[audiobook] Harry T. Burleigh: From the Spiritual to the Harlem Renaissance (Music in American Life) by Jean E Snyder at Arts-Photography

Description

Of all the styles of jazz to emerge in the twentieth century; none is more passionate; more exhilaratingly up-tempo; or more steeped in an outsider tradition than Gypsy Jazz. And there is no one more qualified to write about Gypsy Jazz than Michael Dregni; author of the acclaimed biography; Django.A vagabond music; Gypsy Jazz is played today in French Gypsy bars; Romany encampments; on religious pilgrimages--and increasingly on the worlds greatest concert stages. Yet its story has never been told; in part because much of its history is undocumented; either in written form or often even in recorded music. Beginning with Django Reinhardt; whose dazzling Gypsy Jazz became the toast of 1930s Paris in the heady days of Josephine Baker; Picasso; and Hemingway; Dregni follows the music as it courses through caravans on the edge of Paris; where todays young French Gypsies learn Gypsy Jazz as a rite of passage; along the Gypsy pilgrimage route to Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer where the Romany play around their campfires; and finally to the new era of international Gypsy stars such as Bireli Lagrene; Boulou Ferre; Dorado Schmitt; and Djangos own grandchildren; David Reinhardt and Dallas Baumgartner. Interspersed with Dregnis vivid narrative are the words of the musicians themselves; many of whom have never been interviewed for the American press before; as they describe what the music means to them. Gypsy Jazz also includes a chapter devoted entirely to American Gypsy musicians who remain largely unknown outside their hidden community.Blending travelogue; detective story; and personal narrative; Gypsy Jazz is music history at its best; capturing the history and culture of this elusive music--and the soul that makes it swing.