The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ratliff, the jazz critic for the New York Times, spent just over two years interviewing jazz greats for a recurring feature at the paper: rather than ask musicians like Pat Metheny or Dianne Reeves to name their favorite records, Ratliff sat with them as they listened to songs and picked out the qualities they found most artistically compelling. The approach brings some surprises, as his subjects pick everything from Ukrainian cantorial music to Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Fifth Dimension, but each chapter brings provocative insights and will have readers scurrying to track down various records. (Ratliff also provides a listening guide for each of his interviewees.) Though each chapter stands alone, connections are made from one interview to the next; Metheny and Joshua Redman, for example, both select songs from Sonny Rollins. The interview with Redman also hints at Ratliff's argument in his 2007 Coltrane: The Story of a Sound about jazz as a collaborative medium, while Branford Marsalis speaks candidly about young musicians' failure to understand the melodic legacy they've inherited, then plays a jazz-influenced piece by Stravinsky to make his point. Whether you're a seasoned listener or just discovering the form, Ratliff is a wonderful guide. (Nov. 11)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Admirers of jazz should be deeply thankful for Ratliff, New York Times jazz critic and author of Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. Jazz is perhaps the most elusive art form to discuss and critique, and Ratliff's latest book fills a vacuum in the realm of understanding jazz. Originally published as a series in the New York Times, the 15 conversations presented here consist of Ratliff sitting down with such diverse and talented luminaries as Sonny Rollins, Pat Metheny, Paul Motian, and Dianne Reeves. The treasure of these conversations is not just their fluid and intimate manner but their focus on the recordings that had the greatest influence on the artists and their musical paths. Ratliff's insight that one may understand musicians more by discussing the music that moves them rather than the music they have created results in a unique rendering of some of the major jazz artists of our time. An added bonus is the recommended-listening section, in which Ratliff shares his list of his subjects' seminal recordings. Highly recommended for all libraries.—Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Times Books (October 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080509086X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805090864
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #82,039 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #11 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Jazz
  #70 in	Books > Entertainment > Music > Musical Genres > Jazz
  #74 in	Books > Entertainment > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance > Appreciation

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mysteries of Jazz, November 12, 2008

By	Mark Hugh Miller (Cooperstown, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music (Hardcover)

As with any rewarding relationship, listening is central to creating a genuine friendship with jazz. Ben Ratliff's conversations with some of the living masters of the music suggest paths you may take. Ultimately, it is the music that matters most, and each of us will find our own way to it. This book offers insights that will enrich even a longtime jazz aficionado's appreciation and enjoyment of this uniquely dynamic music, which can never really be explained in words. But this is no less a fascinating book. It's a gem, one I suspect will interest and inform readers for a long time.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jazz Is a Spacious House, February 4, 2009

By	David Keymer "David Keymer" (Modesto CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music (Hardcover)

Since I'm going to voice concerns about jazz writing in general, let me start by saying that I like this book a lot. I read it in one sitting and I underlined numerous passages to copy. Having said that....

Jazz is my favorite and longest held music, but unlike classical music, it suffers from a dearth of serious, sustained popular critical writing. There are exceptions to this statement, most notably Gunther Schuller's studies of early swing and Ellington. Some jazz musicians, principally composers and arrangers, have written at length on how to construct a jazz piece and do a solo. But most books on jazz today for a lay audience are either biographical or reminiscent in nature (John Szwed on Sun Ra and Miles, Andy Hamilton on Lee Konitz, Laurence Bergreen on Louis Armstrong, Bill Crow's hilarious and fascinating anecdotes about the jazz life) or journals and reviews (Whitney Balliett's Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1951-2000, Gene Lees's and Balliett's essays on various pop and jazz singers, countless collections of interviews). Even Gary Giddins's Visions of Jazz: The First Century, a book I like a great deal, is basically a collection of occasional essays, relieved by a few record reviews (e.g., of Hank Jones and Charlie Haden's Steal Away).

Ben Ratliff has been jazz critic at the New York Times since 1996. He knows the jazz scene, he knows his music and he writes sympathetically and perceptively about this elusive American music. This is a good book. I read it in one sitting. I had read it all it four hours after I picked it up and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Nonetheless, I was frustrated that it didn't do more than it does.

The hook in this highly readable collection of essays is that Ratliff asked a number of prominent jazz musicians to pick recordings, a maximum of six, to listen to and talk about with him. They didn't have to be jazz recordings. Several weren't: Wayne Shorter wanted to listen to Vaughan Williams, Pat Metheny to Bach and Ornette Coleman to a Jewish cantor recorded in 1916; Maria Schneider chose Martha Argerich's recording of the Ravel piano concerto in G major and Branford Marsalis selected Stravinsky and Wagner). One rule applied: they couldn't select a recording on which they themselves played. One musician, Ornette Coleman, refused to comply with that rule but then, Coleman has seldom followed other people's rules. Ratliff's idea was that in talking about others' music, his artists would reveal much about their own musical history, preferences and ideas. He was right. They did. The result is a set of fascinating interviews with some of the most important and representative artists in jazz today. In addition to the artists mentioned above, they include such luminaries as Bob Brookmeyer, Hank Jones, Dianne Reeves, Branford Marsalis Joshua Redman, Roy Haynes, Paul Motian, and Andrew Hill.

It's not a fault of this book to say that I wish he had included some other musicians. I would love to have heard from more musicians who live on the fringes of success -Roscoe Mitchell or Muhal Richard Abrams, for instance, from the AACM; soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, who seems to owe allegiance to no one except herself and has been woefully neglected b y listeners; David Murray, my personal favorite among modernists; Billy Bang; William Parker. And I hope someday someone writes about the European modernists, from Peter Brotzman and Evan Parker and Hann Bennink and Derek Bailey to Enrico Rava, Tomasz Stanko, Gianluigi Trovesi and Stefano Bollano.

Jazz is a spacious house. It's not to Ratliff's discredit that he hasn't spread his net wider, but I hope he keeps writing this series. And I hope that someday he combines his insights into this fragile, evanescent, glorious music and produces a capacious study of the music's sources, strengths and techniques.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For all music lovers, December 19, 2008

By	J. Hoff (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music (Hardcover)

What a novel concept to take the world's best living jazz artists and ask them to bring five or six pieces with them to discuss. Then have a conversation about music and what is important to them in the pieces they have chosen. This will appeal to all music lovers, not just jazz afficionados, as the first conversation with Wayne Shorter describing why he likes Ralph Vaughan Williams's symphonies can attest. A great selection of living jazz legends - Shorter, Metheny, Rollins, Coleman, Redman, Marsalis, et al. Highly recommended.