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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Built upon interviews with musicians, family and colleagues, this admiring biography delivers a solid portrait of the famed 20th-century critic, journalist and producer. Known for his square crew cut, protuberant eyes and toothy grin, the sometimes arrogant, blues-loving Vanderbilt heir "seemed to know what America wanted to hear before America knew it," writes first-time author Prial. Besides recording Bessie Smith's last studio sessions and Billie Holiday's first, Hammond is the nudge that gets Count Basie to leave Kansas City and the driving force behind Benny Goodman's decision to integrate his band by adding black vibraphonist Lionel Hampton—all this roughly two decades before he signs Bob Dylan to Columbia Records. Prial's sedulous work pays off in the consistency of his narrative. His even-toned, chronological book is light on anecdotes, but his smart use of music histories, jazz autobiographies and Hammond's own Downbeat and Melody Maker writings results in an impressive and authoritative text. Moreover, Prial's insights into Hammond's youth and two marriages transform his work from the tale of a jazz buff with money into an engaging study of a man with two obsessions—"making music and promoting social reform." (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Late in the evening of July 7, 1957, Count Basie and his orchestra took the stage to wrap up that year's Newport Jazz Festival. The all-black band was introduced by a tall, skinny, crew-cut white guy with a voice so plummy as to border on unintentional self-parody. I was there and remember it vividly, but anybody can hear it on the album "Basie at Newport," and to this day almost everybody is likely to agree that the contrast between the Manhattanite voice and the down-home Kansas City band is just about too exquisitely hilarious to be true.
Starred Review. Built upon interviews with musicians, family and colleagues, this admiring biography delivers a solid portrait of the famed 20th-century critic, journalist and producer. Known for his square crew cut, protuberant eyes and toothy grin, the sometimes arrogant, blues-loving Vanderbilt heir "seemed to know what America wanted to hear before America knew it," writes first-time author Prial. Besides recording Bessie Smith's last studio sessions and Billie Holiday's first, Hammond is the nudge that gets Count Basie to leave Kansas City and the driving force behind Benny Goodman's decision to integrate his band by adding black vibraphonist Lionel Hampton—all this roughly two decades before he signs Bob Dylan to Columbia Records. Prial's sedulous work pays off in the consistency of his narrative. His even-toned, chronological book is light on anecdotes, but his smart use of music histories, jazz autobiographies and Hammond's own Downbeat and Melody Maker writings results in an impressive and authoritative text. Moreover, Prial's insights into Hammond's youth and two marriages transform his work from the tale of a jazz buff with money into an engaging study of a man with two obsessions—"making music and promoting social reform." (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Late in the evening of July 7, 1957, Count Basie and his orchestra took the stage to wrap up that year's Newport Jazz Festival. The all-black band was introduced by a tall, skinny, crew-cut white guy with a voice so plummy as to border on unintentional self-parody. I was there and remember it vividly, but anybody can hear it on the album "Basie at Newport," and to this day almost everybody is likely to agree that the contrast between the Manhattanite voice and the down-home Kansas City band is just about too exquisitely hilarious to be true.
But it was, and is, no joke. The speaker was John Hammond, and he deserved to be there. Though little-known beyond the innermost circles of American popular music, Hammond was a man of almost incalculable influence on that music. Twenty years earlier, after hearing the Basie band on the radio -- the band was cele