Throughout jazz history there have been nightclubs where the music and the atmosphere live on to become legendary, like Minton's in Harlem or Lincoln Gardens in Chicago. In Paris in the late 1940's , it was Aerobleu -- notorious for its all-night jam sessions and its enigmatic owner, Max Morgan. In the heady chaos and excitement of postwar Paris, in a time that was every bit as shadowy, as sensual, as idealistic as it was reported to be, all paths crossed at Aerobleu. Drawn by a feverish mix of music and martinis, Janet Flanner, Hemingway, Picasso, and Bogart all flocked to hear the best jazz this side of Harlem. And when Max Morgon won an old DC-3 in an all-night poker game, Miles Davis and Max Roach were there, giving flight to the music in legendary jam sessions en route to New York, Paris, London, and New Orleans. In the late 1950s, the ever-elusive Max Morgan disappeared, vanishing mysteriously from Havana, leaving behind some of the best jazz ever played and a state of mind that has come to be known as "Aerobleu."
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Ostensibly written by Leslie Nash, a young American woman who flees to Europe after becoming pregnant, this novel-as-diary is the companion to Aerobleu Pilot's Journal. Both tell the story of Club Aerobleu, the hottest jazz spot in post-war Paris. Nash, bartender at the club, observes the comings and goings of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Jean Paul Sartre, and a young Jimmy Carter, among dozens of other mid-20th-century celebrities and celebrities-to-be. She also observes, and falls in love with, the bar's mysterious and sullen owner, American pilot Max Morgan. Trying to discover his secrets, she beds the spies who come looking for him and tries to trace the routes of his cryptic flights to Cuba and other cold-war trouble spots. Combined with Pilot's Journal, Observations from the Bar presents a story from two perspectives, but still leaves much unsaid, giving the novel a literary quality that lifts it above its name-dropping and beautiful packaging.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sultry glimpse into the past,
This review is from: Observations from the Bar (Hardcover)
Quite an unexpected book find. A sultry glimpse into the past, hearts, minds and nightlife of an elusive era. Flipping through the watermarked pages of the diary, the reader is transported back to the ambiance of Aerobleu's smoke-filled atmosphere of cool jazz. A wonderful romantic journey through someone else's eyes. I also highly recommend the Martini Diaries also written by Leslie Ann Nash.
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