In a series of fictional portraits, Geoff Dyer captures the beating heart of jazz, its pathos and lyricism, urgency and self-destruction: Charlie Mingus in New York; Art Pepper in prison; Lester Young in the Alvin; Bud Powell in Paris. 'Drawing on how he hears the music of people like Mingus, Monk, Bud Powell, Art Pepper and Lester Young, Dyer has constructed eight variations like highly concentrated novels, 80 per cent proof swigs of fiction. The result, I think, is brilliant.His attempts to recreate the drug-fogged, music-drenched, reality-melting, racism-crazed insides of the minds of people like Powell, Mingus, Webster and Chet Baker are unnervingly effective. So too, are his pen-portraits of their music .his long postscript on jazz today shows that he can operate as a lucid and catholic jazz critic as well' Miles Kington, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
But Beautiful
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'A little gem' -- Keith Jarrett
'Remarkable...there can be few books on jazz written with such tenderness and care.' Adam Lively, -- TLS
'Swings Geoff Dyer straight into the front line of writers' -- THE TIMES
'Remarkable...there can be few books on jazz written with such tenderness and care.' Adam Lively, -- TLS
'Swings Geoff Dyer straight into the front line of writers' -- THE TIMES
About the Author
Geoff Dyer was born in 1958. His book BUT BEAUTIFUL: A BOOK ABOUT JAZZ, won the Somerset Maugham Prize & was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys orial Prize. His essays & reviews appear in the INDEPENDENT, NEW STATESMAN & SOCIETY.
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful: A Book about Jazz is much more than an extended critical essay on a still-evolving, vital musical genre and a great deal more than fictional portrayals of Jazz legends. Here, Dyer focuses his considerable talents on creating a kind of Jazz-in-print, seeking to emulate the frenzied riffing, explosive spontaneity and creative interplay, which has given Jazz music so much more vitality than many other genres' created in the 20th century. Without question, one would have to agree that he has succeeded, totally to the readers' enrichment.
But Beautiful hits the reader on several levels; we are taken on a series of journeys into the lives, thoughts, conversations and seminal events of eight Jazz musicians. Between each chapter is inserted a fictional, road-tripping almost ghostly presence of Duke Ellington, a father figure of modern Jazz who may well have known, recorded and very likely influenced all eight men whom Dyer chose to write/riff about. What's real about the eight musicians are the bare-bones facts known to many Jazz fans; Lester Young court-martialed by the Army because of an inability to cope with a racist Drill Sergeant, Chet Baker's teeth knocked out by an angry drug dealer in a seedy, San Francisco diner, Art Pepper sentenced to five years in prison on a Heroin possession conviction and so on. What's possible, and perhaps no less real to the reader are the details of their lives, their anguish and the self-destructive passions which attend the day to day living of so many creative people. Dyer draws these details in part through listening to the music and inspiration gained by looking at photographs of some of the musicians. 'Not as they were but as they appear to me....' Dyer asks the reader to see the musicians as he sees them, to believe in the memory of what these photos inspired. The men and their lives are portrayed, much like Jazz itself, with a kind of heart-stopping intensity and a poignant, empathetic acknowledgement of lives spent creating and being swallowed whole by the gift that makes creation possible. On Thelonious Monk; "Whatever it was inside him was very delicate, he had to keep it very still, slow himself right down so that nothing affected it." On Ben Webster; "He carried his loneliness around with him like an instrument case. It never left his side."
Very little, insightful criticism or critical essays have been produced regarding Jazz and the people who play it and live it. Dyer has done more than write mere history or criticism in But Beautiful, he has written (and played) a genre-exploding, lyrical meditation on Jazz and on the terrifying, exhilarating possibilities of the music itself and what ought to be recognized as a new form of fictional riffing.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This may well be the best book ever written about jazz. If you're not a jazz lover, But Beautiful is the book to make you one.
Each chapter is an episode from the lives of the genre's greats and explores the psyche of jazz musicians in exquisite form. The reader is taken, with great sensitivity, into the darker side of these peoples' personalities and the toll the jazz lifestyle sadly takes on them: Lester Young's struggle against racism, the psychotic tendencies of Charlie Mingus, Art Pepper's appetite for self-destruction and the drug addiction of other greats are just a few examples of such themes.
My favourite line in the whole book would have to be the following part of the author's description of Ben Webster:
"Watching him heave the saxophone case down from the rack like he was going to show you photos of his loved ones -which is exactly what he was going to do-..."
There's simply not a bad line in this book. Read it, you won't be disappointed.
Each chapter is an episode from the lives of the genre's greats and explores the psyche of jazz musicians in exquisite form. The reader is taken, with great sensitivity, into the darker side of these peoples' personalities and the toll the jazz lifestyle sadly takes on them: Lester Young's struggle against racism, the psychotic tendencies of Charlie Mingus, Art Pepper's appetite for self-destruction and the drug addiction of other greats are just a few examples of such themes.
My favourite line in the whole book would have to be the following part of the author's description of Ben Webster:
"Watching him heave the saxophone case down from the rack like he was going to show you photos of his loved ones -which is exactly what he was going to do-..."
There's simply not a bad line in this book. Read it, you won't be disappointed.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book describes perfectly the culture surrounding Jazz in the 1950s, just as the style became synonymous with alcohol, drugs, and rebellion against the mainstream. Dyer takes an approach to the characters he describes that merges the factual and the fictitious in such a way that it becomes unimportant just how much is true and how much is literary improvisation. What counts is the overall impression given, and this is done very sensitively. There are some beautiful images and lines, and the intensely sad is balanced with a beautiful touch of tenderness. I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates Jazz, and can promise you will never listen to all that 'old stuff' in the same way again. I would also recommend it to anyone who loves top quality writing, because this is a fine example.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
dyer's best
Dyer's best book, even if you have no interest in jazz or a slight aversion, it makes you want to listen
to the music. Read more
to the music. Read more
Published 4 months ago by weeks
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetry and Music Combined
Every now and again along comes a book which inexplicably gets overlooked by the great populace but which nevertheless has lasting influence and affection. Read more
Published on 23 Sep 2009 by Graeme Wright
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing blend
I got this for my son who is a student of the saxophone in Manchester; although it blurs fact and fiction it is a really good read with some wonderful insights about those hugely... Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2009 by Dr. Peter G. Upton
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not so beautiful really!
Dyer has produced an interesting enough collection of jazz profiles - part real/part imagined. The repetition of the rather seedy drugs,drink and jail tales becomes rather... Read more
Published on 9 July 2009 by J. Miller
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly Original
Wow what a great little book. Dyer takes a genuinely original approach (pretty rare these days) and it comes off beautifully. As soon as I'd finished it I started reading it again. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely beautiful
This book is just that, beautiful! The writing is almost a musical experience in itself. I keep rereading random passages out loud.
Published on 28 Aug 2003 by "briancopsey2"
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous jazz fiction
Geoff Dyer completes the seemingly impossible - to get inside the drug-addled minds of various jazz greats - with ease. Read more
Published on 7 July 1999
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