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The Parisian Jazz Chronicles An Improvisational Memoir  Mike
ZwerinYale University Press, 2005 Hardback. 230pp. b&w illustrations £15.99
Many jazz fans will know Mike Zwerin from his witty, irreverent, and undeniably hip music reviews and articles that have entertained us for decades in the International Herald Tribune. Based in Paris, or rather stuck there, as Zwerin likes to say, he has been a music critic for the Trib since 1979. Zwerin also had a distinguished career as a trombonist. When he was just eighteen years old, he was invited by Miles Davis to play alongside Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis and Max Roach in the band that was immortalized as The Birth of the Cool. The Parisian Jazz Chronicles offers an engaging personal account of the jazz scene in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s. Zwerin writes lovingly but unsparingly about figures he knew and interviewed - such as Dexter Gordon, Freddy Heineken, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Chet Baker, Wayne Shorter, and Melvin Van Peebles. Against this background, Zwerin tells about his own life - split allegiances to journalism and music, and to America and France, his battle for sobriety, a failing marriage, and fatherhood. MIKE ZWERIN has been a music columnist for the International Herald Tribune since 1979 and, since 2005, for Bloomberg News. A world class trombonist, he has played with Miles Davis, Earl Hines, Eric Dolphy, and other jazz legends. CONTENTS: |
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© Jazzscript 2002 Wendover Bookshop, 35 High Street, Wendover, Bucks, United Kingdom HP22 6DU tel / fax: +44 (0)1296 696204 | email |
In
his Beat-like jaunt through the Parisian and European jazz scene, Mike
Zwerin is not unlike Jack Kerouac, Mezz Mezzrow, or Hunter S. Thompson
- writers to whom, for different reasons, he owes some allegiance. What
makes him special is his devotion to the troubled musicians he idolizes,
and a passion for music that is blessedly contagious. 