Roy Eldridge: Little Jazz Giant (Bayou Jazz Lives) - Hardcover

Chilton, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826456928 ISBN 13: 9780826456922

Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2002

Synopsis

This biography charts the life and career of the trumpeter, Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge, whose style is universally recognised as the all-important link between the playing of Louis Armstrong and the achievements of modernist, Dizzy Gillespie. The indignities he experienced and overcame during the 1940s while working in otherwise all-white ensembles proved he was as bold a social pioneer as he was a performer. John Chilton, who knew Eldridge for many years, presents a picture of a fiery yet sensitive individual who never shunned candour, and who was at his happiest when playing the trumpet. New light is shed on the various occasions when Eldridge unwillingly became entangled with gangsters in New York and Chicago, and there are revealing details about Eldridge's uneven working relationship with Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie.

About this title

Review:

"John Chilton has written another important biography of a great jazz musician. At the end of his very last chapter he sums it up very well, 'Roy happily left an enormous legacy in the shape of so many momentous recordings featuring his irrepressible ingenuity; he was someone who always shared his emotions with his listeners.'" -Mississippi Rag "This invaluable new biography by Chilton, one of the world's leading jazz writers, takes advantage of the author's firsthand experiences as a jazz trumpeter who played alongside Eldridge in big bands and late-night jam session. Chilton's lifelong hobby of collecting biographical information about jazz musicians provides much of the detail that allows this biography to transcend the merely factual....At the end of the biographical chapters, readers will find nearly 100 pages devoted to Eldridge's recordings, a pleasant surprise for those for whom Chilton has motivated to listen again (or for the first time) to some of these unforgettable performances." Library Journal

About the Author:

John Chilton devides his time between being a professional jazz trumpeter and writing books on jazz; in 2000 he won the British Jazz Award for being 'Writer of the Year.'

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0826456928
• ISBN 13: 9780826456922
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400