What are you reading?

[Kenny]

For a decade or more I was a member of the Atheneaum Library, but then a year or so ago I got sick of the fees versus what seemed like fewer and fewer books I wanted to read.

These days, I survive mostly on 2nd hand bookshops, loans from friends and what's left around the office, that latter being am effective manner of stumbling into books I'd never normally peruse.

My (very) occasional purchase is saved for music bios - am looking forward to the Jelly Roll Bio and the new Penguin, although I think I've sorted out a way to snag a freebie of that one!

The Pyjama Girl Mystery - Richard Evans. Story of the 1934 murder senastion in Albury. Unlike most Oz true crime books, this is quite well written, with effective if fleeting glimpses of the press, Sydney, rural society and so on. Intriguing.

Deep In A Dream - James Gavin. Working my way through this Chet Baker bio there's nothing better around. Truly gruesome stuff, as you'd expect. I have stacks of Chet music, but it's always the other players who appeal - I'm a fully fledged west coast fool by now - while his own playing leaves me cold. Halfway through, me reaction is the same as when I finished the Bill Evans bio - what a complete and utter arsehole.

Mystic River - Dennis Lehane. My mum left this on her last visit. I was put off by the spectre of Sean Penn in a Clint flick, but now that I've started it - hey, it's pretty good.

Lost Chords (White Musicians And Their Contribution To azz 1915-1945) - Richard M Sudhalter. Picked this up in a sale for $10. Incredible stuff on Bunny Berrigan, Bix Buy-Me-A-Becks, Jack Teagarden, Joe Venuti, Miff Mole, Adrian Rollini, Bud Freeman, bby Hackett and so on. Makes me wish I had more stuff by these boys. Berrigan like watching while his band memebrs got it on with hookers - for which he paid!

[galaxian]

about to start 'lady sings the blues' billie holiday with william dufty.

when do u have time to work kenny? all this listening and reading that goes on in your life...... or do you just not sleep? mmm perhaps you are someone or.....something.... that doesnt need sleep? spooky.

[Kenny]

Good question.

I guess my reading has got back up to a couple of books a month now that Bennie's a bit older. I wish my train commute was longer than 20 minutes - that's some good reading time!

I also read about half a dozen newspapers a day, but that's kinda work really.

When Bennie was younger, it seemed like I was down to a couple of books every six months. Yeeech! BFORE that it was more like 3-4 books a WEEK. Life changes etc etc.

I do enjoy reading AND playing music at the same time at home. And playing music AND cooking. Which is why I loathe music DVDs. Geez, TV's bad enough as it is.

I manage to listen to quite a bit of music at work, through headphones - but work comes into that, as I have to listen to all the new releases every week.

Other than that, I usually manage 1-2 nights a week of 3-6 hours just playing discs, reading and thinking about the next radio show. I guess that's pretty good for the full-time working dad of a three-year-old!

The one thing that has badly suffered with the whole family thing is gig-going, both the lateness of the gigs and the lack of space to fit 'em in.

[VHB]

Tears of the Giraffe

[Kenny]

Finally got around to buying Ted Gioia's West Coast Jazz. I borrowed it about 5 years from G Koster but couldn't get into it. This time around it's a joy - particularly as I seem to have amassed most of the key recordings, so can play the music as I read about it. Enlightening.

Did you know Hampton Hawes was born with six fingers on each hand, but had them removed when he was just three days' old? Wow - imagine what a monster he would've become had they let the extra digits be. (aside from going down the heroin road with so many others ...)

[Uncle Bob]

What am I reading? This computer screen.

[Thin King]

The man without Qualities: thought you might like a small and interesting quote:
"For what distinguishes a great, stirring idea from an ordinary one, possibly even from an incredibly orginary and mistaken one, is that it exists in a kid of molten state through which the self enters an infinite expanse and, inversely, the expanse of the univers enters the self, so that it becomes impossible to differentiate between what belongs to the self and what belongs to the infinite. This is why great, stirring ideas consist of a body, which like the human body is compact yet frail, and of an immortal soul, which constitutes its meaning but is not compact; on the contrary, it dissolves into thin air at every attempt to grab hold of it in cold words." pg 113-114 Vintage International Books, NY, 1996.
Somehow it incites the idea that jazz is an ocean of great ideas, ungraspable but experiential. When a player is in that place, that zone, you can't help but in retrospect wonder at the magnificence of the silent self spell-bound in the experience... Swimming with great ideas.
Amoung other readings... too many to write, but my bookshelf broke under their weight the other day, so yesterday I built a new one, sturdy as...
tk