Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

You Can't Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat

4/5 ( ratings)

In this wise, stimulating, and deeply personal book, an eminent jazz chronicler writes of his encounters with four great black musicians: Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Milt Hinton, and Nat "King" Cole. Equal parts memoir, oral history, and commentary, each of the main chapters is a minibiography, weaving together conversations Gene Lees had with the musicians and their families, friends, and associates over a period of several decades.

Lees begins the book with an essay that tells of his introduction to the world of jazz and his reaction to racism in the United States when he emigrated from Canada in 1955. The underlying theme in his book is the impact racism had on the four musicians’ lives and careers and their determination to overcome it. As Lees writes, “No white person can even begin to understand the black experience in the United States. . . . All [of the four jazz makers] are men who had every reason to embrace bitterness—and didn’t.”

Language: English

Pages: 288

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Yale University Press

Release: October 11, 2001

ISBN: 0300089651

ISBN 13: 9780300089653

You Can't Steal a Gift: Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat

4/5 ( ratings)

In this wise, stimulating, and deeply personal book, an eminent jazz chronicler writes of his encounters with four great black musicians: Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Milt Hinton, and Nat "King" Cole. Equal parts memoir, oral history, and commentary, each of the main chapters is a minibiography, weaving together conversations Gene Lees had with the musicians and their families, friends, and associates over a period of several decades.

Lees begins the book with an essay that tells of his introduction to the world of jazz and his reaction to racism in the United States when he emigrated from Canada in 1955. The underlying theme in his book is the impact racism had on the four musicians’ lives and careers and their determination to overcome it. As Lees writes, “No white person can even begin to understand the black experience in the United States. . . . All [of the four jazz makers] are men who had every reason to embrace bitterness—and didn’t.”

Language: English

Pages: 288

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Yale University Press

Release: October 11, 2001

ISBN: 0300089651

ISBN 13: 9780300089653

More books from Nat Hentoff

The Day They Came to Arrest the Book

3.3/5 ( ratings)

Hear Me Talkin' To Ya

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Jazz Is

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Boston Boy: Growing up with Jazz and Other Rebellious Passions

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Jazz Country

3.8/5 ( ratings)

The Jazz Life

3.9/5 ( ratings)

This School is Driving Me Crazy

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Listen to the Stories: On Jazz and Country Music

3.9/5 ( ratings)

The War on the Bill of Rights—and the Gathering Resistance

3.4/5 ( ratings)

The Jazz Image: Masters of Jazz Photography

4.6/5 ( ratings)

At the Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Knockin' on Dylan's Door: On the Road in 74

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Jazz: New Perspectives On The History Of Jazz By Twelve Of The World's Foremost Jazz Critics And Scholars

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?