A lively, indulgent memoir.
A musician reflects on his career and experiences from the Depression Era through the present.
Hull brings to life his years as a big band leader and musician, starting with his youth in Bridgeport, Conn., where he was encouraged by a musical mother—a bandleader who eventually retired to raise her children. Strong memories include carrying his sax on the bus in a pillowcase—the family couldn’t afford a proper case—to go hear music locally, and hopefully be called on to play. He wasn’t. Undaunted, Hull starts his own band, plays with others and goes to college. He gets married and has eight children along the way, though the marriage eventually ends in divorce after suffering through long separations due to Hull’s life on the road. He forms the Jazz Giants, who get a rare opportunity to play the 1962 Newport Jazz Festival—a high point in his career. Afterward, the band discovers the recording is of poor quality and plans for an album are scrapped. He meets famous people such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie and aspires to bigger fame. In the ’70s, he scales down to a lounge act of six people and gets into the Las Vegas scene by backing up Vic Damone with a string ensemble. Later in life, he produces cruise-ship shows. Eventually Hull’s son locates a CD from an Armed Services Radio recording of the Newport Festival via the Library of Congress. Although Hull presents a vividly described and engaging memoir, full enjoyment of the author’s adventures is somewhat hindered by the thought of his wife home alone raising eight kids. Also, he ends some chapters with alternate endings of how things might have been, then employs a “voice of conscience” to remind him to say what actually happened, which can be distracting. But Hull’s life is an interesting one, nonetheless.
A lively, indulgent memoir.Pub Date: April 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0981972787
Page Count: 290
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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