Good books about music

I have that book and like to look at the pictures but it is so off-the-wall that I haven't been able to really read it so far.

Two-thirds of the way through the Charlie Louvin autobiography ― ratso piazzolla (James Redd and the Blecchs

You are the king of reading books about music. I am impressed. Seriously, I take forever to get through books.

The trick is to post before you've actually finished or even read much of the book at all.

The singer of DC band Edie Sedgwick does an ocassional column for the Washington City Paper blog called "5 Books I would read if I had the time."

Well gosh, these seem enticing (he btws sev right at the end)
http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/Music-for-Lovers/ba-p/8231

So glad I finally read The Rest Is Noise. (how is Listen To This?)

http://operachic.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c83e69e20128773a6dd4970c-400wi

You ready to sign on for some Sibelius, Dick Strauss and Feldman now, dow?

I haven't read Listen To This yet, but it's basically an expanded collection of his NYer pieces, right? In which case, go for it definitely.

btws sev = ?

He mentions several other books right toward the end, almost off-handedly or something. Jon, Ross has me more interested in getting back into Messiaen, and checking out the great villain/fabulous ahole of the book, Boulez--wotta punk!

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/26/155293473/aretha-einstein-and-knowing-too-much

A new Anthony Heilbut book looks good

The Fan Who Knew Too Much--Aretha Franklin, the Rise of the Soap Opera, Children of the Gospel Church, and Other Meditations

Sounds intriguing

But hating on Robert Johnson, not a good look.

I agree but it seems to be the thing to do now. I can't find it right now, but I just read something making arguments against him

Wasn't that other book by the author of The Beatles Weren't So Hot After All or whatever it was called, was it?

Just started reading the Charlie Louvin book. Holy shit — the part about how he and Ira had a bulldog mate with one of their dad's prized coonhounds. The resulting litter prompted quite the extreme reaction.

that was hilarious and O_o

Really liked David Browne's book on 1970. (Waited an extra six months, not realizing I'd ordered the trade paperback of a book that was already out.) It was a little like Mark Harris's Pictures at a Revolution: it's a great story, just get out of the way and tell it.

Reminds me, doesn't Ken Scott have a new book out?

Yes he does. It's called Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust: Off The Record with the Beatles, Bowie, Elton & So Much More.

Still thinking baout reading that Ben Sandmel Ernie K Doe book.

Wonder how this is--more on storyamp.com (incl zen "saved Cage from himself")

John Cage and the Music of Zen -- the biography

John Cage's immense contribution to the arts - and to music by Brian Eno and Philip Glass, Morton Feldman and Pierre Boulez, Nam June Paik and La Monte Young - has a crucial yet invisible Zen component.

A new biography, "Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Life of Artists" (Penguin Press, 2012), by critic Kay Larson (New York Magazine, the New York Times), makes visible the music of Cage's Zen path.

In the 1950s, Cage heard lectures on Zen by the great Japanese scholar D. T. Suzuki. These ancient teachings spoke to Cage as though meant just for him. He wrote music based on Zen principles of indeterminacy and chance, and a “silent piece” (4’33”) that honors Suzuki’s teachings. Cage’s transformation became ground zero in a new international postmodern art, music, and performance avant-garde that still honors him as pioneer.

Early press:

"Without a doubt, the richest, most stimulating, most absorbing book I've read in the past year, if not decade. . . ." -- Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"Tough-minded even when working at high levels of abstraction, Where the Heart Beats is one of the most profound, not to mention unexpected, gifts imaginable during John Cage's centennary year." -- Seth Colter Wells, Slate.

"A thoroughly researched and wittily written guide to Cage and the Zen mind. There are delightful surprises and revelatory anecdotes on nearly every page." -- Larry Lipkis, LIbrary Journal.

got the new ted gioia book Jazz Standards from the library -- really entertaining stories behind a couple hundred classics. occasionally drifts into stuff that's more directed at musicians, but for the most part very readable.

Be interested to see that. I have dipped into some of Philip Furia's books on the subject.

John Cage and the Music of Zen -- the biography
Have not read this, but did read What's Welsh For Zen? by his namesake John Cale.

translated into english for the first time, just went online for pre-order this week

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520265745

In Search of a Concrete Music
Pierre Schaeffer (Author), John Dack (Translator), Christine North (Translator)

Went to look for that Ted Gioia book but did not find it so I got Feeding Back instead which I dipped into on the way home. Seems like he does a good job of letting each guy state his case

definitely need to read that

Read the Tom Verlaine interview and skimmed the Zoot Horn Rollo one. Both guys were pretty careful and insightful in their statements

books on my shelf that i promise myself i will read this year:

the house that trane built - the story of impulse records - ashley kahn

worlds of sound - the story of smithsonian folkways - richard carlin

the liberation of sound - an introduction to electronic music - herbert russcol (from 1972. doubt its in print.)

celebrating bird - the triumph of charlie parker - gary giddins (i am really friggin' picky about who i read when it comes to jazz. even more so in my old age for some reason. i almost always prefer reading oral histories from musicians themselves when i can find them. or good autiobios by musicians. read that art taylor interview book and it kinda knocked me out. so when i pick up bird and bud books that look...i don't know...biased in some strange way (the mythos thing? the anecdotes spread around for decades?) they can really turn me off. had this bud book written by a french guy who took care of bud in france and it just really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. i mean the guy knew him and he can write whatever he wants but i dunno...just seemed off or weird. like graverobbing? maybe not that bad.)

i mean musicians can be biased too obviously but it seems easier to read between the lines when the people who made the music speak for themselves. that gil evans book i read last year - which was mostly comprised of extensive interviews with musicians and family - was one of the best books i've ever read. it wasn't perfect, but it was very satisfying. plus, i just loved 200+ pages of people saying nice things about one of my heroes.

sooo, you don't like that Giddins book about parker? i haven't read it, but i've liked some other giddins things. i wonder when stanley crouch will finish his supposedly definitive Bird bio, i think he's been talking about it for like 30 years. i imagine it will be extremely problematic, but hopefully in an entertaining way.
that impulse records book is not a work of genius but it is a fun read, and will get you listening to a bunch of great jazz.

i haven't read the giddins one yet. i'm gonna read it. i don't mind him. he's got knowledge. he does his homework. he has love in his heart.

yeah see i wouldn't want to read the crouch thing...i dunno he bugs me. i definitely find him problematic.

still wanna get rj smith james brown book. kinda dumb that i didn't get one from him at the emp conference. he was sitting right there with a big stack of them. but i'm kinda dumb.

that brown bio is the best new music bio i've read in a while. by a longshot, i think.
yeah crouch bugs me too, but he can be good when he's not trolling. from what i've read about his parker bio it's going to be *the* book on parker, just in terms of deep research. or maybe that's just what crouch has said, haha. i haven't really read a great book about parker, i would like for one to exist.

Anyone read that Art Pepper autobio/oral history his wife put together? It kind of reads like a jazz Memoirs of Vidocq or something in that ballpark. He's racist as hell, though, even though he has black friend up the wazoo.

friendS

how many of us have theM?

loL

I'm about three-quarters through Violence Girl, Alice Bag's memoir, and it has been a fantastic read.

It's like a manual on how to be fierce, fabulous, and big-hearted all at the same time.

The one thing that strikes me -and this will sound weird- is just how outright lovable LA's early punk scene was. In the spring of '77 it was basically three or four dozen kids from throughout the Basin, just months removed from severe Elton John / David Bowie / Freddie Mercury obsessions, converging in Hollywood to meet other "different" kids, form bands, and basically do all sorts of wacky 'avant-garde' arts-and-crafts projects together, like drawing flyers for shows and sewing up outfits. That ended up sounding more glib and silly than I intended, but there's something really beautiful and sweet about those early days.

You can order the book direct from her website, btw. http://alicebag.com/violencegirl.html

saw alice speak at the emp conference and she was great. she was with beck's mom for some reason and beck's mom spoke but she was kinda eh...

from David Byrne's newsletter:
Over the last few years I wrote a book that McSweeney’s is publishing in North America and Canongate in the UK. It’s called How Music Works and that’s what it's about. It examines how music is affected by a multitude of contexts—financial, technical, social, and architectural. There are personal anecdotes and pictures and some pie charts, as well.
This book in all its formats—physical, enhanced eBook, eBook, and audio book—will come out on September 12 in the US (and September 13 in the UK). The physical book is truly a lovely object—the McSweeney’s folks are known for this—so if you like to touch things, this is your best option. It’s large and slightly squishy. I gave my mom my advance author's copy for her birthday. The enhanced eBook has short audio snippets embedded to help you understand the kind of music played at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, for example… but you can’t touch an eBook. Each format caters to different senses.
David Byrne
Western Chelsea

Publisher's Weekly gives the advance word:
How Music Works
David Byrne. McSweeney’s, $32 (352p) ISBN 978-1-936365-53-1
In this fascinating meditation, Talking Heads frontman Byrne (Bicycle Diaries) explores how social and practical context, more than individual authorship, shaped music making in history and his own career. Touching on everything from bird-song and mirror neurons to the scene at CBGB, his wide-ranging treatment analyzes the effect of music venues (he theorizes that terrible stadium acoustics bias arena-rock bands toward plodding anthems), technology (sound recording induced opera singers to add vibrato), finances (he proffers balance sheets for two of his albums), and much else on the music we hear. He draws extensively from his own experiences, as his music shifted from the minimalism of early Talking Heads (“no ‘oh, babys’ or words that I wouldn’t use in in daily speech”) to complex theatricality; his chapters on Heads recording sessions are some of the most insightful accounts of musical creativity yet penned. The result is a surprising challenge to the romantic cliché of musical genius: rather than an upwelling of authentic feeling, he insists, “making music is like constructing a machine whose function is to dredge up emotions in performer and listener.” Byrne’s erudite and entertaining prose reveals him to be a true musical intellectual, with serious and revealing things to say about his art. Photos. (Sept. 21)
Reviewed on: 07/23/2012
Other Formats
Hardcover - 978-0-85786-250-1
Mo

hmmmm. Wonder if he has any catty comments about his former bandmates

He was the worst part of the band, by far.

At least as a performer.

http://i55.tinypic.com/fu9mqf.gif

lol! byrne was a pretty amazing performer imo.

Just reading the Pete Brown autobio White Rooms and Imaginary Westerns which is pretty interesting. Even if he does dismiss punk wholesale and Keith Richards too.
Have always enjoyed the music PB made at the turn of the 70s with Battered Ornaments and Piblokto! not heard the rest.

Oh yeah , neglected to mention that main reason I was looking at this list was to see waht had been said about Bob Mould's autobio which i just found a cheap hardback copy of. Thought I'd seen it slagged elsewhere but I do like Husker du's psychedelic era at least.
Funny sat down to read the intro/1st chapter while I had to wait somewhere earlier and wound up with Husker Du coming on my walkman as the next track on its random playlist.

Bob Mould comes off as the biggest dickhead in the universe in his autobio