Customer Reviews

Black Talk (Da Capo Paperback)

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"Bad" is jazz argot for "great," which this book certainly isn't. Not that the book is misleading or unreadable. But in the post-Wynton era, the most constructive efforts have been toward taking jazz beyond the obvious, overly familiar, acceptance of its place in an oral cultural tradition. (Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" were improvised, oral poems delivered in a culture that had no written alphabet, but where does this take us?). To get a keener understanding of why jazz is not simply a folk tradition but an art form, about what makes jazz different from rap and hip-hop, the reader should attend to the analyses of Gunther Schuller, Wynton Marsalis, Billy Taylor. For penetrating and provocative insights into the oral basis of the music, the reader should examine Leroi Jones' "Blues People." Or for an "oral history" of the music itself, the reader couldn't do better than Shapiro and Hentoff's "Hear Me Talking to Ya." Were it not for the author's reknown as a popular performer, it's doubtful this book would remain in print, at least not without substantial revision and expansion.

I strongly disagree with the reader from Kenosha, WI, who claims that this book is obvious and dated. When it was first published, nobody had ever attempted to take the oral tradition of black music seriously. Sidran's book was the first real go at such an approach, and for that alone, it's required reading for any musician with an interest in black music forms. It is true that his thoughts are everywhere today, and that some of his ideas have become canon-like, but why should that stop us from reading them? Like the reader from Kenosha, WI, we are all free to disagree with Mr.Sidran's line of thought. Personally, I find the book a lot more interesting than any of his recordings. It is well written, at at times even entertaining.

Mr. Sidran is a songwriter, singer and jazz pianist. He holds a doctorate in American Studies from Sussex University and has hosted a number of National Public Radio programs on jazz involving weekly interviews with Jazz musicians, the latter forming the basis for his work "Talking Jazz: An Oral History" [1992]. In this work, Mr. Sidran helps us understand that the basis for many of the unique Black contributions to the creation of Jazz music stem from the fact that these features were derived from the African oral cultural tradition. He goes on to explain that an oral culture is different from a literate culture [i.e.: European] since it is based on speech which is an improvisational and spontaneous act. In "Black Talk," Mr. Sidran discusses how singular elements of black music such as a "vocalized tone" and a "peculiarly black approach to rhythm" helped Jazz evolve into a unique American art form. One of the most, instructive, illuminating and unique books about Jazz ever written.

Obvious, redundant, dated. Those in search of the jazz tradition would be bettered served by earlier texts by Marshall Stearns or Martin Williams.