You can't steal a gift : Dizzy, Clark, Milt, and Nat / Gene Lees ; foreword by Nat Hentoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lees, Gene.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jazz musicians--United States--Biography.

Jazz musicians.

United States.

Gillespie, Dizzy, 1917-1993.

Gillespie, Dizzy.

Terry, Clark.

Hinton, Milt.

Cole, Nat King, 1919-1965.

Cole, Nat King.

United States--Race relations--History.

Race relations.

History.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xvii, 269 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2001]

Summary:

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."

Contents:

1 Sudden Immersion 1

2 Birks and His Works 37

3 You Gotta Sing 109

4 We Are Like Atlas 153

5 King Cole 203.

Notes:

Includes index.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0300089651

OCLC:

47101008