do to this song, one needs to listen to the astounding version recorded by Josh White which is blusey and also more dramatic and satisfying than Holiday's more celebrated version. Holiday's performance of "Strange Fruit," tends to be elevated by folks for the justifiable political message the song provided and the controversy involved. However, an honest or even rational evaluation of the performance seems to be unavailable these days.
This raises yet another ignorance, the outsider's view that "The Blues" is always sad or "tragic." The immense body of the most popular blusicians--that is blues artists that Black people listened to-- of the 1930s like Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, and Leroy Carr served up a bunch of pretty happy, often double entendre, blues. Blues music was overwhelmingly dance music, with performers not playing the three minute blues contemporary white blues wannabe's deduce from recordings, but 10 to even 30 minute versions of their songs for dancers from Juke Joints to the big ballrooms. Unfortunately, people who have never studied the blues as a real genre, misplace it as the solo moaning of the "existential Negro," rather than the jumping music of a century of African American Saturday nights.
As an African American performer of the blues and other Black traditional musics as well as a scholar of African American music tradition, this kind of non scientific, non-traditional, grab bag sloppiness about our music and our culture is a sign that even among our own, the outsider's false generalizations about the blues reign. You would think our own would know the score.
Poetics ARE Politics for many people. No exceptions here........2004-08-19
Davis work is a powerful re-reading of Blues women, and firmly places them in the center, rather than the margin, of Black oppositional and autonomous culture discourse. The book is mostly devoted to the work of Gertrude Rainey and Bessie Smith, but there are important sections devoted to Billie Holiday as well. In each case, the Davis argues for a more complete contextual understanding of Blues women music as introducing gender issues, breaking discursive taboos, and forging meaning within the context of an imagined community of Black women's lives.
To begin with, Davis convincingly argues that Blues women were on the vanguard in breaking down taboos concerning domestic violence and male subjugation, as many Blues songs concerned these matters. Davis uses powerful works such as "Rough and Tumble Blues," "See See Rider Blues," and "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair," to demonstrate that Blues women were willing to engage in oppositional, if allegorical, violence in the service of personal autonomy. Even man songs that seem to demonstrate acquiescence, even masochism, in the face of male abuse can be seen to have an ironic, subversive, or didactic quality that belies a simplistic surface reading.
Davis also takes on the common notion that Blues music doesn't include social protest, an interpretation that has been pushed by white commentators, such as Samuel Charters, and black commentators, such as Albert Murray. Davis argues that Blues music inherits from Slave musical culture a coded approach to naming and resistance that demands more than a surface analysis of the lyrics, and takes into account the role of music as a lyrical interlocuter. Focusing on tunes such as "Backwater Blues" and "Washwoman's Blues," Davis almost always effectively demonstrates that coded protest is still protest, and that women's blues historically anticipated and grounded mass movements in the areas of civil rights and feminism, while remaining linked with West African hermeneutic structure of naming and interpretation, such as "nommo."
In terms of Religious content, Davis forcefully recounts how women reconfigured a secular existential (or even "Devil's") music as prayer itself, magically and aesthetically conjured to exorcise emotions such as "the blues." At the same time, she harshly criticizes the Black church for adopting Christian dualisms concerning the moral status of body and spirit, which she sees as sexualized forms of racism and sexism--- since both blacks and women have been semiotically linked with earthiness and body as opposed to spirit by while male elites. Celebratory Sexuality, on the other hand, has always, according to Davis, been an oppositional aspect of black working-class consciousness. This extends beyond sexuality to an affirmation of Black folk religious life (such as Hoodoo) and crossing of class boundaries in the Blues, which Davis contends is a major reason Blues music was ignored and even distanced by Black elites during the Harlem Renaissance.
Davis's discussion of Billie Holiday is short (two chapters) but powerful, in which she argues that Holiday subversively appropriated the saccharine Tin Pan Alley love song format she was given as Slaves would have appropriated the English language upon their arrival in the North Americas. Holiday worked little in the formal Blues, but was nontheless grounded in the Blues idiom, from which she drew inspiration, and a subversive presentation of white romantic life to Black audiences. In this vein, such songs as "Strange Fruit" fit more coherently, and the ironic (and yet utopian) edge in her voice professes to the truth of Black women's lives, even in ways that on the surface seem to be feministically regressive.
There are isolated examples where Davis is less successful than at other times, but on the whole, her argumentation is strong and fearless, and her analogical and narrative analysis of the music along with lyrics adds, rather than detracts, from her argument.
Breaking ground.......2000-07-26
I have to agree with the reviewer from Turkey who wrote positively about Davis' "Strange Fruit" chapter in Blues Legacies. I recently wrote a term paper on the song Strange Fruit in which I referred to both David Margolick's recent release about Strange Fruit and Davis' Blues Legacies. I was very impressed with Davis' depiction of Holiday as an individual and an entertainer. It seemed that she brought a more well-rounded and objective perspective on the singer into the world of Billie Holiday biographies. Her take on the song and on Holiday's connection to it are, shall we say, refreshing, in that it takes a novel approach to the singer -- one that attempts to remain impartial to the popular image of Holiday. This book is also an excellent reference for those studying feminism, jazz, Afro-Americana and/or the lives of the three women (Rainey, Holiday and Smith) showcased in Davis' Blues Legacies.
A wonderful analysis of Strange Fruit and Billie Holiday.......2000-03-28
If you expect to read a traditional biography you may be dissappointed. The lives of the blues women and their political messages behind their songs are discussed in one another's light. This works very well as blues is a folk music which tells many things about the black experience and most singers are song writers themselves. The section about Billie Holiday and her song Strange Fruit is one of the rare approaches to Lady Day as an artist who gave a very important political messages about racism. In other biographies Billie Holiday is always portrayed as a victim rather than a person who had an important political message. I believe this very style of her portrayal could be discussed in a feminist context and that's what Angela Davies did in this book with her vast knowledge and experience in black politics and gender issues. Some people criticize the book for being overtly political. However, I see no other way of analyzing the blues without its political context. The transcriptions of the songs also gives a documentary value to this book. It has been a great reference for my research in this field. I wish I can get in touch with Angela Davies one day and discuss her about the research she has done while preparing this book.
Permission and Intent.......2000-03-07
Davis' title explains her project in clear terms at the outset. She is not engaged in a critique of modern women in popular music (as one reviewer anticipated). Nor is she profiling these women in biography format. Therefore, she does not need the permission of Rainey's relatives for this project. Her goal is to uncover the pre-feminist sentiments expressed in these women's music. In that regard, she needs only the barest biographical information (that women performers were not rooted to hearth and home, traveled, worked, and had marquee positions). Assuming this general information to be true of all these women, Davis then concentrates her primary energy on the legacy that blues lyrics leave for Black Feminism. Part of that legacy is found in the advice on romance, religion, and race that these women's songs shared (or share now) with black female listeners. I hope this gives readers an accurate idea of what to expect from this worthwhile book and encourages disappointed readers to re-encounter the book on its own terms.
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The Words and Songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone: Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory (Studies in African American History and Culture)
Melanie E. Bratcher
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0415980291 |
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This book explores the relationship between three African American women's dance-art-music sensibilities within the context of a Pan African aesthetic.
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Bessie Smith and the Night Riders
Sue Stauffacher
Manufacturer: Putnam Juvenile
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ASIN: 0399242376 |
Book Description
Even though she can't afford a ticket to see the great blues singer Bessie Smith perform, Emmarene listens outside Bessie's tent—that is, until she bursts into the show to warn the crowd:The Night Riders have come!
Bessie marches right outside and confronts the Night Riders by giving one of her famous low moans that says, "I may be down and out, but I ain't gonna take it no more." But will that be enough to scare them off ?
Based on a true incident, Bessie Smith and the Night Riders is a powerful story of facing down danger and standing up for what's right. With John Holyfield's luminous paintings setting the stage, readers will be cheering for Bessie and Emmarene all the way to their final bow.
Customer Reviews:
A TRUE STORY OF COURAGE.......2006-01-13
Bessie Smith was called the Empress of the Blues. She had an amazing voice, so remarkable that her first recording, which was made in 1925, sold over a million copies. Quite a number for that day and time. Considering all of this, it's no wonder that a little girl would idolize her.
Emmarene Johnson was just such a little girl, and when Bessie came to her hometown of Concord this particular girl simply had to see her. Emmarene had no money so she sneaked out to the edge of town where Bessie was performing, pulled back a tent flap, and couldn't believe her eyes. There was Bessie in a pink dress, waving her feather boa and singing, "Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time."
As it turned out, many were fortunate that Emmarene was outside the tent that night because she saw the Night Riders approaching on horseback. It was 1927 and the Ku Klux Klan was terrorizing Southern blacks and white sympathizers. Since the Klan committed most of their despicable deeds at night, their nickname was Night Riders.
Nonetheless, Emmarene was terrified knowing that the Klan had come to harm Bessie. She crept inside the tent and told Bessie the Night Riders were there. Then, as Emmarene says, "Some folks run from trouble. Not Bessie. She headed right past me and toward the opening of the tent."
This lone woman marched right up to the men on horseback to hear one shout, "Y'all best get ready to meet your maker."
That didn't stop Bessie. First she swore, and then she told them to pick up their sheets and run. With that she started flapping her arms about, uttered one of her famous low moans, and spooked the horses. Torches started falling on the ground and the men took off.
While the story is based on a true incident, author Stauffacher has dramatized it for young readers, providing a valuable lesson in courage and the ability to stand up for what is right.
Highly recommended.
- Gail Cooke
Customer Reviews:
Valuable but grating.......2005-03-11
I will keep this short and simple: Friedwald is a bad writer. This book contains a lot of bad jokes, forced analogies, a juvenile prose style and some occasional mistakes. However, this book is invaluable for someone who knows little about jazz singing, for it contains much information and most, if not all, the really important names in vocal jazz. However, if you are a more experienced listener, you will be put off by his off-handed dismissals of legends like Helen Merrill and talented minor figures like Lee Morse and Julie London, with little or no justification for his dislike of them. But he praises people like Perry Como, Dinah Shore and Doris Day.
Hmmmm.
Love and grumbling.......2003-12-17
Jazz Singing covers 20th jazz singing from classic blues to post-bop singers. The book is notable for breadth, Friedwald's often sharp humor, and a knack for exploring underrated singers such as Kay Starr and Helen Humes. Though I don't always agree with him he is passionate and knowing.
Jazz Singing is more of a commentary than a history of jazz singing and lacks the thoroughness and balance of a book written by a cultural historian as opposed to a fan/critic/liner note writer/compiler.
The book is haunted by a defeatist nostalgia the author is too young for and obvious theses repeated ad nauseam. The author holds simplistic notions of how black and whites sing and never actually differentiates between adult and kiddie pop. Is this simply a matter of musical sophistication or assumptions about how love can be expressed? The assertion (one shared w/ Stanley Crouch and Donald Clarke) that adult pop is dead, is one that must be argued not simply asserted.
It is also peculiar that Friedwald never devotes any attention to the fact that kiddie pop novelties, pre and post Mitch Miller largely define the careers of many singers he praises including Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Peggy Lee and Doris Day--(who,for example indulged w/ novelties during her Les Brown stint).
Jazz Singing is also growing dated, a hazard of such a nostalgically minded, cynical book. Strangely even in the 1996 edition Jimmy Scott (who came back in the '90s) and Shirley Horn (who came back in the '80s) are absent, [except very brief comments] Blues/R&B-based singers w/ jazz-oriented careers (i.e. Ruth Brown, Etta James, early Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin) are overlooked. Finally, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kevin Mahogany, Dianne Reeves, Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, Kurt Elling, etc. whose careers overlap the 1996 edition are barely mentioned [except a mention of Elling]
This is a fun book but more useful as a consumer guide based on its discography and several choice passages. If you want a history of jazz singing you would do better to check out Gary Giddins' anthologies (where is his jazz singing book?!) and instrumental and vocal jazz histories by Giola and Shipton, respectively.
Four and a half stars.......2002-12-03
Friedwald has definitely got to be the currently most prolific writer on all matters related to the "Great American Songbook" and its performers. His name appears constantly on CD liner notes, his voice is regularly heard on NPR, and his face appears on television whenever an assessment of a recently expired pop star or jazz great is called for. It stands to reason that his opinions wield influence, so as a champion of the music that is the subject of his discourse, I can only hope that his pronouncements are for the better.
In most instances, his judgements seem sound, and he usually expresses them with a directness and verve that make for engaging reading. Among the better moments in the book are his dismissal of a Michael Feinstein, a Johnny Mathis, or an Andy Williams as subjects worthy of discussion in a serious book about American popular music.
The musicians he devotes chapters to are all deserving, and he provides no small amount of insight into the historical significance and unique talents of his subjects. Still, he can strain a bit too hard to make a case for a singer such as Bing Crosby, proclaiming him a better all-around musician than Sinatra and insisting that the man, if anything, got better with the passing of time. I get the sense that Friedwald knows quite a bit about music, but perhaps not quite enough. And it's not clear that he's ever had much experience performing music. If he had, he'd be more aware of the differences in vocal production, say, between a stand-up singer and a pianist-singer. Or of the kind of risk that is present not only in Sinatra's persona but in the approach to a lyric and its elocution that are part of his music. Bing may have a good ear and good time, but even on his noisy (thanks to Bregman's orchestration) Sinatra-style 1950's session, his time is leaden. He's thinking two-beat instead of 4/4 swing, and he plops his syllables right on top of each beat in order to be able to "think" the 2nd beat that characterizes his Dixieland approach.
But if there's any genuine disappointment with the book, it's with what's been left out. Whether it's because he's too busy writing or completing his Crosby collection, Friedwald seems totally unaware of singers like Jack Jones, Shirley Horn, Nancy Lamott and, most notably of all, Etta Jones. One can only hope that a book such as this will lead readers to make their discovery.
Brings You Back to the Music.......2000-10-08
Friedwald has written a great book--precisely because it's opinionated, un-pretentious, filled with passionate likes and dislikes. Friedwald has apparently listened to every jazz-sung record in history, and his book makes you want to listen to all of it too--in my case, for the first time. For that I'd love to thank him personally. If you believe that understanding the conventions of an art form helps you appreciate it fully, "Jazz Singing" is an eduacation in what to listen for...in how to listen to jazz singing. I don't always agree with Friedwald and neither will you, but so what? A wonderful book about an art that seems unfortunately to be dying out--a book that helps, along with all the CD re-issues that thankfully come out, to keep it alive.
A Jazz Affair.......2000-08-28
Will Friedwald loves his subject and it shows. I learned a lot and agree with, perhaps, 95% of his judgments. But some of his dismissals sound perfunctory and I'm not even sure that he even reviewed the relevant material. Example: Jonny Mathis in the "Must Avoid" Department. Generally true, but certainly not the very first albumn (CK 64890) which has some excellent vocals and arrangements in the jazz idiom. "Easy to Love" and "Star Eyes" are splendid and his "It Might as Well be Spring" is one of the best, at least to my ear. But I almost forgive him since he praises the much-neglected Dakota Staton. Almost, but not quite. And, please, David Raksin deserves to have his name spelled straight. Anyone who could compose "Laura" and "The Bad and the Beautiful" deserves editorial accuracy.
Average customer rating:
- Nice to have a Bessie Smith songbook
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Bessie Smith Songbook
Bessie Smith
Manufacturer: Hal Leonard Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
ASIN: 0793532736 |
Book Description
This 38-song book is a tribute to the work of Bessie Smith, unquestionably the greatest of the vaudeville blues singers. Includes a biography, discography, lots of photos, and classic songs like: After You've Gone * Baby Doll * Baby, Won't You Please Come Home * Cake Walking Babies * Gimme A Pigfoot * A Good Man Is Hard To Find * Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out * and more.
Customer Reviews:
Nice to have a Bessie Smith songbook.......2007-09-05
I think this is the only Bessie Smith songbook available (though I'm sure you can find some of these songs in other places). The arrangements are good, though maybe a bit too simple.
My only complaint is some of the missing songs; "Sugar in My Bowl" is noticibly absent, as well as some other Bessie favorites.
Product Description
IN THE SANDBOX, an old woman prepares to die, while daughter, son-in law and the angel of death watch...First Performance, April 15, 1960, New York city.
THE DEATH OF BESSIE SMITH, (a play in eight scenes)is a powerful drama that bares the ugly and shameful circumstances surrounding the tragic death of a great Negro blues singer....First Performance, April 21, 1960, Berlin, Germany, Scholosspark Theater.
Average customer rating:
- Three from Albee.
- Somewhat agree with first reviewer
- american dream
- Dont even think of buying this book
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The American Dream, The Death of Bessie Smith, and Fam and Yam.
Edward Albee
Manufacturer: Dramatists Play Service
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0822200309 |
Customer Reviews:
Three from Albee. .......2004-10-21
Here is the long one-act The American Dream, another one-act in The Death of Bessie Smith and a short, short mock interview/scene called Fam and Yam.
If you are into Albee and have read his more widely known works, this is for you. As far as I know The American Dream is pretty well known, and can also be found in a book with The Zoo Story.
Written in 1960-61, The American Dream is a semi-absurd sort of dumb show about a married couple who go by Mommy and Daddy, the mother of Mommy who is called Grandma, a women who shows up called Mrs. Barker and eventually a Young Man, ostensibly the adopted son of Mommy and Daddy. The message and feel of The American Dream is overt: comfortable 1950's home life, concerned with clothes and well paid for satisfaction was/is all a show. Each part of the simple American family played a part, all despite any personality. Here, for example Grandma is the clown/fool/ironic sensibility of the piece, as she bickers with Mommy and Daddy and knows all too well the plight of old people, despite or in spite of her advanced knowledge and experience. Without giving away much more, The American Dream is an acidic piece, seemingly very autobiographical, Albee having been adopted, and a slight at the values and mores of a generation.
The Death of Bessie Smith is a disturbing, but surely more realistic slap dash into 1937 Memphis, race relations and female/male battles. Bessie Smith is a backround figure, as an accident involving her and her boyfriend/manager brings them into a whites-only hospital and an iron hearted nurse who laserates the e.r. intern who is in love with her. He's the liberal loving doctor, she's the bitter cold witch...
The triangle between the black characters, including an orderly who straddles the segregation line, the nurse and the intern exhibits overlapping sexual and racial status of the day. Not very funny, as The American Dream occasionally is, but heavy and stark.
Fam and Yam is a short scene between Fam(Famous American Playwright) and Yam(Young American Playwright). When I first read it I saw Albee as the Fam, tricked into saying something critical against the system of "villains" representing the structure of the theatre. But the short was written in 1960, just as Albee was on the rise, clearly the Yam and successful thus is baiting and switching the establishment...I suppose it can be taken either way now.
All three pieces are critical in themselves. Critical of the accepted social places of the American family, critical of the accepted social places of races, and critical of the establishment in theatre.
Somewhat agree with first reviewer.......2004-09-30
"American Dream" is a big waste of time for a play, with overly simplistic names for characters, and a plot that makes very little sense. "death of Bessie Smith" is only slightly better, and "Fam and Yam" is just a bitter author's take on the "establishment" which sounds childish.
american dream.......2002-12-18
The American Dream is without doubt the greatest one act play ever written by an American.
Dont even think of buying this book.......2001-10-30
I read this book in my high school English class; I found it to be mindless obscenities from drunken characters. I believe Albee has written wonderful plays (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) but this is not one. Here is an idea, don't buy this book, save your money, go to Burger King and observe the dull lifelessness of the teenagers working there. I believe you will get the effect that this book is trying to make.
Average customer rating:
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Bessie Smith (African-American Biographies (Raintree))
Alexandria Manera
Manufacturer: Raintree
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 0739868756 |
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- Empress of the Blues
- Great Book on a True Queen
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Bessie: Revised and expanded edition
Chris Albertson
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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ASIN: 0300099029 |
Book Description
Considered by many to be the greatest blues singer of all time, Bessie Smith was also a successful vaudeville entertainer who became the highest paid African-American performer of the roaring twenties. This book—a revised and expanded edition of the classic biography of this extraordinary artist—debunks many of the myths that have circulated since her untimely death in 1937. Chris Albertson writes with insight and candor about the singer's personal life and her career, supplementing his historical research with dozens of interviews with her relatives, friends, and associates, in particular Ruby Walker Smith, a niece by marriage who toured with Bessie for over a decade. For this new edition he includes more details of Bessie's early years, new interview material, and a chapter devoted to events and responses that followed the original publication in 1971.
Customer Reviews:
Empress of the Blues.......2004-12-10
Albertson has had the rare fortune to have interviewed Bessie Smith's niece Ruby Walker Smith who toured with Bessie for over a decade. No other book on Bessie is needed. You can't find all these great interviews w/ relatives and friends in another book. And the great thing is this one is written well. Not a dry biography but one with enough candor and insight to make Bessie seem alive.
"See that long lonesome road, Lawd you know it's gonna end, and I'm a good woman and I can get plenty of men."
Great Book on a True Queen.......2004-01-12
Bessie smith was Hip-Hop before it had a name.She was a One Woman Business&went through so Much.not only One of the Greatest Artists Ever but also a Woman who battled&did Her thing Her own way. Her music still knocks me out&she had a edge about Herself.this Book is very detailed&does her Justice&covers so much. a Must read&have.
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