[ebooks] Kentucky by Design: The Decorative Arts and American Culture by From The University Press of Kentucky in Arts-Photography

Description

Swing is back in style; and with it a renewed interest in the Big Band Era. And few players dominated that era more than Harry James; whose soaring trumpet solos and romantic hit tunes influenced popular music for a generation. Now; Peter J. Levinson; who knew Harry James personally; has written a revealing biography of this jazz icon; based on nearly 200 interviews with musicians and friends.Harry James led a truly colorful life; and in Trumpet Blues Levinson captures it all. Beginning with Jamess childhood in a traveling circus; we follow the young trumpeters meteoric rise in the 1930s and witness his electrifying performances with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. We see how James formed his own band in 1939; an incubator for many pop music stars of the 1940s and 50s; including Frank Sinatra; Connie Haines; Dick Haymes; Helen Forrest; and Kitty Kallen. Combined with Jamess superb musicianship; peerless trumpet technique and talented sidemen; this stellar group dominated the war years and the immediate post-war period. And James himself; especially after his marriage to film goddess Betty Grable; became one of Americas most famous personalities and lived like true Hollywood royalty. Levinson describes their twenty-two-year marriage with insight and sympathy. But he shows how Jamess marriage--and his triumphant late-1950s comeback in Nevadas casinos--were slowly undermined by his penchant for compulsive gambling; womanizing; and alcoholism. He gives us the inside story of Jamess sybaritic life style; and probes the profound psychological reasons for Jamess destructive behavior.The first biography ever written on Harry James; Trumpet Blues is a scintillating portrait of Swings brightest star--his life; his loves; and the music that defined an era.