| Abstract |
In 1986, jazz guitarist, banjoist, singer and composer Danny Barker published the first volume of his memoirs, A Life in Jazz, edited by Alyn Shipton, which was widely praised as an essential addition to the oral history of jazz. This book is a further selection of Barker's writings, beginning with a long portrait of Buddy Bolden, the "first man of jazz," drawn from conversations and interviews with the generation of jazzmen that invented the music. This is a vital, living portrait of Bolden recalled by such luminaries as Jelly Roll Morton and Bunk Johnson, both of whom were musicians Danny Barker knew and worked alongside, and it brings back to life turn-of-the-century New Orleans in minute detail. The book also contains Barker's own recollections of Storyville in its dying days, plus more material dating from his pioneering period of work in the big bands, with a memoir of trombonist Charlie Green, and of life on the road with Cab Calloway. Barker has included material from the "Jazzland Research Guild", an organization he founded in the 1940s to research the backgrounds of his colleagues in one of the first efforts by any black musician to document jazz history. Barker died in 1994 and the final text has been edited by Alyn Shipton from Barker's copious drafts and notes, plus transcripts of their conversations together. |
