Word: jazz
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...that jazz bands and rock 'n' roll have moved into churches, how about the sky pilots slipping a few hymns into the jukeboxes...
...scene last week was The Embers in Manhattan, but it could have been anywhere along the big-time jazz belt that stretches from New York to Chicago's London House to The Sands in Las Vegas. Slowly the tide of conversation washes back through the murky rooms, slowly Jonah works his muted way through the numbers his fans want to hear-Rose Room, 76 Trombones, Too Close for Comfort, and his signature, Mack the Knife. Throughout, Jonah juggles the symbols of his success-the bagful of mutes through which he makes his trumpet whisper and wail, growl, shiver...
...Style. Jonah used to blow his horn open, and no man in the business blew it better. But Jonah's clarion trumpet call sounded too loud over the tinkle of cocktail conversation, and for most of his career he was never able to make it into the plush jazz caves where the money lies. Then in 1955 he had an offer to fill in at The Embers, reluctantly agreed to play with a mute, and quickly evolved the "good, happy style" that has brought the crowds running to him ever since...
...sometimes dangerously near burning down as Kanin writes of the antic hey-hey, but the mood is so pleasant and pervasive that the bemused reader is willing to forgive Author Kanin for taking a few choruses too many. The people are alive-the pretty French girl who collects jazz and jazzmen, the frazzlewit bass player who concocts a marijuana fudge...
...Jazz Sermon. Somehow, the shock is not shocking. The evil act. which should dominate the book, is not made really believable. The last chapters of the novel have the faintly embarrassing tone of a sermon in jazz language attempted by an overearnest cleric. The tormented murderer asks: "Why is it that if we could all learn to play together the way we did-why is it we couldn't learn to live together?" The narrator's sanctimonious reply: "Woody, if we could-even between us-answer that simple question-seemingly simple-we could turn this into...